Wut(t)räume

A site-specific dance performance on anger, dreams, and the spaces we claim directed by Ilona Pászthy, with Antonia Valerie Aurin, Steven Berchtold, Pauline Cano, Mona Lisa Murr, Judith Velana Sahl, Aitana Villa Inguza.

“Wut(T)räume” is a contemporary, site-specific dance performance that explores the emotional spectrum between anger (Wut) and dreams (Träume), while also invoking the German word “Räume” – meaning spaces or rooms. The title plays with this duality: Wutträume (dreams of rage), Wuträume (spaces of anger), and Träume born from Wut. Through this layered wordplay, the project asks how rage can be given space—physically, emotionally, and politically—and how movement can transform it into vision.

The performance was staged in public urban and social spaces, specifically on Münsterplatz in Bonn, a central and historic city square, and in the cafeteria of the Alanus University of Arts and Social Sciences. These settings, open and accessible to passersby, offered a living contrast to the often private and suppressed nature of anger. Instead of hiding emotion behind closed doors, Wut(T)räume brought it into the public eye—challenging audiences to witness, reflect, and even participate in the shared reality of emotional expression.

In both locations, the choreography responded directly to the architecture and atmosphere of the space. On Münsterplatz, the dance was framed by the openness and flow of urban life, where personal emotion met civic presence. At Alanus, the performance adapted to a more intimate but no less public setting—a space of daily routine and casual gathering, now transformed into a temporary room for catharsis and dreaming.

The soundscape, performed live with guitar and ukulele, served as an emotional thread throughout the work. The guitar brought resonance and gravity, grounding the dancers’ movements in a visceral weight. The ukulele added moments of delicacy, contrast, and subversion—questioning the line between sincerity and irony, rage and play. Together, the instruments shaped the atmosphere and gave the ephemeral dance a lingering emotional texture.

At its core, Wut(T)räume wonders: Where can we go with our anger? What spaces allow us to feel and be seen without judgment? And can we dance our way through rage—towards understanding, towards dreaming?

By placing the performance in non-theatrical, everyday environments, the project blurred the boundaries between art and life, audience and performer, public and private emotion. In doing so, it created temporary rooms—both literal and symbolic—for emotional presence, vulnerability, and transformation.

Wut(t)räume is an invitation to reclaim emotional space in the public realm. A choreography of confrontation and hope. A dream shouted into the square.