DOLLHOUSES - The Swimmingpool, 2023, Cologne

Review by Helen Weber at HARTIKEL: Digesting Dollhouses 

DOLLHOUSES are doll’s houses, playing fields, staged worlds in which time, space and perspective are constantly malleable and which engage public space as a variable narrative. On two evenings in May 2023, visitors were invited to visit DOLLHOUSES, this time located in the Cologne neighborhood Riehl. In a kiosk, a camper van, a circus tent, the 42nd floor of the skyscraper AXA, a "secret forest" and the river bank of the Rhine, the audience was guided through different scenes,  situations, encounters and relationships by 15 performers. They were invited to move though the staged moments in the area, following the fragmentary thread of a coherent narrative. The performance oscillated between echoes of the past and a fictional future, between closeness and distance, loneliness and limerence. In the confrontation with the events, one is on one’s own, and everyone has to decide: do I stay, do I go, do I speak, do I keep silent?

By and with Hilma Bäckström, Flora Besenbäck, Jemima Rose Dean, Leonie Falke, Rubee Fegan, Ella Fleck, Rosanna Graf, Nora Hansen, Mia Hofner, Lisa Klosterkötter, Paulina Nolte, Signe Raunkjaer Holm, Isa Schieche, Miriam Stoney, My Anh Chi Trinh, Faun Vium und Benze C. Werner. 

Photos: Jakob Engel