fem:me

Creation, Reception & Resonance

a political dance performance

NEW DATES: 12.07.2025, 8:00 pm
NEW DATES: 13.07.2025, 4:30 pm 'Woman*: A Workshop on Desire, identity and norms' with Kelly Cavalcanti & 6:00 pm performance
Premiere: 06.06.2024, 8:00 pm
More dates I: 07.06.2024, 8:00 pm with Audiodescription
More dates II: 08.06.2024, 8:00 pm with Audiodescription
More dates III: 09.06.2024, 5:00 pm Prologue ‘Between Venus and Mother - Images of Women in Art’ with Dr Susanne Rauprich & 6:00 pm Presentation

*via rausgegangen

Alte Feuerwache, Halle

Melchiorstraße 3 | 50670 Köln
#DIPHTHONG PRODUCTION

Woman*: A workshop on desire, identity and norms

When we speak about women*, we must consider a variety of perspectives: biological, social, cultural, gender identity and intersectionality. What does it mean to be a woman*? There is no simple or universally valid answer.

When and where were you born? What was life like for a woman* at that time? How were you raised? How do you define yourself today? What aspects shape your identity? What do you want as a woman*? And so on.

A short story…

Laurie Penny (cis, white, English, feminist) is sitting in a lecture hall at a German university, about to speak on gender and desire, when a student approaches her and asks: “What do I want?”

Laurie Penny, unsure if she had understood the question correctly, asks her to repeat it… “My question is: What do I really want?”

The student says: “They talk about what women* want and what they’re told they should want – as if there’s a difference… But how do I know I really want what I want? And what should I want?”

This workshop invites everyone to shift their perspective away from so-called normality and encourages critical reflection.

Speaker: Kelly Cavalcanti

Location: Alte Feuerwache
Duration: 60 minutes
Free with ticket for the evening performance

about the performance

Are you a “perfectly healthy woman, a mother with a thousand eyes, a thousand hands”?

What the young bride Pucki aspired to in 1935 would today be labelled multitasking and self-optimisation. Between overwhelm and devotion, women have long been masters of navigating contradictory expectations. On the one hand, she is expected to juggle family, career and household all at once. On the other hand, women were once denied access to universities on the grounds that their brains couldn’t handle multiple tasks at the same time (“Sex in Education”, 1873).

How do these ideas about “the nature of woman” fit together? Where do the images we associate with femininity and women’s lives come from?

In the dance performance fem:me, the artist collective DIPHTHONG explores dominant female images of the 1950s and contrasts them with real, lived female experience. Taking the audience on a journey through time and literary references, the performance reflects on the creation, reception and resonance of gender roles.

PRODUCTION

fem:me is a production by DIPHTHONG.art e.V.,

supported by the Cultural Office of the City of Cologne, the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, the NRW Landesbüro Freie Darstellende Künste – Focus Ukrainian Artists II, and the RheinEnergieStiftung Kultur.

In cooperation with ArtAsyl e.V.’s Studio Audience, the project initiates a sustainable approach to audience development.

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