The German State Theatre Timișoara has the honour to host the contemporary dance performance "we ♥ 2 raqs", choreographed by Tümay Kılınçel, as part of the Performing Arts Festival Timișoara.

The organizer of this event, which will take place on Tuesday, October 31, at 7:30 pm, in the German Theatre, is the German Cultural Centre Timisoara.

Based on Raqs, the so-called belly dance or oriental dance, "we ♥ 2 raqs" negotiates and deconstructs orientalist and colonial image structures. Through the interpretation of the various dancers and their very different genres - oriental dance, tribal fusion, American tribal style, fusion, voguing, baladi and contemporary dance - a collective raqs body emerges in the choreographic performance. A live band - Qanun, percussion, DJing - plays the music. After the HAU co-production "Dansöz", dancer and choreographer Tümay Kılınçel and dramaturge Berna Kurt continue their collaboration on Raqs and recontextualise dance as a feminist, self-empowering practice.

Tümay Kılınçel studied performing arts in Germany. Her work focuses on the connection between body and movement. In her performances she addresses power relations, occasionally questioning the canons of dance and then translating them into movement through empowerment strategies.


Pr. Dr. Berna Kurt studied political science, arts management and history in Istanbul. She has been involved in various dance projects as choreographer, instructor, dramaturg, critic and researcher. Her transdisciplinary work combines performance studies with social-political theories and analyses dance aesthetics from the perspective of socio-humanistic sciences. Since 2018, together with Tümay Kılınçel, a choreographer in Berlin, she has been deepening belly dance techniques. She is currently part of the Folk Dance Department at Van Yüzüncü Yıl University.

With: Dina Abdelhafez, The Darvish, Lia Pavlidis, Marilyn Nova White, Suzan Demircan.

Percussion: Sultan Kara • Kanun: Dima Dawood • Dramaturgia: Berna Kurt • Light-design: Catalina Fernandez • Stenography: Kathi Sendfeld, Merve Çelikyurt


Producers: Tümay Kılınçel in co-production with HAU - Hebbel am Ufer Berlin, Künstlerhaus Mousonturm within the Rhein-Main Dance Platform, Forum Freies Theater Düsseldorf & Kaserne Basel