In 2024, the first edition of the program took place with the theme Strange New World, referring to Aldous Huxley's famous book, which captures the bizarre and turbulent times we are all currently experiencing.

Participants 2024:

Hannes Köpke comes from Hanover and lives in Leipzig. Together with others, he founded the interdisciplinary theater collective fachbetrieb rita grechen in 2018, with which he develops most of his projects. His major works include Was ist mehr zu viel als alles, Viecher, Hält uns wach, and Vertigo Years. In collaboration with FEELINGS (Berlin), he also created the educational theater film projects Schlittski 13 and Salon. Hannes Köpke also writes. Together with Laura Immler, he wrote the play Hält uns wach, which won the naxos studio award in 2019. With Urs Humpenöder, he wrote, among other things, the love novel Esra und Heit for the Kunsthalle Baden-Baden and the work Self Care Strandbefehl about the seaside resort of Prora, which premiered as a fachbetrieb rita grechen project at the Festspielhaus Hellerau in 2024.

Urs Cornelius Humpenöder lives and works in Leipzig. He studied cultural, literary, art, and media studies and journalism in Dortmund, Hildesheim, Konstanz, and Leipzig. After internships in the feature sections of the Basler Zeitung and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, he wrote for Südwest Presse and Deutsche Presse-Agentur, among others. As an author in the independent theater scene, he is particularly interested in processes of collaborative writing, cultures of remembrance, digital culture, and big emotions. In 2022, he wrote the text for the dance theater piece Un Amor oder Die Erfindung meiner Mutter for dancer and choreographer Eva Borrmann. The work was invited to the Bayrische Theatertage 2024 festival. He also frequently writes together with Hannes Köpke. This resulted, among other things, in the story of a road trip on the German autobahn, Esra und Heit (2022), for the exhibition Symposium Raststätte (Kunsthalle Baden-Baden), and the play Self Care Strandbefehl (2024), which he and Hannes exhibited at the Festspielhaus Hellererau - European Center for the Arts in Dresden.