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 über 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 talk about women*, we need to consider different perspectives: biological, social and cultural, gender identity and intersectionality. What does it mean to be a woman*? There is no simple or universal answer.

When and where were you born? How did you live as a woman* back then? How were you brought up? How do you define yourself today? What characteristics do you carry in your identity? What do you want as a woman*? etc.

A short story…
Laurie Penny (cis, white, English, feminist) is sitting in a lecture theatre at a German university and is supposed to talk about gender and desire, when suddenly a female student comes up to her… She asks the question: ‘What do I want?’

Laurie Penny, who was not sure she had understood the question, asked the student to repeat it… My question is, ‘What do I really want?’…. The student says they are talking about what women* want and what they are told they want as if there is a difference…. How do I know that I really want what I want? And what should I want?

The workshop aims to change the perspective of so-called normality with all those present and encourage reflection.

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

about the play

Are you ‘a healthy woman, a mother with a thousand eyes and a thousand hands’?

What the young bride Pucki set herself in 1935 falls under the terms multitasking and self-optimisation today. Between excessive demands and devotion, women are masters of contradictory expectations. On the one hand, she is expected to juggle family, career and household at the same time, while on the other, she was once denied access to universities because women’s brains were not capable of handling several tasks at the same time (‘Sex in Education’, 1873)

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

In the dance performance fem:me, the artists’ collective DIPHTHONG explores the common images of women in the 1950s and juxtaposes them with a real woman’s life. Travelling back in time along literary anchor points, the performance reflects on the creation, reception and resonance of a role model.

PRODUCTION

fem:me is a production of 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, NRW Landesbüro Darstellende Künste -Focus Ukrainian Artists II & the RheinEnergieStiftung Kultur.

In co-operation with the Studio Audience of ArtAsyl e.V. a sustainable development of an audience development is initiated.

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