Lina LindheimerAs We Are Waiting

The first piece in the Ensemble Mobil series was the performance As We Are Waiting by choreographer Lina Lindheimer. The presentation took place in the waiting room of a Frankfurt job center and turned people into protagonists who sat and waited there. Lindheimer chose the space because it constitutes a gap – a space between unemployment and finding a new job, between idleness and movement. But waiting does not necessarily mean standstill. Choreographers believe that there is no such thing as true idleness. So Berlin choreographer Lina Lindheimer asked people waiting at Job centers in Frankfurt, Hofheim and Wiesbaden: “What are we really doing, when we do nothing?”. The performers then slipped into the role of the waiting and followed dreams and personal utopias. Together, the attendees created a change of perspective that sharpened the view of the potential and the movement in the apparent standstill.

The performance took place on four days in February 2017 at Jobcenter Frankfurt-Ost as well as in June 2017 in job centers in Wiesbaden and in Hofheim. It was only accessible to people who happened to be waiting there at the time of presentation.

Cast & Credits

Concept: Lina Lindheimer | Realization: Katja Dreyer, Mart Kangro, René Liebert, Lina Lindheimer, Lito Walkey | Sound: Nils Weishaupt | Set Design: Anne Kuhn, René Liebert | Performed by: Mart Kangro, Lito Walkey, Katja Dreyer

Kindly supported by the Jobcenter Frankfurt am Main, Kommunales Jobcenter Wiesbaden and Kreisausschuss of the Main-Taunus-Kreis.

Lina Lindheimer is a choreographer based in Berlin. She studied choreography and performance in Gießen and contemporary dance in Arnhem.
Her work includes performance, choreography and film, frequently linking video to performative elements. Her productions often entail an outside perspective on dance. Lina Lindheimer’s works often include an external perspective on contemporary dance; for example, for the production Berliner Tänzer (2004), she interviewed all the people named Tänzer she could find in the Berliner Telephone Book about dance. For the choreography SOLO (Standing on the shoulders of giants) (2007), she worked exclusively with movements of passers-by, whom she met by chance in Hamburg and none of whom were professional dancers. Lindheimer creates her own and collaborative projects as well as commissioned works and has been active as a mentor and lecturer.