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«Mutterzungen»
Rebekka Bangerter

in collaboration with Asa Hendry, Solange P. Molu, Felicia Touvenot
PerformanceTheatre

What is lost when a language disappears? An intimate, poetic encounter between three speakers of endangered languages in the dark.

  • Thu 11/0620:00 – 21:30

    Premiere followed by a snack and drink reception

    Halle

  • Sat 13/0620:00 – 21:30

    Halle

    Followed by a talk with the artists

  • Mon 15/0620:00 – 21:30

    Halle

  • Tue 16/0620:00 – 21:30

    Halle

Sorbian woman putting on traditional costume. Copyright: Felicia Touvenot
  • Audio description
  • Touch Tour

What makes language alive—and where does understanding begin? 

A linguist who speaks Bamum-Shüpamom, an author who speaks Romansh, and a language activist who speaks Sorbian come together in a space filled with cushions, voices and memories. Fluidly switching between different languages, translations, and the untranslatable, they reflect together on loss and legacy, on language as a form of resistance and a space of possibility. 

The audience lies in the middle of this conversation, similar to a sleepover, where language appears not as a pure means of communication, but as sound, relationship, and lived practice. Mindful listening beyond linguistic understanding becomes a shared experience.

A theater evening that emerges in the spaces between translations. In various spoken languages. Without surtitles.

After-talk

On Saturday, June 13, there will be an after-talk with the artists following the show. There will be a 15-minute intermission. The conversation will be moderated and translated into English by Noa Winter (Dramaturgy,Gessnerallee). We invite the audience to participate in various
languages. Languages understood in the space are Bamum-Shüpamom, German, English, French, Romansh, Swiss German, Sorbian, and Spanish.

Disappearance of languages

Around 7,000 languages are spoken worldwide. Of these, only about 65 are considered secure – and almost half of the languages spoken today are at risk of disappearing within the next few generations. This is a loss of unprecedented proportions: never before in human history has linguistic diversity declined so rapidly. But what is lost when a language disappears? Not only words, but knowledge, memories, worldviews, relationships, and ways of describing and understanding the world. 

An insight into the topic: https://www.endangeredlanguages.com/

Information on accessibility and language 

  • Stepless access

  • Age: Recommended from 12+ years

  • Sprache: Multilingual performance in various spoken languages – Bamum-Shüpamom, Romansh, Sorbian, English, German, Swiss German and French. Not everything is translated. Listening beyond linguistic understanding is part of the experience.

  • Audio Description: A touch tour with Julia Skof takes place before each performance at 7.40pm. Meeting point: Access Infopoint in Stall6.

  • Touch Tour: A touch tour with Lenthe Basant takes place before each performance at 7.40 pm. Meeting point: Access Infopoint Point in Stall6.

  • Pick-up service: People who would like to be picked up from Zurich main station to attend the event can contact us at barrierefreiheit@gessnerallee.ch up to two hours before the show begins

  • Admission and Audience: There is a seating and lounging area which is audience space and stage at once. Beanbags and chairs can be reserved to accommodate accessibility requirements. The beanbags have a warm fabric cover and cannot be propped up against a wall or other support. During admission, the audience is invited to leave their shoes and belongings at a clothing rack. Socks and torches will be provided. Audience members can use the torch to signal when they wish to leave the room.

  • Content Notes: colonialism, colonial extraction, suppression of peoples and languages, Sorbian history during World War 2, National Socialism, the expulsion of peoples, mention of neo-Nazi violence and the desecration of graves.

  • Light: A large part of the performance takes place in the dark. It gradually gets lighter as the performance progresses. The performers use torches, which may be dazzling at times.

  • Sound: The performance has many very quiet moments. For most of the time, only the performers’ conversations can be heard. In one scene, pre-recorded interviews are played. Various sounds are used, such as bird and cicada calls, as well as synthesised sounds (high-pitched and deep, swirling tones).

  • Other sensory stimuli: At the end, the gate to the street is opened. This can create an observational situation with passers-by.

  • Concept, Artistic Director:
    Rebekka Bangerter
    Artistic Collaborators & Performance:
    Asa Hendry, Solange P. Molu, Felicia Touvenot
    Text:
    Asa Hendry, Solange P. Molu, Felicia Touvenot, Rebekka Bangerter
    Dramaturgy:
    Hayat Erdoğan / Henriette Festerling
    Scenography and Costume:
    Franca Manz
    Sounddesign and Composition:
    Dominic Röthlisberger
    Lighting Design and Technical Director:
    Lukas Sander
    Illustration:
    Matthias Nüesch
    Consultation and Artistic Collaboration Audio Description:
    Lenthe Basant
    Audio description contributor and audio description narrator:
    Julia Skof
    Production
    Rebekka Bangerter / Asa Hendry
    Interviews and Voices:
    Madlenka Šołćic, Marija Šołćic, Regina Šołćic, Gianna Olinda Cadonau, Paul Caduff, Werner Carigiet und weitere
    In coproduction with:
    Gessnerallee und Frascati Producties.
    With heartfelt thanks to:
    Übersetzerhaus Looren, HIGA! Gasteiz, YEN, Juliana Matthew, Mariona Miret, Nina Postma, Quadriye Yildiz, Amin El-Didi, Anna Feliu, Bharathi Mayandi Franaszek, Denise Ledermann, Hevin Karakurt, Julia Büsser, Ulysse Berdat, Viktoria Mytsyk

  • Rebekka Bangerter / Artistic Director
    Rebekka Bangerter is a Swiss theater maker and director. She studied theater directing at ZHdK, Zurich, object theater/new media and performance at UNA, Buenos Aires, and German philology, linguistics, and history in Basel. She also holds a master's degree in DAS Theatre – Performative Research in Amsterdam. Her works have been produced and shown nationally and internationally, including at Gessnerallee Zurich, Roxy Basel, Postremise Chur, Bühne Aarau, Anhaltisches Theater Dessau, Theater Osnabrück, Theater Darmstadt, Dampfzentrale Bern, Monty, Antwerp, Tajrobeh Festival Tehran, and Theater on Screen, Kiev. In 2017, she was invited to the Körber-Regiefestival at the Thalia Theater Hamburg. She is a finalist for the Swiss PREMIO award for young talent. As a dramaturge, she won the recognition award at the Zurich Theater Spektakel in 2024 together with Chun Shing Au for the work GPO BOX No 211. In addition to her work as a theater maker, she teaches regularly at the ZHdK. In her work, she playfully explores seemingly abstract themes such as the production and organization of knowledge, but also posthumanism, digitalization, and work, and works with and around language, technology, and the co-presence of the audience.

    Asa Hendry / Artistic Collaborator and Performance
    Asa Hendry grew up in Val Lumnezia in the Surselva region of Graubünden and graduated from the Cantonal School in Chur. Asa then studied theater studies and gender studies at the Institute for Theater Studies in Bern and graduated from the Institute for Applied Theater Studies in Giessen (Hesse, Germany). They work in the fields of literature, theater, and performance and publish regularly in magazines. They won the Term Bel Literature Prize for the Romansh-speaking region twice, in 2016 and 2018. At the age of fifteen, Asa wrote the fantasy book Emalio in Romansh together with Flurina Albin, which was later published by Chasa Editura Rumantscha in 2015. In 2018, they published their debut novel Sin lautget (Chasa Editura Rumantscha; Grisons Literature Prize 2021). In 2024, Asa received the Premi Travers Zuoz for their play Bab, siu archiv ed jeu, which will be premiered by Rebekka Bangerter at the Festival Travers in September 2025. Together with the company Pop-Up Mountain, they received the PREMIO 2025 award for young talent. Asa writes and thinks at the intersection of mountains, queerness, 3D animation, and literature. 

    Felicia Touvenot / Artistic Collaborator and Performance
    Felicia Touvenot is an artist and activist who is involved in the fields of communication, human rights, and art. Raised in a Sorbian-speaking family, she spent 20 years in France, where she studied communication sciences, computer science, and event management in Paris. Since 2021, Felicia has been working at the NGO ‘Youth of European Nationalities’ as Convenor for Member Integration, where she advocates for national and indigenous languages and nationalities. In this role, she has visited various ethnic groups in Europe and is actively working on various projects for the preservation of minority languages. Felicia is fluent in French and Sorbian as her native languages, as well as English and German, and is currently learning Spanish. She organizes projects to promote the Sorbian language, regularly performs in various theater productions, gives regular workshops at the phōnē Network for Regional and Minority Language Theater, and has taught French online. She also works as a junior trainer for a youth exchange program on traditions and leads workshops on intergenerational dialogue and intra-community networking at an artist residency in Barcelona.

    Solange P. Molu / Artistic Collaborator and Performance
    Solange P. Molu is a linguist, copywriter, and cultural mediator with a special focus on language, education, and art. She began her education in Cameroon with a teaching diploma in French from the Yaoundé University of Education, followed by a BA in French literature. In 2018, she received her doctorate in linguistics from Sorbonne Paris Cité and Paris 7 University. Her expertise includes data collection, analysis, and evaluation, as well as knowledge representation. In addition to working as a French teacher in Cameroon and Switzerland, she has worked as a mediator and moderator, as a development engineer at the CNRS in Paris, and as a storyteller and copywriter for Positive Charge International. Her current interest is in activist theater, in which she uses art as a tool for social change—for example, in her plays ‘Why Are You Here’ (2022) about social justice and ‘Zueritopia’ (2023) about climate change. Solange is fluent in Bamum-Shüpamom, French (her native language), and English, and has a B2 level of proficiency in German. She lives in Zurich and has two children.

    Dominic Röthlisberger / Composition and Sounddesign
    Born in Solothurn, Dominic Röthlisberger studied composition at Zurich University of the Arts. Since 2020, he has been working as a freelance composer, musician, sound designer, and passionate instrument and sound hunter. His work includes stage and film projects as well as installations and concert compositions. He is currently involved in various projects and formations in the independent theater scene in Switzerland, with productions at the Theater Roxy in Basel, the Gessnerallee Zurich, the Theater Stadelhofen, and the Schlachthaustheater in Bern. He writes music for ensembles of various sizes, most recently for the Solothurn Boys' Choir (‘Arigs Bärze,’ 2020), and publishes his own singer-songwriter songs under the pseudonym ‘Lenos Lenophyllum,’ most recently the EP ‘Heiweh’ in spring 2021.
    Dominic Röthlisberger is a scholarship holder of the Hirschmann Foundation (2017) and winner of the Anzeiger Culture Promotion Prize (2019). As part of the Solothurn Culture Promotion Prize, he has been awarded a six-month studio residency in Paris in 2023. Dominic Röthlisberger lives and works in Zurich and Solothurn.

    Franca Manz / Scenography and Costume
    Franca Manz navigates between theatre and art, usually through collaborative processes. She works as a freelance costume designer and scenographer in various constellations for theatre, dance and performance within Switzerland’s independent arts scene. She studied scenography at undergraduate level at the ZHdK and Den Danske Scenekunstskole in Copenhagen, and completed an MFA in Public Spheres at the édhéa in Sierre. In her artistic practice, she explores disappearance, mourning rituals and bodily shells, developing installation-based works in interstitial spaces — on window panes, at terminus stops, in the wind. With a focus on textile materials, she explores the dialogue with places, their inhabitants, the weather and chance, weaving in relationships with the invisible and the intangible. Franca lives and works in Zurich.

    Lukas Sander / Lighting Design and Technical Director
    Lukas Sander was born and raised in Berlin. He studied scenography at the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design (2005-12) under Penelope Wehrli and Beatrix von Pilgrim, as well as stage design at the Zurich University of the Arts (2012-15) under Michael Simon. He was then an associate artist in the Artistic Fellowship Program at Zurich University of the Arts (2016-19), where he was mentored by Prof. Dr. Barbara Gronau. Since 2008, he has been working as a scenographer, lighting designer, and video artist—first in Germany and, since 2012, mainly in the independent scene in Switzerland. Various projects in which he has been involved have been invited to international festivals. He is a founding member of several artistic collectives for numerous collaborations in theater and installation art. In his own productions, he realizes site-specific projects, installations, and video walks. He works and teaches at the Zurich University of the Arts and lives in Zurich.

  • Stadt Zürich Kultur, Ernst Göhner Stiftung, SWISSLOS/Kulturförderung, Kanton Graubünden, Stiftung Wali Dad, Oertli-Stiftung, Landis & Gyr Stiftung, Migros-Kulturprozent, Casinelli Vogel Stiftung

    Residencies and research support: Gessnerallee Zürich, Frascati Amsterdam, Monty Antwerpen, Lia Rumantscha  

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