POLITIK IM FREIEN THEATER: ICH KANN’S NICHT LASSEN. | I CAN'T HELP IT.

Who owns the stage? Who decides how to move and communicate on it? Who dances and who watches? “ICH KANN’S NICHT LASSEN” (“I can’t help it”) dissolves these boundaries. With their welcoming, supportive and curious manner, the four Krump-dancers manage to get everyone moving together and invite us to join in without using language. The stage loses its exclusivity and becomes a space that can be shaped together.

The basis for this participatory setting lies in the Afro-diasporan dance culture of Krump. Originating in the streets of L.A. around the millennium, Krump is based on self-empowerment and the protest against social inequality and discrimination. Dance is the language for emotions, resistance and a community formed through communal movement. Every little gesture can inscribe itself into the collective movement vocabulary, which causes the boundaries between audience and stage, watching and joining in to playfully vanish. Every performance is unique. Dance becomes the means of communication between us that we all have inside of us – and we just can’t help dancing along.

Janne Gregor 
Choreographer, dance mediator and performer Janne Gregor was born in Berlin. She studied Physical Theatre and obtained a Master’s Degree in choreography at the Inter-University Centre for Dance Berlin (HZT). Her inter-generative and inter-disciplinary pieces have been shown at various renowned theatres and on international stages.

From 6 years.

No speech.

Duration: approx. 60 minutes, including an integrated audience discussion (in German).

Accessibility: Venue wheelchair accessible, performance language barrier-free (performance without spoken language), dancing and moving together with the dancers on stage

Sensory stimuli: loud music, rapid lighting changes, audience participation