GENERALPROBE Making of: MENSCHEIT, Live-Performance im DLF im Rahmen des Kölner Kongress 2026

On the first evening of the Cologne Congress, Felizitas Stilleke and Philine Velhagen will dare to experiment: live on location in the chamber music hall of Deutschlandfunk and from there directly into the ether, they want to close gaps in the sound archive of world history together with the audience. The gaps that patriarchy has left in the world's sound archives over the millennia.
If we imagine the sound of the Stone Age, we have Hollywood films such as "In the beginning was fire" or "10,000 B.C." in our ears, which give the impression that prehistory was populated by hunting, bellowing and fighting men. Time for new recordings!

After all, where is it actually written that men hunted and women gathered in the Stone Age? Archaeological findings have long shown that everyday life, division of labor and care were often equal. And yet the sounds are missing: no hunting women, no caring Neanderthals, no joint negotiations. Historical sounds that were drowned out and swallowed up by patriarchal power.

Philine Velhagen and Felizitas Stilleke from Drama Köln ask the audience to make themselves available for precisely these new recordings, with expert advice from non-fiction prizewinner Ulli Lust, anthropologist Carel van Schaik and Gertraud Klemm, author of the pamphlet "Abschied vom Phallozän", among others.

In this one-hour live experiment, the authors, together with the audience and their team, discuss and set to music acoustic scenes from the origins of human history.