Two evenings at Schauspielhaus Zürich, and what followed us home
In 2026, REMAIN went to the theatre twice: in February to the Schiffbau for Ta-Nia’s somatic ritual, in April to the Pfauen for Pinar Karabulut’s Ein Sommernachtstraum. Both evenings ended the same way: together, with time to let the experience settle.
What remains? What follows us home.
REMAIN is dedicated to the moments after a cultural experience. It begins where performances end, when emotions settle, questions linger and the body still remembers. It is a facilitated space for decompression, reflection and dialogue: a moderated conversation and close exchanges with guests connect the artistic experience with personal insight, institutional practice and collective imagination.
(What You’ll Find) On the Way to Becoming
A somatic ritual by Ta-Nia, the theatre duo Talia Paulette Oliveras and Nia Farrell. Their poetic, immersive, ritual-like performances invite audiences into collective presence and transformation, rooted in everyday Afrofuturism. Theatrical storytelling meets embodied experience, drawing on Black culture, dreaming and futurity.
It is less about observation and more about participation: what it means to be together, to become, to imagine otherwise. With this piece, Ta-Nia brought one of their Afrofuturist works to a Swiss stage for the first time.
Read: Ta-Nia in conversation →- 18:45Arrival
- 19:00Introduction by Schauspielhaus Zürich
- 19:30The performance begins
- 21:30End of the performance, then decompression
- 21:45REMAIN, a collective conversationuntil 22:30
About Afrofuturism
Afrofuturism is a cultural and artistic practice that explores Black futures through imagination, memory and speculation. It weaves history, lived experience, technology, spirituality and creativity to ask which futures are possible when Black people place themselves at the centre of their own narratives. Rather than escaping reality, it reclaims it, in music, visual art, literature, fashion and performance. At its core: agency, possibility and becoming.
Who are we becoming, and what worlds can we still imagine together?
After the applause fades.
- 01What remains after the applause fades?
- 02What does your body remember that words cannot explain?
- 03Who are you becoming in the spaces between performance and reality?
- 04What changes when we allow an experience to settle, rather than rush past it?
- 05How does shared presence shape what stays with us?
Ein Sommernachtstraum
Pinar Karabulut’s staging of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and an evening in five steps.
- 01
Outside first
We met around a table nearby before going in together.
- 02
In the foyer
An introduction to a world between dream and reality, and a question: whose reality?
- 03
The play
Shared by everyone in the room, and never identical for any two people.
- 04
Backstage
After the applause, a walk behind the stage: actors in between roles, and a glimpse of the roughly seventy roles it takes to make a production happen.
- 05
REMAIN in the Kantine
We closed the evening in the theatre’s Kantine, with time to talk about what had stayed with us.
- possibility
- diversity
- colourfulness
- complexity
- openness
Whoever wants more, we’ll continue. Just not always in the same setting.
Thank you to Dr. phil. Yuvviki “Yuvvi” Dioh for making parts of the unseen visible, and to the whole Schauspielhaus Zürich team for welcoming AfroSwissters twice.