MAI:COMPANY launches on May 23rd 2025 at KampnagelHamburg-based choreographer Patricia Carolin Mai and her team are founding a new dance company designed for people without professional dance experience. MAI:COMPANY sees itself as an open and inclusive structure, aiming to reach as many people as possible. It is a space for diversity, where individuals from different backgrounds, with various interests, values, life experiences, and social contexts come together to explore a central question: What is our attitude today toward our own bodies and the bodies of others?From May 2025 through winter 2027, MAI:COMPANY will explore this theme through workshops and rehearsals, culminating in its first public performance at Kampnagel in May 2026. With the piece ROCKOKO, the company takes a stand against growing repression and political censorship in everyday life, advocating for a form of dance that resists and rebels. In ROCKOKO, company members will take the stage wearing skirts — celebrating the individuality of every body that moves beneath the fabric.The mission of MAI:COMPANY is to dance, to engage in cultural diversity, to challenge habitual structures, and to create spaces free of discrimination — regardless of background, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, disability, religion, culture, residency status, age, class, appearance, or other identities and attributions.The company embraces the plurality of perspectives and creates time not only for dancing, but also for dialogue — with regular weekly rehearsals and monthly rehearsal weekends.On Friday, May 23rd, MAI:COMPANY kicks things off with an open-air rave — inviting everyone to come and dance together on the forecourt of Kampnagel.On Saturday and Sunday, the program continues on stage with a variety of workshops focused on empowerment and community-building, led by Patricia Carolin Mai, her team, and guest artists Liz Rech, René*e Reith, and Aileen Puhlmann.The event has a limited number of participant spots and requires registration.REGISTRATION INFORMATIONThe event is free of charge, but registration is required.For any questions regarding participation, please refer to our FAQs. Registration for the OPEN LAB weekend is available via this link.Only those who receive an official confirmation from us will be able to participate.You may register for individual days and time slots. There will be two registration rounds to give spontaneous participants a fair chance to join:The first round runs from May 1st to 9th 2025.The second round runs from May 14th to 18th 2025.If you have any further questions, feel free to contact Vivienne Lütteken at: vivienne-luetteken@patricia-carolin-mai.dePROGRAMFriday, May 23rd 20256 pm until 7 pm | ARK RAVE SESSION with Majon van der SchotMajon van der Schot is a dancer working in the Netherlands. She sees dance as an exercise to raise awareness of the bodies we live in. For her, a rave is a practice of existence in which you find your way and others through your own body."If human life is a performance. Then we need a human performance practice"True to the motto of her colleague Connor Schumacher, with whom she works closely, she invites people in different contexts to get moving together - and to rave.7 pm until 10 pm | Official MAI:COMPANY opening at a joint dinnerSaturday, May 24th 202510 am until 11 am | Warm Up with Patricia Carolin Mai11 am until 1 pm | Workshop with Liz RechLiz Rech works in the border area between theatre, performance, installation and activism as a director, dramaturge and performer with a focus on her work in Hamburg. She is part of artists' initiatives and collectives (e.g. Komm in die Gänge; Schwabinggrad Ballett), engages with choreographic practices within social movements and enjoys sharing useful movement knowledge.In her two-hour workshop, she invites you to develop a polyphonic gesture choreography dedicated to the banned words that, according to the Trump administration, will no longer be allowed to play a role in scientific research in the USA.1 pm until 2:30 pm | Break2:30 pm until 5 pm | Workshop with René*e ReithRené*e Reith (all pronouns) is a choreographer, performance artist and dance scholar based in Hamburg. Her queer-feminist perspective aims to critically examine social notions of bodies as well as dominant and marginalising power structures. René*e's workshop is dedicated to the sensitivity of intimacy: it begins with a sensitisation for gender-appropriate language and moves on to a portrait session in smaller groups around the question: How changeable is one's own self in the eye of the other5 pm until 7 pm | Movement session and Cool Down with Patricia Carolin MaiSunday, May 25th 202510 am until 11 am | Warm Up11 am until 1 pm | Outlook with Patricia Carolin Mai und TeamPatricia Carolin Mai and the team invite you to a danced preview of the upcoming season: What is the idea behind the upcoming company piece ROCKOKO and what does it have to do with skirts?1 pm until 2:30 pm | Break2:30 pm until 5 pm | Workshop with Aileen PuhlmannAileen Puhlmann is a board member of ‘Lemonaid & Charitea e.V.’, founder of ‘Community Kids’, a parent-child initiative for Black parents in Hamburg and a very influential voice in Hamburg for discriminatory cooperation and communication practices. With her workshop, she wants to stimulate discussion about what constitutes a community, how people can learn from each other and take the initiative for their own spaces for action.5 pm until 6:30 pm | Sewing and finishingSewing with costume designer Caroline Packenius and team member of MAI:COMPANY and reviewing the weekend together.
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