Artist Talk with Idylla Silmarovi and Rika Sakalak: „The Conditions We Produce“
Mo. 17th November 2025, 18-20 pm, Blue Square, 4th Floor
An event by the Emmy-Noether junior research group "Dramaturgies in the Afterlife of Violence: Transnational Theater between Global South and North"
The so-called free theater scene is increasingly shaped by small, temporary working groups in favor of enduring regional and global networks. This talk invites the scenic and performance artist Idylla Silmarovi (Ka’adela Platform, Belo Horizonte) and the dramaturg and curator Rika Sakalak (FAVORITEN Festival, Dortmund), each from distinct local contexts, to discuss how conditions of production shape contemporary artistic practices and their aesthetic formats.
Which educational, cultural, and political guidelines condition residencies and collaborations? What aesthetic and political processes can—or cannot—emerge from the infrastructures that host them? What traps and contradictions confront guerrilla, decolonial, Black, and feminist strategies under the cultural policies of „sovereign diversity“ proposed by institutions such as UNESCO and embraced by neoliberal democracies? Where do artistic ideas meet—or attempt to transgress—these institutional frameworks in imagining a desirable, yet still unknown, world.
Mediation: Felipe dos Santos Boquimpani (Institute for Theatre Studies, RUB)
Idylla Silmarovi is a performing artist and researcher. She holds a Master’s degree in Performing Arts from the Federal University of Ouro Preto, with research entitled „Strategies of art in a state of guerrilla warfare.“ Born Contagem (Brazil) she investigates the intersections between art and activism within the performing arts, mainly regarding the debate surrounding memory as a right denied by the colonial system in Abya Yala (Americas). In addition, her practice and research are directly related to feminist and racialized LGBTQIA+ struggles. Idylla is the creator of the Ka’adela Platform and the Meeting Zone. She also collaborates with various collectives and movements such as Cia Brasileira de Teatro, Toda Deseo, Plataforma Divinas, Academia TransLiterária, Cia Circunstância, and was artist-in-residence at PACT Zollverein and Frankfurt LAB°.
She creates autonomous spaces for creation. She seeks to sink caravels.
Rika Sakalak, born and raised in Athens, works as a dramaturge, curator, and diversity manager in North Rhine-Westphalia. She earned two Master’s degrees in Comparative Literature and Theatre Studies at Ruhr-University Bochum (RUB) in 2022 and has co-edited articles and anthologies as well as held a teaching assignment on Dramaturgies of Resistance at the same University in 2023. Since 2021, she has freelanced as a dramaturge and curator with artists, collectives, and festivals. From 2022 to 2024, she was dramaturge at Ringlokschuppen Ruhr, managing cultural networks such as LAG Soziokultur, four.ruhr, the Tanzproduzent*innen Konferenz (TPK), and Landesförderung Neue Normalität. She collaborates with Nora Amin, Martin Ambara, Kati Masami Menze, and Édith Voges Nana Tchuinang. Rika is an elected member of the Bochum Cultural Commission and deputy chair of Kunst und Handlung e.V..
Currently Rika is artistic director of the FAVORITEN Festival (2026) with Jonas Leifert and dramaturge/coordinator for West Off Festival.
Institute for Performance and Film Expanded
Prof. Dr. Dorota Sajewska (Institut für Theaterwissenschaft, Ruhr-Universität Bochum) hat mit Prof. Dr. Fabienne Liptay (Seminar für Filmwissenschaft, Universität Zürich) zusammen das Institute for Performance and Film Expanded begründet, das von 25 Founding Members getragen wird. The IPF Expanded ist ein experimentelles Forschungslabor, das Wissenschaftler*innen, Künstler*innen und Kurator*innen zur non-disziplinären Erforschung von Performance und Film sowie zur Durchführung kollaborativer Projekte und Veranstaltungen zusammenführt.
Detaillierte Informationen zum Institute for Performance and Film Expanded sind auf der offiziellen Webseite verfügbar.
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