About

Fresh and uncommon works of dance

Construction Company makes fresh and uncommon works of dance with curious bodies and a penchant for the unexpected.

Construction Company builds dances as embodied explorations of a given question. Its pieces draw on current events and (pop)cultural phenomena as starting points. Physical and anthropological research, moments of cooperation and exchange, and the committed labor of long- and short-term accomplices ripen seemingly simple ideas into performative complexity. Movement, text, scores, and sound create shifting atmospheres permeated with a wry humor and a restless physicality. Construction Company sees theater as a space that allows different realities to co-exist, as a platform through which performers and audience alike can question themselves and each other. It always returns to the oft-forgotten fact that everything we can know, we know through our bodies—and strives to unpack this with a sense of wonder and of play.

Construction Company works towards dance that is critical, experimental, feminist, and unexpected. It foregrounds curiosity, dialogue, and mutual respect as basic prerequisites for artistic practice. Based in Berlin, Germany, Construction Company was founded by choreographer Kareth Schaffer in 2021.

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Kareth Schaffer (1987, USA/NL), is a choreographer and performer who lives and works in Berlin, Germany. She practices an extended concept of choreography: to date she has scrutinized prophecies, mudwrestling, thrillers, synchronized swimming, foley, Angela Merkel, emojis, ancient monastic practices, and conversational formats in her “post-postmodern” (Astrid Kaminski for Jahrbuch Tanz) dance pieces.

Her works have been shown in Berlin (Sophiensaele, Tanzfabrik, HAU, Uferstudios, Ballhaus Ost), Amsterdam (Het Veemtheater), Düsseldorf (tanzhaus NRW), Essen (PACT Zollverein), Malmö, Hamburg (Kampnagel), Denpasar (CushCush Gallery), and Mexico City. They include a diptych about the tragic heroine Cassandra (Cassandra Has Turned 2 (2018) and Cassandra Has Turned 1 (2017)); a fictional fan-fiction piece about Angela Merkel (Merkel Dances (2019)); a dance piece about a story she won’t tell you (An Animal Went Out, 2016); an exhaustive examination of foley as a choreographic tool (Unheard Of, 2016); and a conceptual mudwrestling tournament with a dubious 100,000 views on Youtube (Dirty Money Mudwrestling).

Kareth Schaffer was named “new talent 2016” and nominated for “Female Dancer of the Year 2018” by Jahrbuch Tanz. Also in 2018 she was awarded the Pina Bausch Fellowship in cooperation with Mekar Bhuana Center in Denpasar, Bali. Schaffer gladly works with and for other artists such as deufert&plischke, Tino Sehgal, Stefanie Wenner, Yvon Chabrowski, Christian Falsnaes, Tomomi Adachi, Dragana Bulut, and Barbara Berti. She was an elected representative of the Berlin dance scene at the Round Table of Dance of the Berlin Senate in 2018, and served on the board of zeitgenössicher tanz berlin e.V. from 2019–2021, and is a member of the HZT Rat.