RESONANZRAUM 40
“Here, the archive is not displayed — it is experienced.”
from Saturday, 10 October 2026 – Rehearsal Studio Düsseldorf-Pempelfort
Forty years after its founding, THEATER DER KLÄNGE opens its working space. The rehearsal studio in Düsseldorf-Pempelfort, where since 1990 every production of the company has found its first form, becomes the site of an ongoing workshop showing between October 2026 and June 2027. Not a museum. Not a retrospective in the usual sense. A space that makes its own past newly accessible as sound and image – walkable, audible, followable.
What There Is to See
Three walls and the ceiling of the studio become projection surfaces through video mapping. A spatial loudspeaker arrangement opens a three-dimensional sound space. Historical recordings from forty years of stage work meet a new sound composition created in the same room. Whoever visits this show moves freely through the installation – on a specially built tribune, on the dance carpet on the floor, wandering between the projection surfaces. The one-hour cycle shows no chronological history of works. It condenses forty years into an experience that can stand on its own.
How It Runs: the Show
Open Tuesdays and Fridays from 6 to 9 pm, with three show slots per evening at 6, 7 and 8 pm. Additionally on Sunday afternoons by prior arrangement. Admission a flat 10 € per show. Booking via rausgegangen.de.
The price is set deliberately. Ten euros is the price of a museum, an art society, a Sunday guided tour – not a theatre price. The Resonanzraum is meant to be a place you can drop into without committing. Whoever returns, returns of their own accord.
How It Runs: the Performance Weekends
On nine weekends between October 2026 and June 2027 the Resonanzraum becomes a stage. Six to eight members of the ensemble perform six suites and three full performances from the company’s historical productions – each suite a concentrated version of the original piece, sixty to ninety minutes long. The evening ticket includes the one-time show viewing in the same room immediately before the performance. Whoever comes sees first the archive as installation, then its embodiment on stage.
Programme
2026 / 2027
23–25 Oct 2026
The Mechanical Ballet
06–08 Nov 2026
The Silver Prince
01–03 Jan 2027
LUDUS DANIELIS & Gregorius
14–17 Jan 2027
TRIAS – The Triadic Ballet
19–21 Feb 2027
Figure and Sound in Space & SUITE intermediale
19–21 Mar 2027
The Lacquer Ballet
16–18 Apr 2027
Heinrich Heine’s Le Grand
28–30 May 2027
West-Land Dances
25–27 Jun 2027
Coastal Souls
What Sustains the Project
For the Resonanzraum, exclusively costumes and props already held by the company are used. Each new performance adds a layer to the sound material, which from October 2027 lives on in an expanded version of the installation. This is a form of sustainability that arises from the work itself – not from a marketing decision.
Programme Overview 2026 / 2027
| Period | Production | Format & Focus |
|---|---|---|
| 23–25 Oct 2026 | The Mechanical Ballet | Duets, trios. The origins of intermedial work (Bauhaus reference). First TdK production of 1987. |
| 06–08 Nov 2026 | The Silver Prince | Full performance. 6 performers plus audio-vision. Nine views of Walter Gropius and the Bauhaus. |
| 01–03 Jan 2027 | LUDUS DANIELIS & Gregorius | Concert-staged performance with the music ensemble ESTAMPIE and acting solos. Medieval mystery plays for the New Year programme. |
| 14–17 Jan 2027 | TRIAS – The Triadic Ballet | Dance solos, duets, trios. Live music. The triad as structural principle. |
| 19–21 Feb 2027 | Figure and Sound in Space & SUITE intermediale | Duets, live composer, interactive video design. Sensor control and real-time transformation. One dancer — and the audience as performers! |
| 19–21 Mar 2027 | The Lacquer Ballet | Duets, live composer, live video design. Materiality and surface on a digitally paintable canvas. |
| 16–18 Apr 2027 | Heinrich Heine’s Le Grand | Full performance. 2 actors, 2 musicians. Text, music and visual projections. |
| 28–30 May 2027 | West-Land Dances | Duets, bal modern, live music. Spatial dynamics and cultural hybridity. |
| 25–27 Jun 2027 | Coastal Souls | Full performance. 4 dancers, 1 musician. The most recent creation in the context of the company’s history. |
Digital Media Expertise of Theater der Klänge
Theater der Klänge possesses an exceptional depth of expertise — grown over nearly four decades — in integrating digital media technologies into the performative space. This continuous pioneering work makes the company one of Germany’s leading independent music and dance theatre groups in the field of intermedial, interactive stage art.
Historical Development
From its very first production in 1987, the Mechanical Bauhaus Stage, Theater der Klänge placed new technologies at the centre: an electronic score controlled the lighting of two slide projectors via timecode, supplemented by video back-projection for the first realisation of László Moholy-Nagy’s Mechanical Eccentric. In 1993, the production Figure and Sound in Space extended these approaches through a gestural control system for a solo dancer and light barriers for sound triggering.
Research-Based Development
From 2001 onwards, research work intensified through two landmark projects at Dortmund University of Applied Sciences: Performer Computer Interaction (PCI) led to the productions Megalopolis and Modulator, in which music parameters and video transformations were controlled via Max/MSP and Jitter through live camera images of the dancers. The follow-up project Interactive Integrative Performance (IIP) resulted in the dance piece HÖReographien. This research line found its completion in the large-scale production SUITE intermediale (2010–11).
In 2023, Theater der Klänge realised a Virtual Total Theatre, accessible online and based on the now three-dimensionally realised, never-built architectural plans of Walter Gropius.
Expertise for “Resonanzraum 40”
For the planned project, the affiliated institute kiU at the Dortmunder U is available as a cooperation partner. Its director Harald Opel has established himself as a specialist in façade mapping and brings his expertise to bear on the immersive interior design. (page 21)
The project builds on a solid, proven technological and artistic foundation that deploys video mapping, immersive sound-space design and interactive elements not as isolated effects, but as integral components of a coherent artistic vision — one that transforms 40 years of experience into a forward-looking space of reflection.
RESONANZRAUM 40
from Saturday, 10 October 2026
Rehearsal Studio of THEATER DER KLÄNGE, Düsseldorf-Pempelfort
Address and Contact
THEATER DER KLÄNGE, Winkelsfelder Straße 21, 40477 Düsseldorf. Questions and reservations to info@theaterderklaenge.de or by phone at +49 (0)211 462746. Tickets via rausgegangen.de.
Funded by:
