Community Arts Festival 2026 (EN), CONNECT – Community Arts Project, LABS & WORKSHOPS, LAYOUT EN, THE AGEING BODY – Generation + (EN), UPCOMING EVENTS
This workshop is part of our CONNECT Community Arts Festival. Click here for an overview of the entire festival program.
Ageing affects us all – throughout our entire lives. This is precisely why questions about how age(ing) affects us, how we want to move in old age, and how we shape age(ing) are both personal and social issues for artistic practice and cultural education in dance. Age(ing) is a social issue that is often charged with stereotypical ideas that reflect society’s ideal of youthfulness and performance. This is where the AGEING BODY project comes in, because the performing arts and formats of cultural education in old age offer scope for addressing the tension between social images and attributions of age, the realities of life, and self-positioning.
THE AGEING BODY is a multilayered, designoriented dance art project for and with older people. The physical and dance-based approach to the topics in a non-hierarchical and non-judgmental environment offers participants the freedom to explore, question, and experience.
DATE
Thu, 17.09.2026 | 6 – 7:30 pm
PARTICIPATION FEE
Our workshops follow a solidarity-based pricing model with a sliding scale. Within this framework, you decide for yourselves how much you’d like to and are able to pay. Those who can afford to pay more help support other participants.
Workshops (90 min): 15–30 euros
For two or more CONNECT workshops: starting at 10 euros per workshop
No one will be excluded from participating for financial reasons.
ACCESSIBILITY
We want to make the workshop as accessible as possible so that everyone can participate. Please feel free to let us know in advance via email at organisation@ehrenfeldstudios.de about any specific access requirements you may have, for example by sending us an Access Rider. We will then do our best to accommodate your access requirements as much as possible and in communication with you.
Barrier-free access. Participation with a rollator or wheelchair is possible.
Largely accessible toilet in the neighbouring building. No grab rails or height-adjustable mirror available.
Accompanying persons receive free admission.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Silke Z. is committed to exploring methods for the artistic development of contemporary dance. She and her ensemble view dance as a direct form of expression for human sensibilities and needs, and artistic production as an opportunity to reflect society and highlight perspectives on a given topic. Silke Z. has developed over 40 dance productions at home and abroad with her mixed-age team. Her work has received numerous national and international awards. Z. founded and directs the ehrenfeldstudios and the international network studiotrade.
CONNECT Community Arts Festival is funded by RheinEnergie Stiftung Kultur and Office for Cultural Affairs Cologne.
Photo: Hanna Held
Community Arts Festival 2026 (EN), CONNECT – Community Arts Project, LABS & WORKSHOPS, LAYOUT EN, MEGA - Kids & Teens (EN), UPCOMING EVENTS
This workshop is part of our CONNECT Community Arts Festival. Click here for an overview of the entire festival program.
This creative dance workshop for families invites us to explore movement and play as ways to connect and imagine together. Inspired by the idea of forming hybrid communities, we let our bodies transform into fantastic beings that emerge from our own creativity. Using simple organic materials such as sticks, fabrics and natural textures, we experiment with shapes, weights and rhythms to invent new creatures and shared worlds. Through guided proposals, children and adults discover their individual movement and then open it to communication with others—moving alone, in pairs and in groups. The workshop offers a joyful, safe and playful environment where every body can express itself freely, expand its imagination, and enjoy the pleasure of dancing together. It is an invitation to curiosity, cooperation and the shared creation of a small, temporary universe made of bodies, nature and imagination.
DATE
Fri, 18.09.2026 | 6 – 7:30 pm
PARTICIPATION FEE
Our workshops follow a solidarity-based pricing model with a sliding scale. Within this framework, you decide for yourselves how much you’d like to and are able to pay. Those who can afford to pay more help support other participants.
Workshops (90 min): 15–30 euros
For two or more CONNECT workshops: starting at 10 euros per workshop
No one will be excluded from participating for financial reasons.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Catalina Carrasco is a dancer and choreographer whose work explores movement as transformation. Her creations are sincere, physical and poetic, engaging audiences of all ages. She has performed worldwide and received several awards. With BAAL, she develops a unique body-based language that enriches young audiences and sparks curiosity.
CONNECT Community Arts Festival is funded by RheinEnergie Stiftung Kultur and Office for Cultural Affairs Cologne.
Photo: Alvaro Maldonado
Community Arts Festival 2026 (EN), CONNECT – Community Arts Project, LABS & WORKSHOPS, LAYOUT EN, UPCOMING EVENTS
This workshop is part of our CONNECT Community Arts Festival. Click here for an overview of the entire festival program.
Playful, and full of joy, Sônia invites women* of all ages to get their bodies moving.
She works with subtle, gentle, relaxed, and playful exercises for the body and space. These are built up calmly and repeated several times until you feel something happening…
Just move – as naturally as breathing, playing, or watering plants. Curiosity, desire, and trust open doors to expression, play, and vitality.
Basics of the training:
• Accept gravity and let it carry you
• Find balance – inside and out
• Explore and deepen movement qualities
• Let new things arise from your imagination
• Move, experience, and be in the here and now
No previous experience necessary—all levels welcome!
DATE
Sat, 19.09.2026 | 10:00 – 11:30 am
PARTICIPATION FEE
Our workshops follow a solidarity-based pricing model with a sliding scale. Within this framework, you decide for yourselves how much you’d like to and are able to pay. Those who can afford to pay more help support other participants.
Workshops (90 min): 15–30 euros
For two or more CONNECT workshops: starting at 10 euros per workshop
No one will be excluded from participating for financial reasons.
About Sônia Mota
Sônia Mota, born in São Paulo, Brazil, in 1948, has lived and worked in Cologne since 1989. She is primarily active in the independent dance scene in Brazil and Europe. Since 2018, she has danced for Kabawil e. V., tanzfuchs PRODUKTION, Kimchibrot Connection, MIRA by Julia Riera, ip-tanz by Ilona Pászty, and Tanzwerk VanekPreuß in Bonn, among others. In August 2024, her book Art of Presence/Presence in Art about her dance methodologies in Brazil was published.
CONNECT Community Arts Festival is funded by RheinEnergie Stiftung Kultur and Office for Cultural Affairs Cologne.
Foto: Günther Kremer
Community Arts Festival 2026 (EN), CONNECT – Community Arts Project, LABS & WORKSHOPS, LAYOUT EN, UPCOMING EVENTS
This workshop is part of our CONNECT Community Arts Festival. Click here for an overview of the entire festival program.
The workshop “Queering the Stage” examines acting and dance approaches to rehearsal and stage work from an intersectional queer-feminist perspective. Theoretical impulses from Judith Butler, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, and Donna Haraway serve as the basis for a physical, practice-oriented implementation. (No prior knowledge necessary) Through small content-related impulses, participants are encouraged to question the dance, physical, and acting portrayal of characters in relation to gender/sexuality. At the same time, rehearsal structures should also be questioned in this regard. The aim is to draw attention to patriarchal patterns that are anchored in rehearsal processes and performance and, if necessary, to break them down.
DATE
Sat, 19.09. 2026 | 12 – 1:30 pm
PARTICIPATION FEE
Our workshops follow a solidarity-based pricing model with a sliding scale. Within this framework, you decide for yourselves how much you’d like to and are able to pay. Those who can afford to pay more help support other participants.
Workshops (90 min): 15–30 euros
For two or more CONNECT workshops: starting at 10 euros per workshop
No one will be excluded from participating for financial reasons.
ACCESSIBILITY
We want to make the workshop as accessible as possible so that everyone can participate. Please feel free to let us know in advance via email at organisation@ehrenfeldstudios.de about any specific access requirements you may have, for example by sending us an Access Rider. We will then do our best to accommodate your access requirements as much as possible and in communication with you.
Barrier-free access. Participation with a rollator or wheelchair is possible.
Largely accessible toilet in the neighbouring building, No grab rails or height-adjustable mirror available.
Accompanying persons receive free admission.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Malin Assmus studied performing arts at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz. After a permanent engagement at the Theater Heilbronn, Malin began working as a freelancer in Cologne in 2020. Her career has been shaped by her own work, film and theater productions, and her collaboration with dancer Lisa Hellmich. Her work focuses on intersectional queer-feminist and human rights issues. Malin is currently pursuing a master’s degree in gender and queer studies.
CONNECT Community Arts Festival is funded by RheinEnergie Stiftung Kultur and Office for Cultural Affairs Cologne.
Photo: Stefan Henaku
Community Arts Festival 2026 (EN), CONNECT – Community Arts Project, LABS & WORKSHOPS, LAYOUT EN, THE AGEING BODY – Generation + (EN), UPCOMING EVENTS
“I can deepen my contact with myself and my fellow dancers, I can be positively curious again. I feel included, not excluded – that’s priceless. And because the world is the way it is, we as those affected need to reinforce these positive feelings again and again, recharge our batteries and enjoy them. This is possible in dance training at the ehrenfeldstudios!”
(Ulrike Borchers, Dance & Parkinson’s participant)
Under the guidance of Silke Z., we intensify our own body awareness in search of new possibilities for movement. We work playfully with individual dance expression and our own creativity.
A project by Elisabeth Habel in cooperation with ehrenfeldstudios.
For ALL with and without previous experience.
For ALL with Parkinson’s.
For relatives and interested parties.
DATE
Sat, 19.09.2026 | 2:30 – 4 pm
PARTICIPATION FEE
Our workshops follow a solidarity-based pricing model with a sliding scale. Within this framework, you decide for yourselves how much you’d like to and are able to pay. Those who can afford to pay more help support other participants.
Workshops (90 min): 15–30 euros
For two or more CONNECT workshops: starting at 10 euros per workshop
No one will be excluded from participating for financial reasons.
ACCESSIBILITY
We want to make the workshop as accessible as possible so that everyone can participate. Please feel free to let us know in advance via email at organisation@ehrenfeldstudios.de about any specific access requirements you may have, for example by sending us an Access Rider. We will then do our best to accommodate your access requirements as much as possible and in communication with you.
Barrier-free access. Participation with a rollator or wheelchair is possible.
Largely accessible toilet in the neighbouring building, No grab rails or height-adjustable mirror available.
Accompanying persons receive free admission.
CONNECT Community Arts Festival is funded by RheinEnergie Stiftung Kultur and Office for Cultural Affairs Cologne.
Foto: ehrenfeldstudios
