Der Test
by Hannah Linda Theodora Rumstedt, MA Angewandte Theaterwissenschaften, JLU Gießen
With: Simon Bambach und Philipp Wagner

“There’s no shooting, just testing,” the text states. Building on a production developed for Vision31 at the Kulturcampus Bockenheim, this piece presents an experiment in circular dramaturgy. The performance breaks down the relationship between action and reaction and creates a sense of pull through the perspective of a first-person shooter. But the question remains: who is actually acting here?

Hannah Rumstedt is a writer, director, and performer whose work weaves together film, theatre, and visual art. She is particularly interested in the imaginative force as a tool of resistance, and in the productive contradictions between collectivity and individuality.

Manchmal diese Unmöglichkeit
by Denise Lim, MA Choreography and Performance, JLU Gießen
With: Simon Gilmer, Milan Eckart, Jiyoung Yoo, Freddi Schnellinger, Oksana Pawelko

In Febuary 2026, a friend and artist Simon Gilmer invited Denise Lim to collaborate on a performance as part of his exhibition “Manchmal diese Möglichkeit.” It took place at Zollamt Galerie in Offenbach, in a building set to be demolished within the next few months. While Denise’s background is in dance and choreography, Simon’s practice operates at the intersection of sculpture, photography, and scenographic space. He showed four photographic works. One in each of the 4 showrooms. All works showed an alternative state of the room they were hanging in. They collaborated on one of the rooms. Inspired by “Wind”, a video work from 1968 by Joan Jonas, Denise proposed a choreographic event with a group of five performers and a wind machine, to give a sense of movement in the image.
Every image they captured generated an excess, a leakage. Objects, people, dances spilling out of the frame. This is a necessary consequence, but an often overlooked one. If the first image were perfect, what would necessitate the next? And the one after that? And the five hundred and ninety-seven ones after that one? Thus, they were searching for something that they could not yet recognize. In “Manchmal diese Unmöglichkeit”, they work with this excess. They revisit these images to reconstruct a memory anew.

Denise Lim is a dancer and choreographer, working across theatre, film, and site-specific contexts. Her collaborative practice explores the body’s encounter with objects and environments - how it shapes and is shaped, invites and resists proximity, pleasure, and the gaze. Through improvisation and score-based methods, she cultivates heightened states of presence and experimental modes of witnessing. Denise graduated with BFA in Dance and Choreography from the Danish National School of Performing Arts in Copenhagen in 2020 and is currently doing her Masters in Choreography and Performance at Justus Liebig University in Gießen. She was a recipient of the Impulstanz Danceweb scholarship in 2019 and Atlas program in 2025.

On Fantasy, Residue and (soft?) Lies
by Azahara Sanz Jara, MA Choreography and Performance, JLU Gießen

“On Fantasy, Residue and (soft?) Lies” names the work in its present form. It composes distinct choreographic languages, from institutionalized dance forms and Spanish folkloric practices to image-based, experiential material. Rooted in the artist’s dance background and shaped by an interest in mythology and that which can be sensed but not explicitly pointed, these elements form a plurichoreographic space where difference remains visible, negotiating presence without erasure.

Azahara Sanz Jara, born in Spain and based in Salzburg, studied dance at SEAD (Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance) and at the Real Conservatorio Profesional de Danza Mariemma in Madrid. She works as a performance artist, freelance dancer, and choreographer with various national and international institutions and companies.