Leo
Kees

 

 

How to Be European???

Europe, as a collective imagination, as a sense of belonging, is perhaps one of the greatest and most fragile political artworks of Western modernity. A space of overlapping identities that, over centuries, has systematically destroyed itself — and yet, at some point, decided to invent a form of coexistence stronger than wars, borders, and dreams of imperial order.
I come from a family of European emigrants who had to flee wars, violence, and famine. A few generations later, I myself arrive here as a foreigner to study art in Europe. This biographical loop alone seems to me absurd, poetic, and political all at once.
With this production, I am not trying to explain Europe. I am trying to understand what this construct actually means emotionally. What does it mean today to be “European”? Who is supposed to feel part of this club, and what role does colonial history play in that?

IMAGINE: EUROPE is therefore not an identity-political statement. It is an attempt to explore a sense of belonging through images, language, museum archive material, music, interviews, and movement.
Perhaps emotional attachment is the heart of the European project. Perhaps a transnational identity is an essential survival strategy. And perhaps declaring oneself European is a daily act. An exercise in rediscovering, again and again, why solidarity can be far stronger than division.
European history has shown us, painfully enough, what happens when national identities harden and societies begin to divide the world into “us” and “the others.”

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PARTNERS:

This work is currently being developed in collaboration and co-production with Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus / D'haus  and a growing network of regional and international partners. The full list of collaborators and co-producers will be published here soon.

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WHAT:

IMAGINE: EUROPE is a Physical Lecture Performance staged in multiple languages. The audience encounters a mixture of music, sound recordings, and live spoken text in German, Spanish, English, French, Italian, Dutch, and Portuguese, among others. Poetic, factual, and infused with humor, the work explores what European identity might mean on an emotional level.
At its center is a body in constant motion, oscillating between choreographic precision and staged linguistic overload. A video scenography composed of text and calligraphy expands the performance space: text becomes movement, translation becomes image, and reading becomes part of the performance itself. As a result, every audience member experiences the piece differently, depending on which languages they hear, read, understand, or simply perceive physically.
The major artistic challenge is to create a work that can be performed almost unchanged across many European language regions: ONE SHOW IN ALL LANGUAGES. A performance designed to move, inspire, and connect audiences across borders.

 

FOR WHOM:

The piece is aimed at teenagers and young adults. It seeks accessibility not through simplification, but through transparency, metaphor, pace, courage, and sensory clarity. It is built around the question of how political and historical themes can be staged in a way that invites people to recognize their own experiences on stage. The question of European cohesion will profoundly shape the next generation — culturally, emotionally, economically, and politically.

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HOW:

IMAGINE: EUROPE is being developed through a six-month laboratory process in collaboration with a team of artists and researchers. The network of partner institutions includes, among others, the Düsseldorf Schauspielhaus and several museums in North Rhine-Westphalia. This process allows for research, development, and rehearsals to progress to a point where content, language, timing, movement, and rhythm can achieve their own form of virtuosity.
I am interested in a performance style that takes experts seriously without excluding people who rarely go to the theatre. Technology, humor, unexpected twists, and absurdity play a central role—as they do in much of my work—not as mere entertainment, but as tools for complexity, accessibility, and aesthetic coherence.
WHERE: My previous productions were created at Tanzhaus NRW in Düsseldorf and went on to tour internationally in more than twenty countries—from Japan to Mexico, from Germany to India. This project pursues a dual objective: on the one hand, to deepen collaboration with European partners; on the other, to develop an extensive, sustainable tour by train as an integral part of the production. Different forms of cultural infrastructure—in major cities as well as smaller communities—will be actively engaged, with a particular focus on building new partnerships and fostering long-term collaborations.

WHEN:

The premiere is planned for the second half of 2027. Collaboration with co-producers has already begun. The extended sustainable tour is scheduled for early 2028.

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WHY?

History is framed in books and archives and felt in our lived experiences, our nervous system, fears, and desires. But what happens to history when it is no longer directly experienced, but only studied in school or decontextualized on social media? A generation is now growing up with no living memory of the historical reasons behind the idea of a European identity.

A generation for whom the Cold War, the Prague Spring, the Greek Civil War, the breakup of Yugoslavia, or the fall of the Berlin Wall are "concepts" rather than lived experiences.
For migrants like myself, this emotional distance from European history is even greater. At the same time, we bring direct experience of dictatorships, civil wars, displacement, and the long-lasting consequences of colonialism beyond Europe. We arrive carrying different memories and different ways of understanding the relationship between the past and the present, between Europe and the rest of the world.
This is why I am interested in the question of how history can be experienced on a sensory and emotional level. Through artistic means, I want to explore what it might mean to engage responsibly with the past while still understanding Europe as a shared vision. As an attempt to actively shape a future that seeks to transcend the violence and divisions of its past. As a challenge. As a great TO-DO list with all of our names on it.

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TEAM

 

Leo Kees – Performance, Artistic Director / Leo Kees is an interdisciplinary artist working at the intersection of performance, visual arts, and digital media. Between 2010 and 2025, he developed works that translated philosophical and socio-political questions into performative formats for diverse audiences across different age groups, languages, and cultural contexts. His productions have toured in more than twenty countries—often in collaboration with the Goethe-Institut—and have been presented at venues including the Sydney Opera House, Sadler’s Wells in London, Schauspiel Frankfurt, Tanzhaus Zürich, Theatertreffen NRW, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the Augenblick mal! Festival in Berlin, and the New Zealand International Festival. His artistic practice explores how social systems are learned and embodied, and what it takes to move beyond normative patterns of behaviour in order to discover alternative rational, emotional, and somatic modes of being.

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Julia Dina Heße – Project Dramaturgy / Julia Dina Heße is a dramaturg, director, and researcher. She has previously collaborated with Leo Kees on productions including The Invisible House at Stadttheater Münster (winner of the 2016 WESTWIND Award) and The Strangers, a project developed in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut in South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Myanmar. She serves as Vice Chair of ASSITEJ Germany and is a member of the Executive Committee of ASSITEJ International. She also directs the International Directors’ Exchange and is actively engaged in cultural policy initiatives that promote the international visibility of theatre for young audiences. Julia Dina Heße completed her doctoral dissertation on ecological sustainability in the narratives and aesthetics of theatre for young audiences, drawing in part on an analysis of Leo Kees’ production TRASHedy.

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Carmen Mehnert – Dance Dramaturgy / Carmen Mehnert is a dramaturg whose work focuses on the intersection of dance, performance, and discursive stage practices. She studied Applied Theatre Studies in Giessen and has worked with institutions including Volksbühne Berlin and Schaubühne Berlin. A defining aspect of her career has been her long-term collaboration with choreographer Constanza Macras and the company DorkyPark. She previously worked with Leo Kees as dramaturg on Antropmoorfia (Hellerau / Semperoper Dresden), developed within the Tanzplan Dresden Production Grant in 2011. She is currently the director of Plan B – Creative Agency for Performing Arts.

 

Sven Stratmann – Video / Sven Stratmann lives between Münster and Leipzig and works under the artistic name AQUIET as a video artist specialising in animation, projection, installation, cinematography, and directing. His collaborations include projects with Opera Graz, Theater Regensburg, Theater Münster, and Tiroler Landestheater. He studied Fine Arts with a focus on Media Arts in the Netherlands and, since 2008, has realised numerous works for independent productions, state theatres, music theatre, dance, and audiovisual concert formats across Germany and Europe. His work combines visual richness, spatial composition, and sonic sensitivity.

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Luisa Arndt – Assistant / Luisa Arndt studied Cultural Anthropology and works at the intersection of dance, performance, and academic research. Since 2024, she has collaborated with Leo Kees in rehearsal support, scholarly research, and choreographic understudy work. Her combination of analytical thinking and embodied practice strengthens the rehearsal process both conceptually and performatively.

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Emilio Retamal – Sound Design / Emilio Retamal is a composer and sound designer whose work moves between acoustic music, electronic music, and sound production for pop music, theatre, dance, and audiovisual formats. He has collaborated with Leo Kees over several years on various productions in which sound functions as a central dramaturgical and rhythmic element.

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David Niederprüm – Technical Director / David Niederprüm works as a stage technician at COMEDIA Theater Cologne, where his first collaboration with Leo Kees began with the production The Food Show!, which he subsequently accompanied on tour. He started his training as an event technology specialist in 2018 before temporarily pausing it to study media technology. He is currently completing advanced training with WDR Cologne while continuing to work as a guest technician for various productions.

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Karolina Maria Knoll – Production Manager / Karolina Maria Knoll studied Contemporary Dance at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen and works at the intersection of dance mediation, production, and project management. Among other collaborations, she has worked with the artist duo Montse Gardó Castillo and Petr Hastik on productions presented at FFT – Forum Freies Theater Düsseldorf. Based in Wuppertal, she has extensive knowledge of the cultural landscape of North Rhine-Westphalia, making her an ideal production manager for this project.