About us

waltraud900

is an international artists’ collective consisting of the choreographer and dancer Phaedra Pisimisi, the performer and director Bianca Künzel, the set designer Ria Papadopoulou and the dramaturge Dorle Trachternach. In their works, the artists address contemporary questions of identity and social affiliations from a feminist perspective. Interdisciplinary work and multilingualism have been an essential basis for the group since the beginning of their collaboration. The initial question of their work is: How did you become the person who sits across from me so naturally today, with whom I have been working together, being friends and discussing political and social issues for years? Her production DAUGHTERS OF THE FUTURE was invited to FAVORITEN 2024, the theater, dance and performance festival of the independent scene in North Rhine-Westphalia, and was awarded the Integration Prize of the City of Düsseldorf. The performance GRANDMOTHERS OF THE FUTURE continues to tour Germany and was most recently shown at the FFT Düsseldorf and at the intercultural festival “Made in Germany” at the Theater Rampe in Stuttgart. waltraud900 develops sustainable concepts that are fluid and constantly integrate new artists and perspectives into modular productions. In this way, the collective reacts to current developments and continuously makes the existing diversity of the NRW art scene visible.
From 2025, waltraud900 will receive concept funding from the City of Düsseldorf.

Artists

So far, the following artists have been working with and for waltraud900:

Jamila Al-Yousef
(singer and performer)

Javeh Asefdjah
(actress)

Olga Blank
(object player)

Penelope Caracho
(web design)

Aylin Celik
(slam poet and musician)

Javier Ferrer Machin
(dance)

Merle Forchmann
(photographer and documentary filmmaker)

Amy Frega
(musician)

Niovi Kitsiou
(sound design)

Ekkehard Merholz
(lighting design)

Nazli Saremi
(director)

Camila Scholtbach
(dance)

Juliette Serrié
(percussion)

Matin Soofipour Omam
(author, dramaturge und founding member of waltraud900)

Carina Sperk
(singer and performer)

Katrin Wiesemann
(production management)

Phaedra Pisimisi,

grew up in Los Angeles and Athens. After graduating from the Professional Dance School Despoina Gregoriadou in 2008, she worked as a performer and choreographer in various dance companies based in Athens, such as Materia Dance Company, Echodrama Dance Company, Allahoo Performing Arts Company and Pink Fluid Dance Company. In 2009 she completed her Bachelor’s degree in Pedagogy at the University of Athens. She has lived in Germany since 2011 and has worked for Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Theater Dortmund, Theater Bonn, Tanztheater Erfurt, Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus and with the independent groups projekt-il, Theater der Klänge, Rita Aozane Bilibio and Lokstoff! – Theater im öffentlichen Raum. Since 2018, she has been collaborating with the Zakk – Center for Action, Culture and Communication in Düsseldorf on various intercultural integration projects. Her choreographic works deal with social issues and questions about modern society from a feminist and anti-racist perspective. Since 2022, she has been the artistic director of the Skiathos Garden Theatre on the Greek island of Skiathos, a socio-cultural center and international meeting place founded by a network of international professional artists.

Ria Papadopoulou,

born in Athens, studied interior architecture, decoration and design at the TEI Athens and the FH Trier. She completed her Master’s degree in Stage Design/Scenic Space at the TU Berlin in 2012 and won the competition for the traveling exhibition KLIMAFLUCHT of the German United Nations Association, which has been touring Germany since 2015. From 2012 to 2016, she was a permanent stage design assistant at the Düsseldorf Schauspielhaus. During this time, she created her own stage designs for productions/performances by Ulf Goerke, Juliane Hendes, Simina German, Käthe Lorenz and Ivica Šimić. She has assisted as a guest for productions by Thomas Ostermeier and Robert Wilson. Since 2016, Ria Papadopoulou has been a freelance stage and costume designer and scenographer at the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus, FFT Düsseldorf, FWT Cologne, Theater Krefeld Mönchengladbach, Theater Dortmund, Wuppertaler Bühnen and Theater Lübeck, among others, and works with directors such as Hannah Biedermann, Maja Delinić and the projekt-il group. From 2016 to 2021, she was responsible for the artistic design of the Asphalt Festival in Düsseldorf. Since 2017, she has been a member of the group pulk fiktion – which was awarded the Cologne Children’s and Youth Theater Prize 2020 for HIERONYMUS and the Children’s and Adult Jury Prize at WESTWIND 2024 for GRUSEL.

Bianca Künzel,

born in Zwickau, lives and works as a freelance performer, director, speaker and lecturer in Düsseldorf. Guest engagements have taken her to the Nationaltheater Weimar, the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus, the Ruhrtriennale, the Schauspielhaus Bochum and the FFT Düsseldorf, where she has worked with Christoph Schlingensief and Luk Perceval, among others. From 2010 to 2015, she worked as a speaker at Deutschlandfunk, where she continues to publish her own features. She has also been a lecturer in stage language at the Robert Schumann Musikhochschule in Düsseldorf since 2010. She has been a performer with the theater ensemble kainkollektiv since 2007, which won the Georg Tabori Prize in 2015. In 2021, the production GAIA was recognized by Nachtkritik as one of the most outstanding productions of the year. Künzel has been working as a director since 2014, directing productions including GARTEN EDEN at Junges Schauspiel Düsseldorf (2016), which was awarded the Integration Prize of the City of Düsseldorf. Other works at the Bürgerbühne of the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus include DO YOU FEEL THE SAME (2017) and DEUTSCHLAND. A WINTER FAIRY TALE (2018). Bianca Künzel also directs for the Stuttgart-based group LOKSTOFF – Theater im öffentlichen Raum. Bianca Künzel was a 2022 annual scholarship holder of the Frauenkulturbüro NRW. Her last work AUSRADIERT premiered at the Kunstfest Weimar in summer 2024.

Photos “Über uns”: Alexander Steindorf