PHOTO: © disdance project

Der Bau

Name: Der Bau
Start: 2026-01-30T19:45+0100
End: 2026-01-31T05:00+0100
Location: Alte Wursterei

Lottery Theater kafka interaktiv jugend ki multimedial neues theater

In the organizer's words:

NOMINATED FOR THE COLOGNE THEATER PRIZE 2024

DER BAU - multimedia theater based on Franz Kafka

One woman. Her bubbles. KI. You. Interactive. Multimedia.

"I live in peace in the innermost part of my house and in the meantime the enemy is slowly
and quietly drilling his way towards me from somewhere." (Franz Kafka)

Do we have to defend ourselves? Our values? Freedom? Seal ourselves off? Control:?
A woman flees to her protective den. But is it really safe?

Explore with her your self-certainties and the harmony of social bubbles. Live.
Anonymously. With the smartphone. Ask yourself the question: Why does our need for
for security automatically leads to control - instead of trust and cooperation?
Experience a fusion of your thoughts, Kafka's text, acting, dance, AI and video.
A piece that makes your thoughts audible.

The story depicts the futile struggle to perfect a huge earthwork to protect against enemies. disdance project stages Kafka's fragment interactively and multimedia-based and takes audience participation to a new level. The text is dynamically created anew in each performance - with the help of AI-generated emotional voice models. Is that Kafka? Or my neighbor? Is this live or did algorithms predict it? Am I sure?

PRESS

Stadtrevue/ Dorothea Marcus, read full article

"... the thoughts of the audience are woven into the stage text in real time, which leads to amazing effects
... The text from 1923 comes extremely close to every member of the audience
... a great, entertaining evening of dance and theater whose questions could not be more topical."

WDR3 Mosaik/ Christoph Ohrem

"Listen to the detailed report yourself: https://youtu.be/fhqq0aFaiFU"

Kölner Stadt Anzeiger | Norbert Raffelsiefen Read full article

"Thanks to a digital interaction that is as simple as it is coherent, the audience can participate in the performer's speech during the play. It is almost impossible to tell which thoughts are being made audible. The result is a fascinating fusion of different performative means that turn the play into an entertaining theatrical experience. So explore the "Bau" and visit Cologne's new little theater gem, the Alte Wursterei. It's well worth it."

Choices | Thomas Dahl, read full article

"Scherf lives for 60 minutes in this choreography of harrowing and dystopian hallucinations. With her expressive, desperate dance, the actress takes the spoken text from Kafka's pen to new dimensions. (...) In a permanent state of alarm, the isolated inhabitant sharpens her weapons and reveals herself to be a predator on the move."

Theatermail NRW | Dietmar Zimmermann, Wednesday, read full article

"Scherf's character becomes a Cassandra who is most frightened by her own calls.(...) André Lehnert inserts the answers and comments entered by the audience into their cell phones into the text at lightning speed - with Scherf's voice, completely without breaks."

Theater Pur | Dietmar Zimmermann, Saturday, read full article

"Scherf demonstrates the development from a woman in extreme need of protection, but at times also enjoying the peace and quiet and a cocktail, to a trembling, paranoid personality who drinks alcohol at best to numb her fear.

(...) apart from the video clips and the few inserted audience comments, pure Kafka. And disdance project would not be disdance project if the group offered simple solutions and answers. As with their previous project Störfall by Christa Wolf (...), their Kafka production does not condemn."

Choices | Thomas Kölsch, Monday, read full article

"Now the Cologne duo Disdance Project, consisting of André Lehnert and Paula Scherf, has chosen this material as the starting point for a portrayal of today's worries and fears, in which filter bubbles and escapism play just as much a role as the manic desire for control and the exclusion of everything foreign."

CAST:
Director/ Video/ Sound/ Programming: André Lehnert
Choreography/ dance/ acting/ narrator: Paula Scherf
Text composition/ set design: Paula Scherf & André Lehnert
Assistance/ stage construction/ lighting assistance: Emil Lehnert, Emma Wende
Production/ Organizer: disdance project gUG

disdance project has been realizing interdisciplinary projects in the fields of dance, theater and video art in Cologne since 2003. In 2024, the video installation NACHTS after Kafka was created with the use of artificial intelligence. The production STÖRFALL was awarded the Kölner Kunstsalon Theaterpreis 2022, the production BRENNEN was nominated for the Kölner Theaterpreis 2023, as was DER BAU in 2024 2024. Together with the former Cologne artistic director Hansgünther Heyme, the theatrical video installation HERAKLES was created in 2020/21.

This content has been machine translated.