Frankfurt Moves!
KfW Stiftung initiated the programme Frankfurt Moves! in cooperation with Frankfurt LAB in order to contribute to the diversity of the regional cultural landscape in Frankfurt am Main.
Partner
Through residencies in cooperation with regional and international partners, the programme aims to strengthen multidisciplinary contemporary art production, promote young creative talents and stimulate intercultural exchange across national borders. KfW Stiftung and Frankfurt LAB invite artists to develop artistic productions in the field of performing arts and to engage in exchange with other cultural practitioners.
Residency Programme 2023
In 2023, we will continue our cooperation with Frankfurt LAB an will invite four artists in the field of performing arts to Frankfurt am Main for four weeks. Here they will have access to professional venues of the Frankfurt LAB and receive dramaturgical and technical support. At the end of the residency, work results can be presented in a public showcase.
From 15 September to 15 October, the selected residents will work on the (further) development of their artistic works in Frankfurt. Interested artists can apply until February 28, 2023 (23:59 CET). More information on the Frankfurt LAB website.

Residency Programme 2022
Participating artists will be invited to Frankfurt am Main for four weeks. Here they will have access to professional venues of the Frankfurt LAB and receive dramaturgical and technical support. At the end of the residency, work results can be presented in a public showcase.
From 19 July to 19 August, this year's residents will be working in Frankfurt on the (further) development of their artistic works. If you are already curious, you can get a first impression through Rehearsing for an Encounter, a digital space where Hessische Theaterakademie-postgraduates Isabelle Zinsmaier and Maxi Menja Lehmann met the residents.
The application deadline has passed and applications are no longer being accepted.

Grant Holders of the Residency Programme 2022
Carla Tapparo (Buenos Aires / Argentina) explores the relationships, interactions and commonalities of perceived opposites - such as physical-digital, body-mind, inside-outside. Her current research focus is the body and how theories of its rejection and alienation can be applied to the body as a biopolitical entity. Carla Tapparo holds a BA and PhD in Fine Arts, with a focus on painting (UNLP, Argentina) and an MA summa cum laude in Art in Public Space (École de Design et Haute École d'Art du Valais, Switzerland), for which she received a Hans Boerg Wyss Scholarship. She was a participant in NIME (New Interfaces for Musical Expression) and works as an art director for Piuke Productions. Carla Tapparo has received prizes and awards from institutions such as INCAA (National Institute for Audiovisual Arts) and her work has been exhibited and performed in Argentina, Ireland, Switzerland and Germany.
Stephanie Kayal is a performer, dancer and choreographer from Beirut, Lebanon. She is currently developing her second original creation, which will premiere at NEXT Festival - Kortrijk 2022 and reflects the current end-time mood in Lebanon. It is a loose continuation of her first work "Evidence of Things Not Seen" (2021), a performance about a family haunted by dance and their past.
Abed Kobeissy is an electro-acoustic musician and composer from Beirut, Lebanon. His work has been performed in over 18 countries and has a strong local flavour, but without claiming traditional or ethnic representation. From solo to collaborative projects to music for film, theatre and dance, his musical language draws primarily from the local urban soundscape and his works often revolve around family and home.
Emmanuel Ndefo is a dancer, choreographer, curator and researcher at the Center for Contemporary Art in Lagos, Nigeria. He is interested in the critical representation of bodies within architectures and alternative sites, e.g. museums, galleries, archives, etc. He believes that through the use of the body and interactive performances, it is possible to experience the relationship between art, audience and space. Through bodies moving in space, thought processes can be influenced, memories evoked and narratives challenged.
Femi Adebajo is a multidisciplinary artist from Nigeria with a focus on dance as a way to access the human mind. As a choreographer, he explores different styles in detail before creating movement patterns with musical accompaniment. His radical choreographies appeal to people all over the world. Femi Adebajo has participated in a number of workshops and trainings with Prof. Wole Soyinka, Segun Adefila, Seun Awobajo, Qudus Onikeku, Sunday Israel, Akpan, Adedayo Liadi (Ijodee), Sahar Rahimi, Isioma Williams, Stine Hertel, Alice Ferl, Tairu Ajibode, Abel Utuedor and Haracio Macuacua, among others. He has worked for global brands such as Adidas and with renowned festivals and companies such as Theater der Welt, Monster Truck, Company Christoph Winkler, Hektomeron Theatre Festival (Romania), Irineu Nogueira Dance Program (Munich) and Sanskar Virtual Dance.
Manjari Kaul is a performer, director and educator from New Delhi, India. She graduated from DUENDE School of Ensemble Physical Theatre (2015) and holds an MA from The School of Arts & Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University. Most recently, she devised and performed in the digital production "Firefly Woman" supported by ReFrame Arts Genderalities 2.0. She received ThinkArts grant 2022 and is currently developing a new play for young audiences with Aagaaz Theatre Trust. She has taught at DUENDE School and Srishti School of Art, Design & Technology as a guest lecturer and co-directed a production with students from The National School of Drama. Her solo "Chronicle of a Death Foretold", based on the novella by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and commissioned by Instituto Cervantes, has been performed in London, Athens, New Delhi, Bangalore and Lucknow. Manjari Kaul's work deals with the irritation caused by the inappropriate and unusual in live performances. Gender, sexuality and memory are themes she explores again and again.
Savita Rani is a graduate of the National School of Drama (NSD) from New Delhi, India, with a focus on acting. She works as a researcher, actor and director and teaches acting. She recently completed her PhD from the Department of Performing Arts, Pondicherry University with a study titled "A Study on Devised Solo Theatre in India". She has received training in martial arts such as Kalari and Tai-Chi. Savita Rani has worked with renowned theatre makers like Anuradha Kapur, Anamika Haksar, Tripurari Sharma, K. S. Rajendran, Abhilash Pillai, Amitesh Grover, Suresh Anagali, Harish Khanna, Vivan Sundram, Roysten Abel, Khalid Tyabji and Jyoti Dogra. Her work has taken her to Peru, Pakistan, China, Nepal, Austria, Bangladesh, Japan, Thailand and England. Parallel to her research, she developed the solo theatre piece "RIP: Restlessness in Pieces", with which she performed in many places in India and abroad. She is currently working on the new solo "Notions", which is supported by Serendipity Arts Festival 2020.
Priiya is a performer, dancer and video artist currently based in Berlin. They received an MA in Movement Direction from the University of London and is on a research journey to establish roots in the moving body. Priiya thinks about the way we organise bodies and space in an attempt to make diverse languages, fictions, memories and identities flow into each other.
This Is Not Lebanon
Festival for Visual Arts, Performance, Music and Talks
26.08. – 12.09.2021
Frankfurt LAB, SOMMERBAU
Künstlerhaus Mousonturm
Within a short time Lebanon has suffered a quadruple disaster: the revolution grinding to a halt in October 2019, the hyperinflation caused by the Lebanese Lira going into freefall on the currency markets, the explosion in Beirut harbour in the summer of 2020 and lastly the pandemic.
This Is Not Lebanon gave artists a platform to contradict simplistic reporting on the situation in Lebanon and to develop nuanced perspectives on the country. The three-week festival at Künstlerhaus Mousonturm and SOMMERBAU in Frankfurt presented leading younger protagonists from the fields of performance, visual arts, choreography and music.
Four new artistic works were created as part of Frankfurt Moves! - the residency programme of the KfW Stiftung and the Frankfurt LAB. Ghida Hachicho explored the dynamics of group behaviour in the SOMMERBAU with four other performers. Marwa Arsanios continued her feminist work with a performative video installation on questions of heritage, property and value. Bassem Saad's film and text-based artistic work addresses the distribution of violence and desire, and Ali Eyal's multidisciplinary practice explores contemporary forms of struggle and collective violation. Saad and Eyal both presented performative works for the first time at the festival.
Developed and curated by Matthias Lilienthal, Christine Tohmé, Anna Wagner, and the members of the Ensamble Modern Jaan Bossier, Uwe Dierksen and Christian Hommel.
The festival in Frankfurt was followed by a second festival part in Beirut in October 2021, in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut Lebanon and the Lebanese art centre Ashkal Alwan. It was funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation, the Goethe-Institut, the Ensemble Modern Patronatsgesellschaft e.V. and its accompanying discourse programme was funded by the Federal Agency for Civic Education/bpb.
Partner
Since it was founded in 2009, Frankfurt LAB has established itself as a vital performance and producing space for contemporary performing arts and music in the Rhine-Main region. The aim of its five partner institutions Dresden Frankfurt Dance Company, Ensemble Modern, Hessian Theatre Academy, Frankfurt University for Music and Performing Arts (HfMDK) and Künstlerhaus Mousonturm is to connect the work of internationally renowned ensembles with supporting emerging artists and to encourage a productive exchange between dance, choreography, performance, theatre and music. Frankfurt LAB offers the ideal conditions for this: with facilities of a high technical standard and in a protected setting, artists can rehearse and show their work completely flexibly in a 650 m² stage area and on a 300 m² studio stage.
Continue to Frankfurt LAB
Programme Management
Daniela Leykam
Photo credits:
01. Image: Source: Frankfurt LAB, Author / Photographer: Christian Schuller
02. Image: Source: Frankfurt LAB, Author / Photographer: Hanke Wilsmann
03. Image: Source: Frankfurt LAB, Author / Photographer: Hanke Wilsmann
04. Image: Source: Frankfurt LAB, Author / Photographer: Frankfurt LAB
05. Image: Source: Frankfurt LAB, Author / Photographer: KfW Stiftung; pictured are: Manjari Kaul (Resident), Alica Sänger (KfW Stiftung), Femi Adebajo (Resident), Savita Rani (Resident), Björn Fischer (Frankfurt LAB), Rose Field (KfW Stiftung), Rainer Roemer (Ensemble Modern), Phillip Schulte (Hessischen Theaterakademie), Jenny Flügge (Frankfurt LAB), Stephanie Kayal (Resident), Emmanuel Ndefo (Resident), Aminata Lorenz (Frankfurt LAB), Wen Hui (Dramaturgin, Künstlerin), Issak Kudaschov (Frankfurt LAB), Daniela Leykam (KfW Stiftung)
06. Image: Source: Frankfurt LAB, Author / Photographer: Christian Schuller
07. Image: Source: Frankfurt LAB, Author / Photographer: Ali Eyal
08. Image: Source: Frankfurt LAB, Author / Photographer: Bassem Saad, Sanja Grozdanic
09. Image: Source: Frankfurt LAB, Author / Photographer: Ghida Hachicho