Anna-Carolin Weber & Tobias Kopka Receive Artistic Research Grant (Kunststiftung NRW)

Anna-Carolin Weber and Tobias Kopka have been awarded with a full-year grant for artistic research in the field of performing arts by Kunststiftung NRW. This will enable them to conduct sustainable research into the scenic potential of participation and co-creation in hybrid spaces. From June 2025 to May 2026, the choreographer and interaction designer will explore questions of digital integration of visitors – remotely and live – in a hybrid, transmedial performance practice. Together with Richard Lemarchand, well-known US-American game designer and academic researcher, they have designed the project ‘We Are In This Together – New Sensations for Remote Audiences in VR and Dance Performances’. The aim of their joint project is the collaborative participation of visitors on an equal footing.

Cooperation partners are the Academy for Theatre and Digitality in Dortmund, the Cologne Game Lab at the Technical University of Cologne and TanzFaktur, a venue for games and productions in Cologne. Residencies will take place at TanzFaktur Cologne in August, October and December 2025, at the Cologne Game Lab in September 2025 and at the Academy for Theatre and Digitality Dortmund in June/July, October 2025, and February and May 2026.

The project will kick off with a residency lasting several weeks at the Academy for Theatre and Digitality in Dortmund until mid-July 2025. Further residencies will follow in Dortmund and Cologne, enabling Anna-Carolin Weber and Tobias Kopka to explore new forms of intensive encounter for spatially separated visitors through the use of virtual technologies. Currently, an exploration of motion tracking, projection mapping and interactive systems has begun, which helps to artistically explore interactions inspired by gaming principles. In addition, intensive exchanges with other creatives at the interface of physical and virtual formats in the international field of performing arts have broadened the perspective.

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