Der Betrieb, housed in a former ground-floor shop in Vienna’s 15th district, is a durational piece initiated by choreographers Alexander Gottfarb and Anna Maria Nowak. In recent years, the art space with its durational dance performances has become an integral part of the city’s cultural landscape.

Now, with its eighth season, The Season of Narratives, Alexander Gottfarb and his long-term collaborators add text to their choreographic toolbox, explore how stories shape identity and guide behaviour and look at how narratives create meaning, offer models for action and influence the sense of self. Yet human actions often arise from bodily intent rather than belief or planning, and stories can oversimplify this complexity. When one narrative becomes dominant, it risks silencing others and reinforcing power structures – raising questions of who controls a story and whose voices remain unheard.The Season of Narratives is a durational dance performance that explores how stories shape identity and guide behaviour. Der Betrieb is located at a ground-floor space that used to house a shop and is easily accessible free of charge. The audience can come, stay and leave as they wish. As the dancers’ repetitive movements are woven together with spoken words, what emerges is a space for reflection, where dance and text invite everybody to reevaluate the role narratives play.

For The Season of Narratives, scriptwriter Anna Mendelssohn, together with the performers, will develop speeches that interweave personal stories with sourced material, exploring how narratives emerge and intertwine. The speeches will appear both as recorded material and as live templates, transformed during the performance through choreographic tools. The audience is also invited to join the exploration by contributing personal stories to a shared ‘Kartothek,’ reflecting on how every story can shift, multiply, and be told anew.