- Literature & Poetry
- Performance Art
- Dance
Mollusks
Lena Michaelis, Kai Kobayashi
4 July 2026 20:00–21:00
Live radio play performance
Mollusks
The volcanic landscape is covered with asphalt. Soil is sold in plastic bags, and the air is measured in Mohs hardness. Two guards form the A-UN, the beginning and end of things, with their mouths open and closed. A shepherd cares for the abandoned on the street, letting them drink from a bottle of water in his hand. Between destruction and creation, new life forms emerge. Mollusks. It is a sound. It is toxic. It is base. Cobalt blue is Malvin's decision; he tries to escape the reaction. Weathering processes take place within him. Every movement begins a narrative. It is an inner process that appears in all sensory impressions. A sound, a minimal movement, continues. Things change their states.
The times of the present run in different directions. Onomatopoeia speaks the movement in sound, condensing the earliest memories of an impression. Malvin is a cephalopod on his way to the remembering places of his body.
Mollusks are invertebrates such as mussels, cephalopods, and snails. Their sensory perceptions and transformative abilities are diverse and complex. Some cephalopods have nine brains, can transform their color, texture, and movement, and communicate through the colors they change.
The live audio drama performance Mollusks plays with onomatopoeia, linguistic breaks, and multifaceted perspectives of perception.
Mollusks
The volcanic landscape is covered with asphalt. Soil is sold in plastic bags, and the air is measured in Mohs hardness. Two guards form the A-UN, the beginning and end of things, with their mouths open and closed. A shepherd cares for the abandoned on the street, letting them drink from a bottle of water in his hand. Between destruction and creation, new life forms emerge. Mollusks. It is a sound. It is toxic. It is base. Cobalt blue is Malvin's decision; he tries to escape the reaction. Weathering processes take place within him. Every movement begins a narrative. It is an inner process that appears in all sensory impressions. A sound, a minimal movement, continues. Things change their states.
The times of the present run in different directions. Onomatopoeia speaks the movement in sound, condensing the earliest memories of an impression. Malvin is a cephalopod on his way to the remembering places of his body.
Mollusks are invertebrates such as mussels, cephalopods, and snails. Their sensory perceptions and transformative abilities are diverse and complex. Some cephalopods have nine brains, can transform their color, texture, and movement, and communicate through the colors they change.
The live audio drama performance Mollusks plays with onomatopoeia, linguistic breaks, and multifaceted perspectives of perception.
Biography
Lena Michaelis, Kai Kobayashi
Lena Michaelis works across text, dance, and radio drama. She studied literary writing and dance studies. Synesthetic perceptual complexes form her idiosyncratic poetics. In 2021, she won the SAAI Award for Art and Society with Transpondancer. Solo performances in Malta and Essen followed hereinafter at the AdK and Nachtschattengewächse. Last year she presented her literary piece rumores. She creates audio descriptions for visually impaired audiences. In 2024 she published her novella Mollusken, followed in 2025 by the radio play Of(f) silences and Kobaltblau. Of(f) silences was described as “radically literary” in the dance magazine. In 2026, she received a cultural grant for her literary performance Milieu. She is currently working at the Maxim Gorki Theater.
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