In the organizer's words:

Everything on stage finds its form in verbal or dance dialogs with absent partners - nonsense, nothing, everything, art, love, work or thought. The actor present on stage plays the transition zones as a kind of mediator for the audience. Before the appearance - or disappearance - lies an artistic process - an interpersonal space of possibility that is not (yet) subject to judgment; a poetic practice that is able to provide orientation in the uncertain transition zones of intellectual as well as artistic activities. This is how Hannah Arendt outlines it in the third part of her last book "On the Life of the Mind", which remains a fragment.

As a starting point for Thomas Lehmen's new solo, one could add 'dancing without a floor' to this 'thinking without a railing'. An examination of dance techniques and their conceptual relationships to gravity, efficiency or articulation forms the starting point for this work, which explores the infinite possibilities of artistic transitions in order to be able to appear as an actor. With or without the protection of others, the struggle for freedom is a struggle for one's own thinking and one's own art.

About Thomas Lehmen
Born in Oberhausen, Thomas Lehmen is a freelance choreographer, dancer and teacher.From 1986 to 1990 he studied at the School for New Dance Development in Amsterdam, where he studied with Pauline de Groot, Steve Paxton, Ishmael Houston Jones, Mark Tompkins, Z 'ev and others.

From 1990 to July 2010 he lived in Berlin. Here he developed numerous solos, group pieces and projects, including "distanzlos", "mono subjects", "Schreibstück", "Funktionen", "It's better to...", "Lehmen lernt", which have been performed worldwide.He teaches workshops in various formats at universities and independent studios on a national and international level.

In addition to guest professorships in Giessen, Hamburg and Berlin, he held a professorship at Arizona State University in 2010 and 2011 and subsequently produced further works, including "Schrottplatz" and "Bitte...". From 2013 to 2017, he toured three continents on his motorcycle with the project "A Piece for You". He has been working in Oberhausen again since 2017 and has been the director of Kunsthaus Mitte in Oberhausen and Tanz-Arbeit Oberhausen since 2019.

The publications "Schreibstück" (book and score for 3 groups each in canon form) and "Funktionen-Toolbox" (communicative choreographies aimed at emergent results) attracted sustained international attention and evoked numerous variations.

Recurring interests include the development of artistic formats and structures, communications and people reflecting on their environment and shaping it through creative relationships. The approaches feature conceptual methods and forms of representation that include linguistic elements. Stylistically, the intellectual level and insistent consistency are often paired with accessibility and humor. In the physical dance component, he works with individual articulations, relationships between the dancers and dance dialogs, among other things. His technical dance work takes into account European, North American and Asian principles. He has studied classical ballet, contact improvisation, expressive dance, post-modern styles, kung fu, iaido, sport and crafts.

Cast
Dance, text, choreography, stage, sounds: Thomas Lehmen
Design: Naoko Tanaka
Production: Anna Luise Binder
Dramaturgical assistance: Dr. Franz Anton Cramer
Text editing: Dr. Christina Irrgang
Technical dance accompaniment: Pauline de Groot