Title: Co-Creating Praxis
Facilitator: Dance artist, lecturer and scholar Dr. Kate Marsh
Dates: May 2 & 3, 2026 (Saturday and Sunday), 11am – 5pm
May 4 & 5, 2026 (Monday and Tuesday), 2pm – 8pm
Location: Un-Label Studio
Language: English Spoken Language (Peer-to-peer translation into German spoken language available upon request)
About
This four day WORKSHOP:dance invites disabled and ‑nondisabled artists with an existing practice to work, question, and experiment together in an environment built around access, curiosity, and shared authorship. Each day begins with a collective warm‑up practice shaped by the needs, rhythms, and capacities of everyone in the room. This opening session remains fluid and adaptive, offering space to arrive, tune in, and prepare for the work ahead. Throughout the day, we will move through a range of choreographic and improvisatory explorations, including solo, duet, and group tasks informed by the diverse practices of the artists present.
Participants are invited to bring their own research questions, embodied knowledge, and artistic curiosities. These will actively shape the direction of the workshop. We will close each day with a shared reflection, gathering insights, naming emerging questions and identifying possibilities to carry forward into the following session. At the heart of the WORKSHOP:dance is a commitment to accessible practice: finding ways to share space, collaborate, and support one another while honouring both individual and collective needs. Together, we will explore how access can be generative, relational, and integral to artistic enquiry.
I want to be with you. If you can’t go, then I don’t want to go. If we are traveling together, sharing political space together, building political family together, then I want to be with you. I want us to be together.
(Mia Mingus 2010)
The workshop is informed by Kate’s long-term exploration of leadership within dance and disability. It asks how leadership might be understood not as a role or position, but as something already present within our practices — in how we organise, teach, care, make and create together. Rather than fitting a prescribed model of leadership, the workshop recognises the extensive knowledge held by disabled artists: knowledge of bodies, choreography and pedagogy that can open new ways of working in the arts. There will be time to explore ideas of radical access and inclusion beyond participation, moving towards autonomous artistic practice. We will also address “access clashes” — moments when different needs conflict — and consider how they can be navigated so that every body and mind is accounted for.
The WORKSHOP:dance will be held in English, with peer-to-peer interpretation into German spoken language available upon request.
The professional training is aimed at professional and semi-professional dancers, choreographers, performers, facilitators and dance educators, with and without disabilities. Participants should bring some experience in the field of dance and movement.
The WORKSHOP:dance offers a space to intensify and deepen one’s own artistic practice and to continue developing on an ongoing basis. The format is understood particularly as empowerment for artists with disabilities who are already working actively and who wish to further develop their artistic practice, professional perspectives or visibility in a focused way, or who have questions regarding leadership in this field. The workshop creates an inclusive working environment that enables collaboration on equal terms, exchange and collective artistic creation.
Expert
Dr. Kate Marsh is a disabled dance artist-researcher and Assistant Professor at Coventry University’s Centre for Dance Research (C-DaRE). With over 20 years of experience in performance, teaching, and scholarship, her work explores Disability, perceptions of the body and leadership in dance. Marsh’s research often sits at the intersection of creative practice and technology, including projects on AI-driven co-design for prosthetics and digital interventions in disability and dance. She is committed to amplifying disabled voices in the arts, challenging traditional notions of leadership, and advancing inclusive, innovative approaches to dance research and practice.
Access
All event spaces are wheelchair accessible. Assistance dogs are welcome.
- Accessible for wheelchair users, ground-level access (door width entrance door 85 cm, door width glass door to studio 105 cm)
- Barrier-free bathroom with shower and toilet, including a lift system for wheelchair users (door with 82 cm)
- Barrier-free access to the garden via a stairlift for wheelchair users (door width studio to storage room where the lift is located 77 cm, door width storage room to garden 100 cm)
- Automatic door opener at entrance door
- 3 designated disabled parking spaces directly in front of the venue
- 1 additional disabled parking space provided by the City of Cologne around the corner
- Public transport: The barrier-free “Lenauplatz” stop oft he tram line 5 is 100 meters away
If needed, we can provide the following support services. Please indicate your requirements when registering:
- Peer-to-peer interpretation into German spoken language
- On-site work or mobility assistance (provided by Un-Label if required)
More Information
Address: Un-Label Studio | Hosterstr. 1-5 | 50825 Cologne-Neuehrenfeld
The Lenauplatz stop (barrier-free) of KVB Line 5 (Dom / Hbf – Ossendorf) is located in close proximity to the building at Hosterstraße 1-5.
Departure times (KVB)
Participation Fee per workshop:
Regural: 185€ (regular)
Reduced: 135€ (for pupils, students and colleagues)
Supportive: 85€ (for people with a disability ID card, the Cologne Pass, and recipients of Citizen’s Benefit (Bürgergeld), etc.)
(according to self-assessment)
Drinks and snacks will be provided.
For questions and further information, contact us at:
nikos@un-label.eu
+49 (221) – 5501544
info@un-label.eu
