Donya Speaks & Co.

With POETiK P, Donya Speaks initiates her third evening-length piece. Recurring themes in her creations are freedom of movement, overcoming cultural clichés, the impact of language(s) and dealing with privilege. She usually puts together international and interdisciplinary teams and asks what constitutes a fair and fruitful production. It is a core concern of hers that the development of plays creates an exchange and a network. With her last piece “Bis zum Ende des Regens”, for example, she collaborated with local musicians at every venue. In POETiK P, artists from Rwanda, the Congo and Switzerland form a collective together.

Donya is a dance and theatre maker. In her work, she combines comedy and tragedy, text and movement, form and content with relish and finds an astonishing topicality in this. She sees the stage as a space of possibility and theatre as a means of creating a dialogue and questioning the world order. In 2021, she danced in the play “Teresa” at the Mercat de les Flors, Barcelona. With the artist collective The Grey Stories, she developed documentary pieces between Germany, Bosnia and Rwuanda in 2019-2022. With Hannan Salamat she conceived a lecture performance on anti-Muslim racism. In 2022, Donya celebrated the premiere of her second full-length play “Bis zum Ende des Regens”, in co-production with Tanzhaus Bern and Théâtre de l’Opéra Tunis. She studied at the Accademia Dimitri, the ZHdK and deepened her knowledge in Body Weather dance practice with Andres Corchero, as well as performance art with Stéfanie Lupo.