Dance is a stance and an experiment; it is research, action, and testing in equal measure, and theater is a place for participation. Dance is a way of life, theater a way of sharing.

Since 1994, laborgras has continually pushed the edges of dance expression, researching the conditions for dancing and taking them further. laborgras is a collective that works with a wide range of artists and artistic disciplines. By transcending categories, they can experiment with new spaces and possibilities, broadening horizons for themselves and others.

The laborgras concept values continuous exchange and embraces every opportunity for an encounter. The only limits are what is feasible and what is desired. The workflow is organic, with pieces and choreographies developing naturally into what they need to become. This approach means that a process is never entirely complete: each new discovery opens up new possibilities, and every possibility leads to new discoveries.

From 2002 to 2023, Studio laborgras in Berlin-Kreuzberg was an indispensable place where this daily work could happen; a place for welcoming guests, for international cooperation, for rehearsing and performing. The studio was a field where every proposition was valid and every step moved forward; openness, curiosity, and exchange were an integral part of each project’s progress.

For Renate Graziadei and Arthur Stäldi, the founders and artistic gravitational point of laborgras, dance is a way of living, and through dance life can be observed, whether by spectators or by dancers. Dance involves letting go, abandoning in the sense of surrendering, experimenting in the sense of researching. Dance is movement, movement is life, and dance is that life’s physical form of expression.

For laborgras, the theater is a place of experimentation, research, and discovery. Dance is always about taking a stance, politically too, and it is about real life and concrete, everyday questions. Dance must not be reduced to a commentary on a predetermined theme, nor freeze into beautiful movement. It must remain a form of expression that opens up and fosters new ways of perceiving.