Profil

Flinn Works was founded in 1992 and is led by artistic director Sophia Stepf in close collaboration with Lisa Stepf (concept and networking), Konradin Kunze (concept and project direction). It has independently produced and presented more than 20 productions in a wide range of different venues and festivals. Always engaging with current social and political issues and a focus on post-colonial and feminits themes, the company devises its work in collaboration with professional artists and performers. Flinn Works has expanded its activities beyond Europe, with the input of writers, performers and musicians from other countries, including India, Bangladesh, Tanzania, Rwanda and Nigeria.

Through the investigation of questions that resonate globally, performance, music and text are created with artists who work in different art forms and locations. The style of each Flinn Works production varies, as determined by the key artists and performers and their specific skills and experiences. Employing multiperspectivity and a strong commitment to intensive research are the key aspects of Flinn Works' productions. Flinn Works also works closely with academics (historians and anthropologists) for their research based approach.

Flinn Works' productions include:

  • INDIA SIMULATOR™ (2009), a futuristic assessment centre with texts commissioned from Indian writers
  • A SMALL SMALL WORLD (2011, co-production with the Goethe-Institutes in Dhaka and Bangalore), documentary theatre about the Bangladeshi refugee Hamidur Rahman
  • DAS A-CASTING (2011, co-production with the Hebbel am Ufer in Berlin), with texts commissioned from Indian writers for performers with a family background of migration
  • THE POWER PLAY (2012), a meditation on energy and electricity, created as a co-production with the Lagos_Live Festival
  • C SHARP C BLUNT (2013), a solo work produced in India about the paradoxical professional lives of female performers in the Indian entertainment industry.
  • SHILPA - THE INDIAN SINGER APP (2013) was created as the European edition of C SHARP C BLUNT, produced in Berlin and Kassel.
  • KRISHNA’S ELITE (2013) employed a semi-documentary format to investigate the mindsets of future world leaders from India.
  • KOSA LA VITA was developed as a collaboration between Flinn Works and Quartett PLUS 1, and explored documentary music theatre whilst undertaking the flausen – young artists residency at the Theater Wrede+ in Oldenburg in 2013. Flinn Works/Quartett PLUS 1 was the first group to ever be awarded this residency twice, and as a result the research project continued in 2015 with KOSA LA VITA - REVISION.
  • SONGS OF THE T-SHIRT (2015) a docufictional performance on the textile industry in Bangladesh, for European audiences.
  • SCHÄDEL X (Skull X) and MAJI MAJI FLAVA are two performances created in 2016, centering around Germany's colonial history in East Africa.
  • GLOBAL BELLY (2017) is a research based, immersive performance on transnational surrogacy.
  • KOSA LA VITA (2018) is a piece of documentary music theatre
  • MANGI MELI REMAINS (2019) is a video sculpure on the live, death and afterlife of Chief Meli of Moshi, who as executed by German colonialist, his skull still believed to be in a German musuem.
  • FEAR & FEVER (2019) is a research based, immersive performance for 70 audience members engaging with the disease Malaria and healing approaches
  • LEARNING FEMINISM FROM RWANDA (2020) is a video thatre performance centering on political empowerment and on the quota for women.
  • GLOBAL BELLY_ZOOM (2021) and GLOBAL BELLY_INSTALLATION (2021) are digital adaptations for an international audience of the 2017 live performance 'Global Belly'
  • WHITE MONEY (2021) presents six new works of art as a response to the global art market and the domincane of white funding structures
  • MAREJESHO (2022) is a mobile museum that presents artefacts in German museums to the communities that they were stolen from in the Kilimanjaor region, Tanzania
  • BOSS/Y (2022) takes great speeches by female politicians and explores feminist leadership and feminist foreign policy as concepts for the future

In 2009 Flinn Works was awarded the Kasseler Kulturpreis, the cultural award of the Dr.-Wolfgang-Zippel-Stiftung. The 2009 play, INDIA SIMULATOR™, won several awards, among them the audience prize at the Hessisches Theatertreffen in 2011. In 2014, C SHARP C BLUNT won three META awards (Mahinda Excellency in Theatre Awards) in Delhi, and the European edition, SHILPA, won the Secondo Festival in Aarau and the ZKB Patronage Prize at the Zürcher Theater Spektakel, Switzerland in 2014. 2018 GLOBAL BELLY was invited to Impulse Festival and won the audience price at the 2019 edition of Hessische Theatertage. In 2021 Flinn Works recieved the federal Tabori-Award of the Fonds Darstellende Künste for its outstanding work in transnational research-based theatre and in 2023 it will recieve the prize of ITI Germany.

Flinn Works regularly tours its productions in Germany; Switzerland and India, and has travelled to Dhaka, Lagos, Washington, Johannesburg, Dar-es-Salaam, Singapore and Hong Kong.
Flinn Works is a registered not-for-profit association (e.V.).