by Nadia Egan // Mar. 21, 2025
This article is part of our feature topic Public.
DANCÆ, an evolving performance series, reimagines ballet through immersive, multidisciplinary collaborations. Their latest project, ‘Körperfabrik,’ premiered this month at Berlin’s Kant-Garagen, an industrial space that becomes integral to the work itself. Featuring choreography by Anthony Nakhle, Alvin Collantes and Ballet Sur_real, alongside an installation by AUSGANG Studio and a gallery exhibition, the performance interrogates the body’s role in systems of public control and resistance.
Blurring boundaries between dance, architecture and audience, ‘Körperfabrik’ challenges conventional staging, drawing on historical and theoretical influences while embracing the unpredictability of its setting. Ahead of opening night, I spoke with DANCÆ and Ballet Sur_real directors Renato De Leon and Soraya Schulthess about site-responsive choreography, the politics of movement and ballet’s evolving relationship with contemporary performance.
DANCÆ: ‘Körperfabrik,’ 2025, Kant-Garagen, video still // Photo by Anna Vialova
Nadia Egan: What are the main ideas behind ‘Körperfabrik’? And how do they connect to your artistic practice?
Soraya Schulthess: The idea comes from Michel Foucault’s biopolitics—that the body is, in many ways, a means of controlling people. Foucault had this idea that assembly lines, schools and prisons regulate movement and, therefore, regulate the mind. ‘Körperfabrik’ is set in Kant-Garagen, a former parking garage, also a structure that regulated movement. From the three different choreographic works to the gallery exhibition and the installation, they all reflect on that point: that the body can be controlled, but it is also a place of resistance and rebellion.
It ties into our artistic practice in that we work in a very multidisciplinary way. We don’t want to just do dance performances in the traditional sense of going to the theater and experiencing dance from far away—we want to create more immersive performance environments. We have an installation piece by AUSGANG, which extends over the audience and the performance area, creating a connection. The gallery exhibition allows the audience to partake in the exhibition experience.
DANCÆ: ‘Körperfabrik,’ 2025, Kant-Garagen, video still // Photo by Anna Vialova
NE: Kant-Garagen is an unusual space for a ballet. Do you think that affects the choreography?
SS: I think it makes you choreograph and conceptualize movement in different ways. For instance, in a theater, you would have a much, much higher ceiling, and because of that, this installation piece wouldn’t be so visible. But because it’s a low ceiling, it feels much more immersive for both the dancers and the audience. It also affects our choreography—the different lifts we can do, the movement patterns, all of this.
Renato De Leon: Our choreography is made for that because we steer away from this traditional theater experience. We do a lot of exits and entrances that come from where the audience is, breaking the fourth wall. In general, performing in galleries or industrial-looking spaces reinforces our point that ballet can be shown anywhere. It doesn’t need to be confined to a big theater or feel so distant. It can be molded into any space and placed in different situations or contexts.
NE: Do you think the non-traditional venue changes how the audience connects with the work?
SS: I think it makes a massive difference that there isn’t an orchestra pit or so much distance. You can really see the way the muscles work, the dancers sweating, the whole thing. You’re really sharing an environment with the performers. That’s something only non-theater spaces allow for.
It creates a lot of challenges for us too. Because of seating, we have to figure out different arrangements, add more floor seating and create levels otherwise people won’t be able to see. It also limits our ticket sales in many ways. For this particular production, it wouldn’t work in front of 2,000 people for instance.
DANCÆ: ‘Körperfabrik,’ 2025, Kant-Garagen, video still // Photo by Anna Vialova
NE: Can you talk about the installation a bit?
RDL: The AUSGANG installation represents this panopticon structure and how technology controls us in society. We have one artist who’s tangled up in and dances with the tentacles from the installation, representing this control.
SS: We worked with them to create different lighting cues that symbolize various moments within the piece, activating the tentacles accordingly. Each activation represents something different in each moment, tying into the narration and strengthening the overall storyline. Without it, the piece wouldn’t have the same cohesion.
RDL: It’s more than just lights—it’s an integral part of the piece. At the beginning, when Soraya walks in, a light from the tentacle above her turns on. As she walks further, it looks like she’s bringing this power or has control over the tentacles. They also light up and bring on the other dancers, really giving the effect that we’re interacting with them.
NE: Can you talk about the ways in which you convey control and surveillance in this performance?
SS: At the end of our piece, I come out bare and stripped down, which is a transformation from where I started out at the beginning of the choreography—in a very structured restrictive costume. This ending is supposed to represent the body being stripped bare and our resistance to societal pressures.
RDL: And that goes back to the beginning, right? Being naked. That’s the message—that no matter how free we think we are, we’re not actually as free as we’d like to be because of this technology. We are constantly being watched. And there are a lot of rules, even unspoken ones, that we’ve simply grown up with and learned to live by.
DANCÆ: ‘Körperfabrik,’ 2025, Kant-Garagen, video still // Photo by Anna Vialova
NE: How do these themes bleed into the choreography?
SS: The piece starts out in a much more controlled and rigid way. Our movements are much more regulated, predetermined—it’s a much more structured ballet. Then, as the piece develops, it slowly starts to unravel and this more animalistic side emerges. We were trying to show that, at our core, we are all animalistic. As Renato mentioned, we grow up with certain rules, so in many ways, we sometimes mask our emotions and our inner animal.
Choreographically, that also translates into our movements becoming much wilder. We incorporated a lot of motifs from deer, snakes, birds and other animals, weaving these movement patterns into our poses and choreography.
RDL: In our collective, specifically, we’re working with electronic music. That ties into club culture and how, in club culture, you see this sense of freedom and hedonism. It’s the same idea—this letting go. We’re doing that, but in a more balletic or choreographic way.
SS: The title of our piece, ‘Topia,’ also comes from this idea of heterotopias—spaces outside of reality where different norms or rules apply. The dance floor, particularly in the club, is very much one of those spaces. Berghain, for example, is a place where these normal rules don’t apply. I think that’s why people seek out such places: to feel something different or to let go of something they can’t in their everyday lives. The piece reflects that. It starts out slow, gradually unravels, and by the end, it becomes this wild burst of energy.
DANCÆ: ‘Körperfabrik,’ 2025, Kant-Garagen, video still // Photo by Anna Vialova
NE: I wanted to ask about the accompanying exhibition, which includes artists like Ana Mendieta and Hannah Wilke, artists who challenged social norms with their bodies in their own practice. How does their work influence the ideas in your work?
SS: Around the time of the women’s liberation movement, when they were creating their art and showing the naked female body, it was still something scandalous. I think it’s interesting to tie dance into this topic because we deal with our bodies so much, and it’s all an introspection into developing a deeper relationship with our bodies. I think a lot of that also ties into nudity. One of the series we have from Mendieta is this very famous work, ‘Glass on Body Imprints’ (1972), which involves glass, and she’s pressing it up against different parts of her body. It’s an investigation of the body and its different forms, and I think that ties into our dance performances.
RDL: We also have Sven Marquardt’s photography, which, for me personally, really connects with the whole point of Ballet Sur_real, what we’re doing and how we’re dancing. It’s a connection to Berlin and its culture, because Sven is such an influential person and an incredible photographer.
DANCÆ: ‘Körperfabrik,’ 2025, Kant-Garagen, video still // Photo by Anna Vialova
NE: What do you hope the audience will take away from the performance?
SS: I think, in many ways, we’re very cut off from our bodies. A lot of our emotions, feelings, intuition, knowledge and wisdom lies in the body. I think we put a lot of value in the mind, being intelligent or well-read, but somehow the body always comes second to that. ‘Körperfabrik’ is meant to place a lot of emphasis and focus on the body, on a part of ourselves we don’t normally pay that much attention to. I think for people to see dancers moving that closely is something really interesting. I hope it makes them feel more connected to their body and inspires them to investigate their physical condition.
RDL: Particularly with Ballet Sur_real, the main message we’re trying to convey is how ballet can grow, evolve and even merge with technology and different types of music. Ballet is a very old, very traditional art form but we’re using electronic music. We’re trying to evolve it by pushing it in a more unconventional direction. Ballet is, for lack of a better word, a lot cooler than it may seem. I also think it’s important for us as dancers to grow with the times, merging with different artists and technologies to stay relevant to what people can connect to.
