A focus topic of studiobühneköln
guest at Temporary Gallery
with the guest performance DER SOLDAT by Julian Warner
(invited to the IMPULSE Festival for Performance, Theatre & Dance 2026)
and contributions by boy:band, Nicola Schubert, Constantin Leonhard, and fast verwegen
Schedule:
27 March
8 pm – COLOGNE PREMIERE: DER SOLDAT
28 March
2 pm – POSITIONS
8 pm – DER SOLDAT
DER SOLDAT
A Rite of Passage
a co-production by Studio Julian Warner, Kaserne Basel, Donaufestival Krems, Belluard Bollwerk, Burg Hülshoff – Center for Literature (CFL), Theater Rampe, Münchner Kammerspiele, and studiobühneköln
A Black artist realizes that he has become a soldier. As an art worker, he steps onto the stage. In the struggle for representation and resources, he is given a weapon and learns that in art, too, the following applies: the liberation of the occupied is at the same time the terror of the occupiers. But is culture war actually war?
Few have written as lucidly about violence in a fragmented world as Frantz Omar Fanon. A psychiatrist and Marxist from Martinique, he was convinced that the dehumanization wrought by European colonialism could not be overcome through negotiation and compromise, but only through its destruction. Fanon’s justification of anti-colonial violence was received by left-wing movements worldwide, from the Black Panther Party to the RAF, and remains controversial to this day. When and in what context is it necessary to organize violence or resistance against it?
On stage, the Black artist relives his transformation into a soldier. Through the interplay of language and the physical force of percussion, he examines the historical situation and searches for his relationship to violence.
DER SOLDAT. A Rite of Passage consists of two parts. Part One is a 50-minute musical performance. Part Two is a 60-minute post-show discussion in a fishbowl format, in which the audience, guided by two group analysts, collectively works through what they have experienced.
Julian Warner is a German-British artist and curator. From 2023 to 2025, he was artistic director of the Brechtfestival Augsburg, and in 2022 he was responsible for the festival of the KulturRegion Stuttgart. Before that, he developed festivals and spectacles for Künstlerhaus Mousonturm, Münchner Kammerspiele, and many others. He has long-standing working relationships with conceptual artist Anta Helena Recke, choreographer Joana Tischkau, and musician Markus Acher. He is the editor of the anthology on problems of postcolonial critique in Germany, After Europe. Beiträge zur dekolonialen Kritik (Verbrecher Verlag, 2021), and since 2018 has been training as a group analyst at the Seminar for Group Analysis Zurich (SGAZ). In summer 2025, he accepted a professorship at the Stuttgart University of Music and Performing Arts (HMDK).
POSITIONS
with contributions by:
boy:band, Nicola Schubert, Constantin Leonhard, and fast verwegen
2–4 pm | CRYPTOBIOSIS
a workshop with Constantin Leonhard
Within the workshop Cryptobiosis, we search for a productive branching-out between art and science. How can we establish interdisciplinary communication through movement and text? Is there such a thing as a microbiological theatre or a theatrical microbiology? With the help of a microscope, which we project on a large scale, we encounter microbes in a drop of water and, if the opportunity arises, anhydrobiosis-capable tardigrades. Through writing exercises and simple movement improvisations, short scenic arrangements emerge around topics such as the co-evolution of humans and microbes or ecological questions reflected in the microcosm.
Registration by email to: cryptobiosis@constantin-leonhard.de
4–5 pm | FLUID
by fast verwegen
For their production FLUID, fast verwegen explored multi-gender societies around the world. In an installation, they take us on a trip beyond binarity and patriarchy.
6:30–8 pm | FLUID
by fast verwegen // TO #ALLMEN REVISITED by Nicola Schubert and Clara Kulmeyer
Installations
FREE ADMISSION
Credits
DER SOLDAT:
Concept, performance, and music: Julian Warner
Dramaturgy: Veronika Maurer
Music and live drums: Markus Acher
Voice: Veronica Burnuthian
Lighting and technical direction: Dennis Dita Kopp
Artistic production management: Sabine Klötzer
Translations: Veronica Burnuthian, Anna McCarthy
Group analysts: Sonja Brachthäuser, Michael Niebler
Photos:
1 – Julian Warner, Foto: Julie Folly
3 – Cryptobiosis © Ingo Solms
4 – to#allmen © Ingo Solms
