MOUVOIR / Stephanie Thiersch, Monthati Masebe & Kathrin Röggla , ANGELS OF ANARCHY

Centimetre by centimetre,
the boundary is being pushed back.

What happens when fear no longer sets the rhythm? Seven performers encounter a present in which spaces are occupied, truths are distorted and relationships are increasingly organised through control. Be it minor skirmishes at the garden fence or grand gestures of appropriation.
Representatives of the house dance scene and contemporary dance bring movement, spoken word and live music into resonance. The foundation is formed by the interplay of voices as well as house music – developed within the Black and queer communities of Chicago and New York as a practice in which community is not taken for granted, but is constantly being recreated. Writer Kathrin Röggla’s texts, which offer a diagnosis of our times and explore suburban gardens and racism, meet electronic soundscapes, vocal techniques and the musical archives of the South African composer Monthati Masebe.

Monthati Masebe is a South African composer and performer who views sound as a form of ‘ancestral technology‘. Masebe’s work oscillates between Afro-classical and Afro-electronic: one moment, traditional South African instruments meet a string ensemble; the next, they dissolve into live electronics and looped throat vocals. Masebe is not interested in drawing boundaries between classical and traditional music, or between acoustic and electronic sounds. On stage, these boundaries largely blur. Rooted in the musical heritage of the Venda and Zulu peoples and unmistakably queer, Masebe’s music seeks out the psycho-spiritual power hidden within indigenous instruments. This approach shapes Masebe’s entire work – from the opera Isithunzi (premiered at the Munich Biennale 2026 and the Staatstheater Wiesbaden) to Masebe’s subtly crafted works for film, collaborations in dance and work with archives.

German director and choreographer Stephanie Thiersch creates stage productions, films and installations in an international context with her company MOUVOIR. Her cross-genre, transcultural works explore forms of community-building between different bodies, cultural experiences, artistic practices and forms of knowledge. In collaboration with other artists, she has created Bilderschlachten (most recently at the Holland Festival), Archipel (Theater der Welt/Ruhrtriennale) and Hello to Emptiness (National Opera of Athens, SIDance Korea, Goethe-Institut India), as well as Until the Beginnings (Tanzplattform 2026) with the École des Sables (Senegal) and Sunville at the Deutsche Oper Berlin (2026). Among other honours, she has received the German Dance Film Award and was nominated for the Tabori and FAUST Prizes. Thiersch understands collaboration as exchange, friction and mutual transformation. She is interested in the transitions and overlaps between different perspectives, without dissolving them into a single entity. At the heart of her work are questions of belonging and memory, as well as the possibility of exploring new forms of coexistence through physical practice.

Kathrin Röggla is a writer and works as an author of prose, theatre and radio plays. In her works, which have been performed internationally, she combines social observation with a polyphonic, fragmentary language. She explores forms of speech, collective perceptions and social crises, and reveals how reality is constructed through language. Her work spans literature, theatre, radio, film and installation. Her best-known writings include wir schlafen nicht, die alarmbereiten, Nachtsendung: Unheimliche Geschichten, Bauernkriegspanorama and Laufendes Verfahren, as well as the plays worst case, Die Beteiligten and draußen tobt die dunkelziffer. Her work has been staged at events including the Berliner Theatertreffen and the Mülheimer Theatertage. She has received numerous awards, including the Nestroy Theatre Prize, the Austrian Art Prize for Literature, the Else Lasker-Schüler Prize and, in 2023, the Heinrich Böll Prize from the City of Cologne. She is a member of the Akademie der Künste and a professor of creative writing, as well as the designated rector of the Kunsthochschule für Medien.

Duration: approx. 70 min.
In german, english, french Languange (thc) with surtitles.
Age recommendation: 14 and over
Content Note: loud music; Some of the texts used deal with violence against women and minorities.