LEILA HEKMAT

Roses Rising is a two part performance presented in the spring of 2026 at Gropius Bau and HAU1 Hebbel am Ufer Berlin.

Roses Rising - The Movement was presented at Gropius Bau Berlin in March 2026 curated by Nora-Swantje Almes.

Roses Rising - The Dinner was presented at HAU1 Hebbel am Ufer Berlin in April 2026 with support from Haupstadtkulturfonds.

Roses Rising is a two part performance presented in the spring of 2026 at Gropius Bau and HAU1 Hebbel am Ufer Berlin. When the bourgeoise faith in progress and reason is unsettled, how does the longing for revolt take shape? And how tightly entwined are self-interest and radical dissent? Moving between concert, play and ballet, the performance invites the audience to witness a dinner party unravel into a happening.

Roses Rising - The Dinner: No time and place in particular. 4 guests. 4 manifestations of the happenings inside and outside. Delusions, self-doubt, political exasperation, narcissistic agitation, a hopeful urge to act - each character finds their way differently in the field of tension between a self-satisfied existence, the bourgeois impulse of self-criticism and the sometimes helpless, sometimes action-orientated desire for political resistance against the authoritarian order. Roses Rising -The Movement developed through extensive research and collected materials on 1970s protest cultures, the work emerges as a performative collage that explores the conscious and unconscious strategies through which people respond to a world in crisis.