Nora Koschel-Geckeler and Christine Stahl are refining their artistic profile by developing a model for interactive and aesthetically innovative youth theater that combines documentary research, physical theater, and elements of game theater. In joint workshops with young people, physical theater methods are used to gather personal stories, experiences, and perspectives, which serve as source material. Young people are taken seriously as experts on their own lived experiences and are integrated into the artistic process. The goal is to engage this target group not only as audience members but also as cultural creators in their own right.

Unscene e.V. was founded with funding from the “Performing Arts 2025” conceptual development program. It is a cross-genre collective of artists (music, performing arts, visual arts) that has come together to promote, among other things, the collective visibility of their respective independent scenes, joint lobbying efforts, and collaborative press and public relations work. An open meeting takes place every third Thursday of the month at Café Besser Samstag, Schiersteiner Str. 1, 65187 Wiesbaden. The collective can be found on Instagram under “unscene_e.V.” 

In 2024, the dance network Dance Nexus—now a registered association—was founded with funding from the Performing Arts Concept Grant. Among other things, the network connects freelance dancers in the Rhine-Main region, offers professional workshops, organizes its own festival, and awards residencies. For more information, visit www.dancenexusrm.com (opens in a new tab).

In 2023, the “Totalitarian Body Kollektiv” ensemble received a conceptual grant to support various projects that, taken together, served to promote both the group’s own artistic development—and thus the development of innovative dance productions by the dance collective—as well as to foster supraregional and international networks in the danceand cultural scenes. For more information, visit: www.antonrudakov.com.

In addition, the 2023 conceptual grant was awarded to Oliver Wronka for the establishment of the VOLXBÜHNE. The VOLXBÜHNE Wiesbaden is an independent, self-managed amateur theater where citizens can create their own theatrical world with passion and professional support. For more information: www.volxbuehne-wiesbaden.de/infos.

Since founding the IDA FLUX ensemble in 2022, Mareike Buchmann has been contributing to the increased visibility of contemporary dance and performance art in Wiesbaden through various formats, such as interdisciplinary performances, workshops, and participatory activities in public spaces. The conceptual grant, with its focus on an improvisational, experimental, and process-oriented performance practice, also served to raise the profile of Buchmann’s own artistic work by translating her existing ideas into an ensemble structure.

With the help of the conceptual development grant, Theater 3D developed a communication strategy—including a communication design—to showcase externally the results of the process of self-reflection, professionalization, and consolidation that took place during the preceding years of the COVID-19 pandemic. The four artistic disciplines, each with distinct thematic focuses, were clearly defined and communicated to their respective target audiences.