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Season start 2025/26 – (Un)gentle Learning

«Fourth Eye, 4.40 AM»
Ceylan Öztrük

Performance

In her new work, Ceylan Öztrük explores liminal selfhood through disorientation, tracing how constructed space inscribes itself within the self.

  • Thu 11/09 20:00

    Halle Ost

    Remaining tickets at the box office

  • Sat 13/09 20:00

    Halle Ost

  • Sun 14/09 20:00

    Halle Ost

  • Mon 15/09 20:00

    Halle Ost

    Remaining tickets at the box office

Copyright: Flavio Karrer
  • Relaxed Performance

What if spaces were not meant to be fixed or redefined, but instead a new spatial concept could be built — a new mindspace? The spaces we inhabit are already constructed, shaping presence and marking territories embedded in the mind.

«Fourth Eye, 4:40 AM» takes place at the dawn of the mind. States of being navigate the threshold between the constructed and the instinctive. The narration unfolds in variation—fragmented, diffracted, shifting across internal registers. It reveals a spectrum of selves within the individual: selves that move, hesitate, reassemble. Here, narration dissolves and reconfigures, opening new possibilities for existential and political exposure.

The piece engages with the idea of space as a questioning of the self through a method of diffraction, rather than reflection. Ceylan Öztrük expands disorientation as a narrative instrument, sculpting the theatre space as a moment that reveals the internal performance of selves.

Information on accessibility and language

  • The show is a Relaxed Performance without spoken language.

  • The visit of the performance is recommended for age 16 or older.

  • Every evening before the performance, an accessibility tour takes place at 7:15 p.m. The tour lasts approximately 15 minutes. The meeting point is at the Access-Info-Point. The tour highlights the loudest, darkest, bass-heaviest and brightest parts of the performance, as well as showing some video sequences. If required, a seat can be reserved for the performance during the tour.

  • As the production is still being rehearsed, more information on the accessibility of the show will be released closer to the premiere date.

Content notes

  • The room is very dark.
    The music is very loud.
    There is a bright LED panel at eye level, on which videos are shown.
    Some of the videos are disturbing.
    The performers are dressed entirely in black, and their faces are covered.
    Music and light change quickly.
    A fog machine is used.
    At the end, there is a longer blackout.
    In one scene, a performer vomits.
    There will be streaming at some point.
    There is a mannequin in the room, wearing the same costume as the live performers.
    The performers move around the space and may sit close to the audience or look directly at them.
    No interaction from the audience is expected.

Plain language

  • The play is about different spaces.
    There are real spaces and spaces in the mind.
    These are ideas or imaginations.
    Or different sides of a person.

    In this play, the artist shows:

    How does one feel inside?

    This is what happens in the play:
    It is early in the morning, 4:40 a.m.
    One person becomes many people.
    The people can change.
    This is sometimes confusing.

    The play feels like this:
    Like when you are just waking up or dreaming.

About the artists

  • Ceylan Öztrük lives and works in Zürich. She completed her practice-based PhD (2016) in Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University (Istanbul) that she initiated her subject in Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna at Post Conceptual Art Practices in 2014. She received her graduate (MFA-2011) and undergraduate (BFA-2006) degrees from the Fine Arts Faculty, Sculpture Department at Anadolu University. In 2022, she received Swiss Art Award. Some of her solo/group exhibitions and performances are Wearing the Angles, Kissing the Room, Gessnerallee Theatre, Zürich (2023), Sculpture Garden, Geneva Biennial, Geneva (2022); Self-specular, a moment, Galerie PhilippZollinger, Zürich (2022); Matter of non, FriArt Kunsthalle Fribourg, Fribourg (2021); Orientalien, Gessnerallee Theatre, Zürich (2020); Am a Mollusk, too; re/producing tangents, Longtang, Zürich (2020), IV. Berliner Herbstsalon, Berlin (2019); Oriental Demo, My Wild Flag Festival, Stockholm (2019); Call me Venus, Mars, Istanbul (2016).

Credits

  • Direction, Stage design, Video, Performance:
    Ceylan Öztrük
    Performance:
    Julia Plawgo
    Dramaturgy Support:
    Isabel Schwenk
    Assistance:
    Lena Pfäffli
    Garments Creative Direction:
    Laura Beham, Prototypes
    Technical Direction, Video:
    Demian Jakob
    Video Assistance:
    Pius Bacher
    Technical advice:
    Ralph Meier (AVMS Schweiz AG)
    Sounddesign and Music:
    Berk Çakmakçı, Thilda Bourqui
    Couture:
    Etienne Nicca
    Production:
    Laeticia Blättler (Moin Moin Productions)
    Production assistance:
    Eva Cabañas
    In Co-Production with:
    Gessnerallee, Sophiensaele Berlin
    Advice Relaxed Performance:
    Swassthi Sarma

Supported by

  • City of Zurich Culture, Ernst and Olga Gubler-Hablützel Foundation, Ernst Göhner Foundation, Dr Georg and Josi Guggenheim Foundation

    The programme focus ‘(Un)gentle Learning’ is supported by the Ernst Göhner Foundation.

Gessnerallee season start 2025/26

The programme focus «(Un)gentle Learning» will take place at Gessnerallee from 11 to 21 September to mark the start of the season. It will explore processes of transition, mourning and learning.

«Stars Are Never Sleeping, Dead Ones and the Living»

Theres Indermaur and Stephanie Müller
11/09 - 15/09
18/09 - 21/09
Room installation

«Fourth Eye, 4.40 AM»
Ceylan Öztrük
11/09, 13/09, 14/09, 15/09
Performance

«Pas Moi»
Diana Anselmo

(in LIS, Italian sign language)
12/09, 13/09,
Lecture-Performance

«Muskeln aus Plastik - a crip-queer reading»
Kay Matter
14/09
Reading

«Neutralitätstheater – The myth of Switzerland put to the test!»
Hannan Salamat and Fatima Moumouni

18/09
Talk, Performance

«Sleight of Hand»
Jo Bannon

(in German spoken language)
19/09
Installation, Performance

«Sleight of Hand»
Jo Bannon

(in English spoken language)
20/09
Installation, Performance

«When the Calabash Breaks»
Tiran Willemse and Melika Ngombe Kolongo (Nkisi)
20/09, 21/09
Open-Air-Performance, Music, Dance

«KOMMANDO AJAX»
Cemile Sahin
21/09
Reading

More Shows

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