Benze C. Werner with Ley Ghafouri and collaborators

Love letters, sound recordings, buttons, manifestos, flyers, fragmented identity concepts - queer-lesbian history is a remix, a catchy tune, running through generations. Inspired by the Lesbian Herstory Archives in New York, Benze C. Werner and team create a performance in which dance and concert flow into one another. In LP performers and audience meet in a soft textile landscape that invites to drift and dream away. We sing an ode to the rivers of spit you lost in the mouths of your lovers. Between autotune and intimate gestures, a spider's web of references emerges, interweaving personal and collective memories. A multi-layered past meets current longings. Between pop, performance and slumber party, a space opens up in which affect and politics are closely intertwined – each of these stories feels strangely like my own.

Benze C. Werner is a choreographer and dancer based in Cologne (GER). At the interface of dance, sound and live performance, Benze explores the affective and sensual potential of the interplay between music and movement. Their focus is on creating immersive, physically tangible situations that enable a resonance between audience and performers. 

Benzes' artistic practice combines their background in contemporary dance and ballet with queer-feminist and anti-fascist perspectives. Their graduation piece Neon Serenade, created as part of their studies at the CCD in Cologne, marks the beginning of an ongoing artistic research into the aesthetics and politics surrounding line dancing, so-called country culture and the cowboy image. The piece was invited to Now&Next at tanzhaus nrw in 2024. LP, developed with musician and producer Ley Ghafouri, marks their third collaboration and is Benze C. Werner's first coproduction with tanzhaus nrw as a choreographer.

Accompanying programme
Sat 08.11. Physical Introduction + talk afterwards
Fr 26.09. 18:00 Open Rehearsal

Relaxed Performance. In English.

Duration: approx. 1,5 hours