A Season Between the Lines is an interdisciplinary performance exploring how public language—headlines, speeches, slogans—is shaped by metaphor and embodied experience. Rooted in performative practice the work approaches texts not as scripts to recite but as physical material - a living terrain of meanings to inhabit and transform through movement, voice and sound.
Building on Anna Maria Nowak’s research into the embodied nature of thought and language, the performance treats public content as a “body of text”. The performers hunt down metaphors embedded in everyday language: what happens when “coming under pressure” or “healing a nation” are taken literally, with our bodies? What physicality lies behind the “weight of responsibility”? Drawing on shared experiences of space, pressure, pain or orientation, such metaphors subtly shape our emotional and political responses. Der Betrieb’s artistic team moves beyond surface meanings to reveal the rhetorical forces at play.
By physically exploring the weight, energy, and gestures present in language, the artists search for hidden framings and develop tools for navigating the constant (over) flow of information. How might the act of “moving” language reshape the existing narratives? Can we influence the discourse by adding more space, time, and body between the lines?
The space, designed by the visual artist Hanna Hollmann becomes a metaphor in itself, echoing the abstract concepts that are being physically navigated. Visitors are invited into this evolving space to witness and participate in the transformation and re-imagining of the texts.
In A Season Between the Lines Der Betrieb becomes a poetic space of sense-making, where ideas are not presented as fixed positions but explored as living processes. Through the interaction of word, body, and space, they are set into motion, not in stone.
FR 16.10.2026 Workshop @Der Betrieb
19:15-20:15
Moving Between the Lines - Practice Sharing
Registration at TQW, free of charge / freier Eintritt
Accompanying A Season Between the Lines this open level workshops led by Anna Maria Nowak explore some of the scores and strategies developed for the work. What happens when we take phrases like “hit back at criticism” literally? Participants are welcome to bring their own texts.
*in collaboration with TQW
FR 23.10.2026 Der Betrieb × echoraum #3
18:00 meeting point
19:00 Soundwalk with Tim Shaw from Der Betrieb to echoraum
20:00 Concert & Performance Tim Shaw · Magdalena Forster @echoraum
Sechshauser Straße 66, 1150 Vienna
*in collaboration with echoraum
FR 6.11.2026 Workshop @Der Betrieb
19:15-20:15
Moving Between the Lines - Practice Sharing
Registration at TQW, free of charge / freier Eintritt
Accompanying A Season Between the Lines this open level workshops led by Anna Maria Nowak explore some of the scores and strategies developed for the work. What happens when we take phrases like “hit back at criticism” literally? Participants are welcome to bring their own texts.
*in collaboration with TQW
SAT 21.11.2026 Workshop @Der Betrieb
10:00-13:00
Embodied Reflection:Thinking through Movement, Dancing through Thoughts
Registration at derbetrieb@archipelago.at, free of charge/freier Eintritt
The workshop explores listening as an embodied practice, where movement, language and voice emerge through attention to the body, others and space. Through improvisation, participants develop responsiveness, physical awareness and their own movement vocabularies.
*in collaboration with sonic territories