Helena Waldmann's pop-up feast for charioteers and all who are part of it

Helena Waldsmann's reboot of live culture focuses on pure joy and a truely untamed concept: Balagan. Literally translated as "mess", Balagan stands for the original folk theatre: a turbulent, cheerful fairground spectacle, wandering from town to town like the historical Commedia dell'arte. And what goes with it on three wheels? An Ape from Piaggio, the popular threeweeled cargo van.
Helena Waldmann makes the Ape dance
Translated the Ape is a bee, but Helena Waldmann calls the vehicle a "dancer". In her rattling performance "BALAGAN!" she uses three of them: the Api as vehicle, stage, throne and dancer at the same time. In addition, equipped with loudspeakers on their loading platforms, they turn the terrific music of the Hamburg Techno Marching Band MEUTE into a particularly moving sound experience.
The BALAGAN! ensemble is made up of local performers: the vehicles including their intrepid drivers and more than 20 local performers are being trained now, which means that Helena Waldmann is rehearsing a fortnight in each city tailoring the pop-up feast for charioteers and all who are part of it to prominent squares in the respective cities.

In Balagan, this anarchic, unbridled form of theatre, the Russian avant-garde at the beginning of the 20th century saw its ideal of authentic folk theatre realised. Even more, Balagan was intended as a statement against the burgeoning communist orthodoxy, which also defined narrow limits for the arts. Helena Waldmann is convinced: In times of controls and pandemic rules, Balagan is the life order of the day.
And what does BALAGAN! look like today? Surprising, unpredictable, cheerful, rattling, colourful.


BALAGAN! is driving in Aschaffenburg's and Ulm's Kultursommer 2021. It is fueled by the NATIONAL PERFORMANCE NETWORK - STEPPING OUT and by KULTURSOMMER 2021, funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media as part of the NEUSTART KULTUR, and by the city of Ulm. Moreover it is a production by Helena Waldmann and ecotopia dance productions in co-production with Kulturamt Aschaffenburg, ROXY, TanzLabor Ulm

1.+2.+3.7.2021 market place Aschaffenburg
Eine Produktion von Helena Waldmann und ecotopia dance productions
in Koproduktion mit dem Kulturamt Aschaffenburg
Unterstützt durch das NATIONALE PERFORMANCE NETZ – STEPPING OUT, gefördert von der Beauftragten der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien im Rahmen der Initiative NEUSTART KULTUR. Hilfsprogramm Tanz.

23.7.2021 ROXY Ulm
24.7.2021 Kornhausplatz Ulm
25.7.2021 Weinhof Ulm
Eine Produktion von Helena Waldmann und ecotopia dance productions
in Koproduktion mit dem ROXY und dem TanzLabor Ulm
unterstützt durch die Stadt Ulm
Balagan! wird im Programm Kultursommer 2021 durch die Beauftrage der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien (BKM) mit Mitteln aus NEUSTART KULTUR gefördert.

to the top