The artsy octopus is on its way
While preparing our very first season at Gessnerallee, we asked ourselves what things would look like if we’d simply dismantle the entire existing theatre system.
We sought out cultural workers representing the up and coming generations and discussed with them alternative scenarios. Scenarios in which theatres would actually reflect the demographic diversity of cities by resisting and disrupting the status quo, which inherently embodies and prioritizes white dominant culture. In these conversations, we envisioned a theatre scene that is not plagued by power structures, exploitation and a narrow understanding of art. In fact, we were hoping for a halt, a standstill causing a rippling effect which would tackle and end the industry’s compulsion to "grow" and the debilitating professionalisation taking place. We were actively wishing to hold space, at last, for sincere responsibility, wholeness, spontaneity and true love.
Then, the pandemic-related lockdown occurred which nixed it all. Now, these exceptional circumstances are explicitly demanding an urgent change of direction – one, as it turns out, we had envisioned all along. Stasis is followed by motion.
Like many others, we are carefully navigating new and uncertain territory. How do we act in solidarity while remaining autonomous? How can we individually carry responsibility yet be a collective without hierarchy? How can we live in community when physical distance is required? The times we live in appear to be increasingly untenable and even the most basic aspects of our daily lives have revealed themselves as nothing more than alleged safeties. What seems, at first glance, to be contradictory can also be observed on a scale. Despite distance we remain close: online, masked, through diasporas and shared history. We are collectively chipping away at the procedures and structures in place. The collective can be organized like an octopus – an invertebrate organism with three hearts, eight arms and remarkable learning abilities. The lack of rigid bones gifts the octopus with a striking flexibility – one that we so urgently need today.
In our first season and beyond we are working with a heterogeneous group of artists and accomplices, whose individual personalities interest us, as much as the themes that they tackle. During the opening weekend of the first cycle – every season consists of five cycles lasting five and a half weeks each – we won’t be hosting a 15-part festival program but instead a process-oriented gathering of sorts. We plan to do so by introducing the artists and cultural workers and sharing with you their respective artistic practices.
Just like that, Gessnerallee itself will turn into an artsy octopus who will gently and carefully explore the city. However, Gessnerallee will remain a home for the performing arts while "performative" will be experienced and explored in many ways: in drama and dance, in concert and poetry slam, in conversing, cooking, creating and more. Each new cycle is introduced and celebrated with a long weekend. At the inaugural opening weekend, however, we will be rolling out the "sound carpet" instead of the red carpet: language, tones and music await you in the various spaces of Gessnerallee. Our aim is to practice the art of listening together with you, our cherished guests. Listening in community and hearing each other – this is how we wish to keep moving forward in the hours, days and years ahead of us.
| Thu17.9. |
Opening speeches and apéro to celebrate the season opening 2020/21.
| Thu17.9. | Open House Ticket |
Installation by Shamiran Istifan und Pashk Cenajat the toilets of Nordflügel.
| Next 2 Dates | |
| Thu17.9. | Open House Ticket |
| Sat19.9. | Open House Day |
Ding Dong Dome is a foretaste, a warm-up, a space to stop by, to chime in or out, to linger or to withdraw.
| Thu17.9. | Open House Ticket |
| Sat19.9. | Open House Night |
In a limited series of eight letters the crip-queer artists Edwin Ramirez and Nina Mühlemann (aka Criptonite) engage with the embodiment of the octopus, Gessnerallee’s new symbol.
| Next 2 Dates | |
| Thu17.9. | Open House Ticket |
| Sat19.9. | Open House Day |
In I Lost, Michelle Ettlin and Jessica Huber share the first vestiges of mutual research that they are conducting together with artists and passers-by and which they will continue further in various form(at)s for at least one year.
| Next 2 Dates | |
| Thu17.9. | Open House Ticket |
| Sat19.9. | Open House Day |
Foyer Foyer! is the collaborative creation of Gessnerallee’s outdoor lobby for the duration of the opening weekend.
| Next 2 Dates | |
| Thu17.9. | Open House Ticket |
| Sat19.9. | Open House Day |
During the nine-hour expedition, we glide through nocturnal phases of open dialogue, awkward silence, painting, music, and performance.
| Next 2 Dates | |
| Thu17.9. | Open House Ticket |
| Sat19.9. | Open House Night |
In her first HAU co-production, Dragana Bulut and her team examine the promises and paradoxes of positive psychology.
| Thu17.9. | Online-Ticket |
| Fri18.9. | Online-Ticket |
The interactive performance installation "2030 - cultural relevance" in the workshop in the inner courtyard is a time machine...
| Next 2 Dates | |
| Thu17.9. | Open House Ticket |
| Sat19.9. | Open House Day |
Their sound varies between hip hop, pop, and experimental; everything that corresponds to your feelings at the moment and offers an outlet for the relentless world out there.
| Thu17.9. | Online-Ticket |
here is musical indulgence from hip-hop-trap-wave-Afrobeat-dancehall-bass – Verycozi (Zurich) and TS KALASHNI (Illegyalz/Berne) invite you to pure ecstasy on the dance floor.
Books for kids and adults with colorful family structures and strong non white role models.
| Sat19.9. | Open House Day |
The tablet is used to travel through the periphery of the city - visiting possible locations for a future film in a strangely deserted environment, in which their trail seems to be lost in the end.
| Next 2 Dates | |
| Sat19.9. | Online-Ticket |
| Sun20.9. | Online-Ticket |
Protokolle Tilo Frey – «colonial Walk» is a performative meander through the streets of Zurich exploring the subjects of colonialism and racism.
| Next 2 Dates | |
| Sat19.9. | Online-Ticket |
| Sat26.9. | Online-Ticket |
This lecture performance is a reflection, interaction, sharing and imagination. The performance also includes stories of solidarity, exhaustion, energy, pain and drains from the diary notes of the walk.
| Sat19.9. | Open House Day |
In a series of listening sessions, we invite you to sonically get together with us to (re)imagine ways of being together.
| Sat19.9. | Open House Day |
[Yesterday We Were Still Laughing] is a comedy program about the pop culture phenomenon of stand-up comedy.
| Sat19.9. | Online-Ticket |
| Sun20.9. | Online-Ticket |
Auditive journey through the adventures that Don Jegosah and Fathoeburger experience in their search for a common voice.
| Sat19.9. | Online-Ticket |
We invite you to have dinner with us at the closing event of our Opening Weekend on Sunday Spetember 20th at 5 p.m. - our Tavola Grande. There will be food and drink and wonderful people. We are looking forward to meeting you and toasting to everything to come!
| Sun20.9. | Online-Ticket |
What forms of Togetherness do we know? What do they imply? How far is 150cm?
| Tue22.9. | Online-Ticket |
Poesie ist kein Luxus brings together three young Swiss literary activists bent on transforming silence into words, actions and poems.
| Thu24.9. | Online-TicketKombi-Ticket-Bus |
Lucie Tuma & Co uses the bell as the springboard for a journey to Ding Dong. Not a country, not a place, but rather something temporal in which spaces are stretched and squeezed.
| Next 2 Dates | |
| Fri25.9. | Online-Ticket |
| Sat26.9. | Online-Ticket |
The cross-institutional opening festival Fleshy Interface combines performance, workshops and discourse on the themes of physicality and touch.
| Sun27.9. | Online-Ticket |
As part of the recurring series Vordergründe, Ceylan Öztrük talks to a guest about her upcoming work Orient Mix, which will premiere on December 8 at Gessnerallee.
| Tue29.9. | Online-Ticket |
On chosen dates you have the possiblity to attend an event as a intergenerational tandem. If you and your companion have 30 or more years age difference between you, you are eligable to register as intergenerational tandem.
| Tue29.9. |
A kind of security conference about the goodness of Switzerland with an insecure outcome.
| Fri2.10. | Online-Ticket |
Mami Wata is a goddess of water, a figure from the depths of night, of power and sexuality.
| Sat3.10. | Online-TicketKombi-Ticket |
| Sun4.10. | Online-Ticket |
Nina Mühlemann and Edwin Ramirez present the first episode of Criptonite, a new crip-queer series of events that focuses on artists with disabilities and creates an accessible, relaxed, and fantastic utopia.
| Sat3.10. | Online-Ticket |
Clubnight with Somatic Rituals und Chienne De Garde.
All courageous persons are welcome to the workshop. Together we want to make “books” out of the most various materials and with all of our stories.
| Sun4.10. | Online-Ticket |