Repertoire

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.

C A N D Y

The Nutcracker (the ballet) is already sold out? Offer your family the inexpensive alternative! We have Tchaikovsky in a can, and a frozen pizza (with hidden sugar) is dancing instead of the Sugar Plum Fairy. In the Queen's cooking show, you learn how to open bags of sour gum or unwrap candy bars. If only there weren't the mice, they eat everything! Soon we'll get to the point that the king himself has to go to the kiosk...
Based on E.T.A. Hoffmann's fairytale within a fairytale (which tells how the Nutcracker became the Nutcracker), we are taking a look at the role sugar plays in all of our lives, how it shapes our society, how it is currently produced and how it used to be produced as well as how it reflects class relations.

Dance Loves Music Loves Dance

Five members of the Thikwa ensemble each choreograph a piece for an external guest dance along the text line of a well-known song. And then? The quiz show begins! Fueled by the music of DJ Grace Kelly and charmingly accompanied by moderators, the audience has to vote to decide on the right music for the movement of the dance pieces. DANCE LOVES MUSIC LOVES DANCE is an excursion to the mainstream and, at the same time, a change of perspective and an interaction on multiple levels. It is about ever new encounters between the artists and the audience and the boundless desire to play. An evening in a community that is looking for the things that make it happy. With music and dance.

Das Beuys

100 years Joseph Beuys: What would be when he would have been a woman? Or without a gender? Women’s voices, men’s voices. Women’s art? Men’s art? Or art and a snail voice? How many pockets Beuys's vest had? What's in Joseph's pocket? Memories, secrets, and clues of provocation? Or conversation/communication for heating each other?

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.

Don Quixote

As part of the model project "Konzert für alle" ("Concert for everyone"), Thikwa meets the Rundfunksinfonieorchester Berlin. In Richard Strauss' "fantastic variations on a theme of knightly character", the Thikwa performers act in front of, behind and with the orchestra. With large dance scenes, we swirl the adventures of the knight into a sad figure and ask about the boundaries between madness and reason. A fantastic ride through the worlds of a system buster.

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.

Extremities

This dance performance illustrates the development of the human body from a single cell through to its ultimate form and focuses on the body in its physicality, complete with all of its strengths and weaknesses. No body is perfect. There is no absolute symmetry, no objective standard. All the same, human beings strive for precisely this; society wants perfection and optimization instead of accepting differences. Extremities is declaration of war using the tools of dance against conformity and superficial ideals that is as visually stunning as it is intimate.

face to face – Gegensätze

Five times two performers, each group performing for 15 minutes – it all adds up to a very colourful evening. Crisply brief and full of surprises. This is how the Thikwa series face to face works. The theme for this first round of encounters is “contrasts”. An open-air theatre series in the courtyard of the Bockbrauerei located at Fidicinstraße 3. Please note the information on ticket sales and safety regulations.

face to face – Resonanzen

After the successful start last season, face to face is entering its second round! The principle is based on one to one encounters without the involvement of a director - these are short performance sketches and each scene is about 15 minutes long. Five performances with two performers each, one of them a member of the Thikwa ensemble and the other external, who come together and present their joint consideration of the topic of resonances. Thrown together quickly and stitched together, this is a very diverse evening of work.

GRUSEL

Hausgemacht – Back to the 90s

In our new series HAUSGEMACHT (homemade), everything is self made: the topic, the casting, the direction - people from the Thikwa ensemble are responsible for everything that makes up an evening theater from the initial idea all the way to the premiere.

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!

Invent Me – Club Thikwa

In our first play "Invent Me", Club Thikwa researches artificial intelligence: How does AI shift our understanding of reality and realism? What truth will humans identify with in the future and what will still make us seem human then?The boundary between human and machine is becoming increasingly blurred: AI makes us fall in love, frightens us, makes us rebellious, dependent, lonely and fascinates us at the same time. In "Invent Me" we play with this ambivalence.Performers aged between 8 and 80, with and without disabilities and with different stage experiences, have formed the new Club Thikwa ensemble since February 2023.

KLINGSAU

What can give us hope in a time that seems bereft of all hope? What can still save this country? In KLINGSAU, an immersive 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.

LEAP … into the Unknown

Is a plate really just a plate? A dinner party dreams of the leap that makes the impossible possible. The dinner runs into difficulties, the plates really aren’t just plates, but instead a landscape of objects that constantly change and must always be reinterpreted. In their movement, the objects and performers come together to create fantastic images. Let´s jump! Like in a completely new type of circus. But be careful - the objects are fragile and dangerous! Without paying careful attention, everything can end up broken. There is a lot at stake: the shared dream of flying, the dream of daring a new world together - it’s nothing less than that. LEAP ... into the Unknown is just that, the leap into the unknown that is necessary for daring to try to something new.

Merkel

In a performance somewhere between a realpolitik press conference and a private exercise of power, they encounter the first female German Chancellor as a representative of her ideals, desires and decisions. None of the performers voted for Angela Merkel.

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.

My brother’s many voices

Brother and sister organize a voice casting. Due to a genetic defect, the brother's voice will soon fail. So, together they look for a voice with which he can continue to speak. Or rather: many voices! One for every life situation.What if you could have more than one voice? And what would it do to the siblings if his sister wrote about it? In a mixture of show, puppet and radio play, Schauspielhaus Wien asks, not least, who represents whom.

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.

NO LIMITS 2024

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!

Pure Improv – THIKWA meets GORILLAS

The Thikwa performers continue to learn and put out feelers to explore acting, dance and music in their full range. In 2021, they met the GORILLAS, one of the most successful improv groups in Germany. A joint workshop week gave rise to the desire to continue improvising together and also to share the stage from time to time. Finally, the time has come and we present "Impro Pur", an evening of encounter. Immediate. Surprising. Lively. And always unique.

ReTold – Nach:Erzählt 2022

How about winning and losing? And with the things in life in general? Theater Thikwa interviewed Berlin athletes from the Special Olympics. Their stories were the source of inspiration for a colorful mix of scenes. A fast-paced mix of short performances and dance acts can be seen several times a day in front of the Thikwa containers located at the Rathauspassagen – topped by fat beatbox music.

ReTold – Nach:Erzählt

ReTold – Nach:Erzählt (Short Performances)

Schrumpf! Undressed

Schweigen Impossible

How is it possible to reach an understanding when one person blusters and swaggers, the other person can hardly intervene in a comprehensible manner, a third person claims to understand everything, a fourth person rushes in to help using sign language and a fifth person translates everything into dance? A hopeless mishmash of languages like the Tower of Babel? A hilariously funny look at trying out all the options of (mis)understanding? Or a conciliatory coming together of different techniques of reaching an understanding? Factual, post-factual or as fake news – Thikwa sets off into perceived realities. An encounter of translators, interpreters and know-it-alls with people who speak using body language and sounds.

SISTERHOOD / BROTHERHOOD

So why – Suchen nach Siegfried

How does it work with sword and blood, with heroism and murder, with love and betrayal when you are young, blonde and courageous, but also really stupid? Siegfried - a fearless superzero, so-to-speak. But a very sweet one. What is a hero? More than a stunt? Or is it all just Tarzan? The beautiful Siggi is someone that others control through her greed. Profit-oriented, a perfect capitalist. And let’s swap out genteel with “friendly enemy”. We are searching for Siegfried. We are remastering Wagner music with new texts and samples. We are asking whether murder has to be part of the principle of masculinity. And what is it like if you first notice far to late, or not at all, that you’re being used? If you end up being stuck in a black hole that you can never get out of? A piece from a time where you are black-and-white.

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?

Tanzabend 5 – Glück

Fast and furious, breathtaking, intense. But also painful and filled with love - in dialogue with other people. You burn and ask yourself at some point: and now?

The Capsule

The capsule is a song
The capsule is a tent
The capsule is a human being
The capsule is a nuisance
The capsule reveals nothing
The capsule is a means of transportation
The capsule likes to travel alone
The capsule is a bearer of secrets
The capsule embraces me without feeling
In delirium, time flies by, empty on a train,
finally a compartment of my own

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.

TROTZ DEM HÖLDERLIN!

Who was Hölderlin? An underappreciated poet who described the world from his small tower room?

Umtausch ausgeschlossen

A package is delivered. The contents: body parts that definitely go together, but that don’t function as a whole. A figure of human size stands at the center of the performance. If it is guided, it achieves a personality. If it is studied, an alienation occurs that leads to new abilities. As an object, it provides a metaphorical project surface that invites the viewer to impartial investigation. This can be disturbing, it can lead to unusual situations that cross borders, but also bring new, changeable options into the game. Can we use defects as inspiration for unconventional solutions? Can we bypass defects through cooperations and develop unusual living and coping strategies? A performative encounter of objects and performers with unspoken agreements, cascades of words, the shifting of boundaries and unique rescue maneuvers, accompanied by living jazz singing.

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.

Vertigo

It really isn’t easy being in a body that say “yes”, but also “maybe” at the same time. Vertigo means dizziness - the uncertain ground you end up stumbling all over when you try to relate to others. In Vertigo, people who are purported to be autistic describe themselves and their options for expression. An examination of inner spaces and their periphery with a rap in between, with dance and beat boxing or a manga superhero. The myth of autism: while YOU stare at what is wrong with us, we look to see what is different about THEM. A seriously relaxed breakbeat oratorio of existence.

VIPs only!

Eight performers research the sustainability of idols and role models and give us an individual insight into their respective desires and dreamscapes. During the search for very important people, as well as very unimportant people, the idols are outed, updated, ripped apart and let loose against each other. They confront each other and the audience humorously and mercilessly with the utopia of an optimal human being and thus reveal the highly controversial ideas of the ideals and desires for societal acceptance. And, in the background, perhaps the avatars of Elton John, Lady Di, Bud Spencer,  PJ Harvey, Michael Schumacher, Otto Waalkes, Angela Merkel, Rune Jarstein or Udo Jürgens might pop up as well.

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

Zugabe

Applause is the daily bread of the artist who lives on fame and the love of the audience. But what happens when this love is bought? When the audience prostitutes itself? Doesn’t that make the work of the performers (or johns) meaningless? In the end, is it a win-win situation or the end of the free expression of opinion? As long as the barter makes sense for both sides, there is no loser. More is more.The performance collective Monster Truck sets out together with the Thikwa performer Addas Ahmad to examine applause, the manipulation of opinions and the infamous 15 minutes of fame. Again and again and again.