ON TOUR

Baby Bumps

Who wants to have a baby and should not? And who doesn't want to have babies, but should? In an entertaining birth preparation course, performers of Theater Thikwa and the feminist collective hannsjana negotiate the big political questions that are addressed to their bellies every day. For example, what goes in: beer, cake, or children – and what is allowed to come out. In a humorous stage show, the performers in "Bauchgefühl" take responsibility for themselves and others, develop new forms of reproduction, parenthood and care – or consciously decide against sharing their bodies and attention with anyone.

Brutale Dolce

A dance on a fine line between light and darkness. We move into the darkness and face beauty, brutality, impermanence and provocation. Where is beauty hidden in cruelty and brutality in sweetness? - Brutal dolce, basically.The early Baroque painter Caravaggio lies at the heart of this play. His use of strong contrasts of light and shadow as well as extremes in his private life made him a notorious figure in art history. His art was provocative and challenged common ideals of beauty. He was a punk of his time who turned “sinners” into saints.

BUMM, KRACH, BOING!

In BUMM, KRACH, BOING!, Theater Thikwa and GRIPS Theater embark on a musical and visually rich exploration of how we live together. Between not wanting to get up in the morning and not wanting to go to bed at night, what actually happens and who decides? Is someone too fidgety? Doing too much nonsense? Dancing too much out of line? With these questions in mind and a lot of noise and boing behind them, the Bumm ensemble creates a colorful kaleidoscope of places, characters and sounds. Sometimes in the big city, sometimes in the bedroom, sometimes in the llama stable. But above all, time and again, making noise together: The players discover instruments from bass to piano, from rattle banana to synthesizer. And once this band is playing, one thing is clear as day: that it “bangs and boings and crashes / And immediately puts you in a good mood!”. In this ensemble production, the diverse group approaches everyday scenarios and, by playing with humor and imagination, finds small perspectives for big challenges. And, of course, lots of nonsense.

Crazy X Oppenheimer

The first collaboration between the performers of Theater Thikwa and the puppet artists of Helmi Puppentheater is a dreamlike attempt to get to the bottom of humanity’s great mysteries and horrors. How fragile is the human being in the face of the forces it has unleashed? Los Alamos in Kreuzberg! Rebuilding and reenacting: Oppenheimer’s village, a community of inventors and geniuses who think and live outside the box. Surrounded by horses and prairie. Crazy X Oppenheimer is composed of many voices and counter-voices, and is a riddle that might also be an answer.

Die Tüten aus der Verwaltung

The music theater combo glanz&krawall and Theater Thikwa tackle a topic directly from hell: the German administration. What experiences do people with and without disabilities have in the administrative jungle? And how can we free ourselves from the powerlessness and overwhelm of the system with the help of the lively genre of musical theater? Together with musical composer Sarah Taylor Ellis, Thikwa and glanz&krawall create a bureaucratic fantasy: against the administration, for the administration, as "Tüten," but above all as people whose lives are so much more complex and diverse than can be contained by regulations.

Escher in Motion

M.C. Escher created some of the most intellectually stimulating paintings of all time. His works deal with the depiction of perspectival impossibilities, originating in paradox, optical illusion or ambiguity. Escher shakes up certainties and supposed securities and invites us to critically examine and question social realities. Choreographer Linda Weißig traces Escher's legacy in a visually stunning dance performance. Together with sound and video designer Adi Kum, his complex visual worlds are translated into movement and sound.

GRUSEL

Heart of a Dog

INTERPLAY – THIKWA and GRIPS

A festival on inclusive work in children's and youth theater

GRIPS and THIKWA are cooperating as part of pik, the program for inclusive art practice of the German Federal Cultural Foundation. They will present their results and findings at ZusammenSpiel. Both theaters invite you to exchange ideas.

Inclusive theater productions, film screenings, augmented reality, insights into inclusive working methods, workshops, lectures and much more!

KLINGSAU

What can give us hope in a time that seems bereft of all hope? What can still save this country? In KLINGSAU, an concertante opera performance, music theater collective Hauen und Stechen and Theater Thikwa indulge in the spirit of Richard Wagner and take the promise of redemption in his late work seriously. Together with the audience, we bleed at a world out of balance and practice an escapist utopia. Winifred Wagner and surprise guests provide the entertainment. Who dares to disturb this gathering? Who is the Klingsau?

KLINGSAU is the second collaboration between the two ensembles, in which they walk the blurred line between innocence and historical oblivion, sharing grail, spear and wound. Is this already a conspiracy or mere esotericism and when do you actually become a Nazi while participating? KLINGSAU is a passionate and comical search for healing and revenge in the eerie world of Wagner, who would have wanted it no other way.

KONZERT FÜR ALLE #8 – SERGEJ PROKOFJEW: PETER AND THE WOLF

Almost everyone knows this musical fairy tale from their childhood. When Thikwa and the RSB take on the story of standing together against the wild, it probably works a little differently. For example, what if Peter was a nerd who didn't want to do anything? Isn't the story also about man's victory over nature? And anyway, the wolf is a protected species these days.
In a wild workshop with dance and musical improvisations, we question the characters and the story. And then reassemble them with a great orchestral sound. Not quite original, but still very fairytale-like.
A musical-scenic rollercoaster in two parts - with lots of surprises and hopefully a happy ending.As part of the “Concert for All” series, this is the second collaboration between Theater Thikwa and the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin.

Merman

They enjoy eating fish, are adaptable, swim quickly and with pleasure, and they are beautiful: mermen and Addas Ahmad Mohammad. "Merman" is a dance-based (self-)portrait of Thikwa dancer Addas Ahmad Mohammad. In a thoughtful and humorous evening, he and dancer and choreographer Kaveh Ghaemi use their bodies to express what words often cannot. They take us on a journey filled with fear and courage, anger and tolerance, injustice and discrimination. What masks are imposed on him, and what do his self-created masks look like? The dancers’ bodies become the means of expressing the challenges and struggles that Addas experiences, as well as the moments of silence, laughter, and love that connect him with others.

NICHT-Uncool / Der Tod

Homemade – a series showcasing the unique artistic perspectives of directors with disabilities enters its second round. This time, we’re presenting two pieces in a double feature.

play boys

I never wanted to be a woman anyway, or a man or a gender. I didn't want to be anything, even as a child, a fog.A cloud, definitely not a person. I am a tree. A tree?

We do the shopping, cook, collect red leaves, spend time together, sing, dance dances. The movements of the people in the market hall as a dance, together, protective dances, declarations of love to ourselves, to others.

PETER / DER CORA FROST AND THE THIKWA ENSEMBLE wander and dance through souls, bodies and genders - PLAY BOYS, PLAY!

Queen of Realism

I see you! I know it for sure, even when I know that I don't know.
In a world where reality is becoming increasingly difficult to grasp, we ask ourselves how much illusion humans need in order to understand the world, orient themselves, or follow their dreams. Are illusions the motor of our dreams or insidious seductions? Where does reflection begin and truth end?
Between art and science, magic and reason, we explore the moments when perception and deception collide, reality bends, and truth eludes us.
A humorous evening full of imagination, research, and personal experiences that invites us to make the invisible visible and question the visible.

Schrumpf! Undressed

SISTERHOOD / BROTHERHOOD

Slow Mo

“I don’t have time!” What lies behind this statement? Why do so many people live with the feeling that they cannot freely dispose of their own time? And what would our world look like if we had time for what truly matters? If time were distributed fairly?
The present was supposed to be more utopian. Now we want to find out how we can reclaim our lifetime. To do this, we asked people between the ages of 3 and 93 how they experience their daily lives and their time. Whether in nursing homes, in caregiving or shift work, whether as parents, patients or children, whether with or without disabilities – in the lives of our interviewees, time often does not unfold as they would wish.
With our performance, we give them a voice: On stage, a kaleidoscope of perceptions of time emerges that allows us to look deeper into the logic of time scarcity. Choreographed moments of exhaustion meet oases of care. Time thieves are sung into insignificance. Moments for eternity are conjured up to the point of breathlessness. The clocks tick sometimes loudly, sometimes softly, sometimes faster and then slower again.
We switch off our phones and pause. Just for a moment. For time. And for justice. In the end, one question remains: How do we want to deal with time in the future?

The collective Frauen und Fiktion (FuF) has been developing performances based on extensive research since 2014. In their works, they interweave stage, costumes, video and music so closely that the boundaries between reality and fiction become blurred.

Spielen oder nicht Spielen

In the film “Spielen oder nicht Spielen”, we follow Yulia Yáñez Schmidt and Lucy Wilke, two actors with disabilities, on their journey to renowned German theaters, and see how they refuse to give up despite many challenges. Afterwards, we will continue the discussion together about what is needed for an inclusive theater landscape.

Post-screening discussion with actors from the Thikwa Ensemble, moderated by Jenny Mahla.

Subway to heaven

A childhood in the broom closet… but I don’t feel any compassion for that now! Said Martin Holzapfel to Torsten Clausen. Or something like that. Is the greatest utopia a world connected by subways? Where they maybe only play Berlin songs? Or are we talking about the profession of the actor while rolling our eyes? And what is actually the difference between plastic and plastic, that is, art and artifice?

The Magical Recorder

An intrusive sound and troubled parents' ears - the recorder has a bad image. Inspired by musical instruments with miraculous powers from the old Viennese magic operas, we listen to the social charm of the recorder as an inexpensive, simple and loud democratizing instrument.

The anarchic, inclusive music and theater festival BERLIN is not SALZBURG hits the former Stasi headquarters in Lichtenberg (Campus for Democracy) from July 11-13, 2025. In front of the temples of the former GDR men's order, music acts and actors from the independent performing arts will present their reworkings of Mozart's Secret Service opera, The Magic Flute, for three days and nights.

Tod in der Tupperbox

Canteens are convenient. But flavour suffers in canteens. Why is that? Nine performers open their own canteen and invite the audience to the table! But a mysterious crime spoils the mood. The help of the guests is needed. We investigate with all our senses in small, delicious courses: What does a flavour reveal? What do we not know about our food? And what role does the gut play? In this murder mystery dinner, the food itself becomes a criminal case - bon appétit!

Und Tschüss!

Theater Thikwa and the performance collective Turbo Pascal explore fantasies of escape and staying in times of global crisis. Just leaving, emigrating, fleeing – to a place that climate change cannot affect, that will not be hit in the event of a nuclear strike, and where human dignity remains inviolable. Does such a place exist? And if so, who can go there? Performers and audience members fantasise about their own emigration stories, which may succeed or fail, and compare their legal, financial and physical possibilities. Between reality TV, green screen trips and real barriers, an interactive performance emerges about leaving – and about the question of what staying in solidarity might look like.

Undressed

Life is performance and entering the world also means entering a stage. But how much of ourselves becomes visible in public performance?In Undressed, the dancers of tanzbar_bremen dress up for the world and consciously enter the theater space as a space of possibility, as a space of staging. Only gradually do they attempt to shed the layers of representation in order to reveal what wants to shine through. What do I reveal and how much? An intimate game between role and personality.

Wir Krisendarsteller*innen

“Crisis, what crisis?” The haters rage: “They're all just crisis actors!” They mean everyone who takes to the streets to protest against right-wing agitation, cuts in the cultural sector, or climate collapse. In times of polycrisis, everything is connected. The flap of a butterfly's wings leads to the storming of the Capitol. And since alliances are known to help in times of crisis, andcompany&Co. are training for emergencies with Theater Thikwa and being trained as professional crisis actors. There is no “major disaster” that they have not already played through: from a worst-case scenario to drone attacks to climate catastrophe and the takeover of power by artificial intelligence. Or the artificial stupidity of authoritarian movements: “Crisis, what crisis?”

Wir trauern um Dominik Bender

Wir trauern um Dominik Bender. Wir sind tief bestürzt über den Tod unseres geschätzten Kollegen und Freundes, der über so viele Jahre Theater Thikwa als Regisseur, Schauspieler und Trainer begleitet hat. Bis zuletzt hat er trotz schwerer Erkrankung mit aller Kraft versucht, Produktionen zu erarbeiten, Vorstellungen zu besuchen und Trainings bei Thikwa zu halten.

Der Mitbegründer des "Theater zum westlichen Stadthirschen" arbeitete fast 20 Jahre mit Theater Thikwa als Schauspieler und Regisseur zusammen - mit skurriler Wortakrobatik und seinem Interesse an persönlichen Geschichten, kollaborierend und verbündet mit den Thikwa-Performer*innen, erfand er neue Formen des Umgangs mit Sprache und Biografie. Zahlreiche herausragende Arbeiten sind mit dem Ensemble entstanden - "Maison de Santé", "Kafka am Sprachrand", "Protokoll Pankow", "Schillers Schreibtisch", um nur einige zu nennen - und wurden auf zahlreiche renommierte Festivals nach Zürich, Berlin oder München eingeladen. Theater Thikwa ist auch dank seiner Ideen, Impulse und Arbeit so weit gekommen.

Jetzt ist Dominik nicht mehr da - er wird uns fehlen, wir werden ihn sehr vermissen, und gleichzeitig wird er unvergesslich, uns immer in Erinnerung bleiben als einfühlsamer, ehrlicher, kluger und unendlich loyaler Mensch und Künstler, der unseren Ensemblemitgliedern mit Empathie, Zuneigung, Liebe begegnete.

YA!

At the center of this immersive and interactive dance choir is the plant yarrow. Nine humans are weaving fragments of melodies received by yarrow into time-fogging moving sound fields.
Trying to step into the ever fleeting moments of yarrow´s sphere, they wonder how they can show up without destroying its elusive nature with their human bones and flesh.

YARROW - what stores, what charges
what is carried away with the wind and disappears

YARROW - the constant in the disappearance
the mirror of oneness is the multitude