steel

ffffffff 2023-2024
Performance/ Installation
45 min.
german/ english

Concept, Artistic Direction, Choreography:
Kristina Kusmina Dreit
Performance, Choreography:
Julia Müllner, Camilla Schielin
Scenography: Yi-Ju Chou
Dramatrugical Accompany: Isabel Gatzke
Sound: Anna Froelicher
Videodocumentation: Vik Beyer
Mentoring: Stefanie Seibold

Funded by Fonds darstellende Künste aus Mitteln der beauftragten für Kultur und Medien im Programm NEUSTART KULTUR and ada Studio for contemporary dance at Uferstudio Berlin.
sdffffff The performance steel starts as a duet by dancers Camilla Schielin and Julia Müllner. Inspired by research conducted in decommissioned and operational steel factories, feminist archives, metal workshops, and online search engines, the piece unfolds as an atmospheric and sensual choreography.

The dramaturgy employs repetition to explore the physicality and imagery of hypermasculinity associated with steel.

steel (stage version) was shown 2023 at adaStudio/Uferstudios Berlin,  and 2025 at Haus der Berliner Festspiele. The performance/ installation was shown at Academy of fine arts Vienna 2024.

Thank you for the Services

ffffffff2023
HD-Video, 6 min.
indonesian/ russian
english subtitles

Concept/ Direction:
Kristina Kusmina Dreit, Riyadhus Shalihin
Performance, Collaboration, Text: Fauziana Shalihin, Tatjana Dreit
Cinematography, Support Sound: Felix Röben
Editing:Kristina Kusmina Dreit, Riyadhus Shalihin, Felix Röben

Supported by galeri indeks Bandung and Goethe-Institut Indonesia.
sdffff Two women exchange letters across shifting political landscapes. The film draws inspiration from the experiences of Kristina Kusmina Dreits and Riyadhus Shalihins mothers, who work in the healthcare sector. Thank You For The Services is a story of care, healing, and solidarity.

The Video was shown 2023 at galeri indeks Bandung/ Indonesia.

by heart

ffffffff 2023
work in process
HD-Video
german/ russian
english subtitles

Concept/ Direction:
Kristina Kusmina Dreit,
Performance, Collaboration, Text: Tatjana Dreit
Cinematography, Support Sound: Felix Röben
Editing:Kristina Kusmina Dreit, Felix Röben
sdffffff by heart is an exploration of the social and sensuous space of a rehabilitation clinic in northern Germany, where my mother has worked for many years. Together, we delve into the social codes and everyday scripts that define this environment, questioning the seemingly outdated practice of learning something by heart and weaving thoughts around labour and rest.

Fashionshow: Working Class Daughters

ffffffff 2021-2022
sound installation, 35 min.
german
english subtitles

car, printednt-shirts, packaged t-shirts, orange vest, pair of jeans, printed magazine

Concept/ Direction:
Kristina Kusmina Dreit, Karolina Dreit
Performance, Collaboration, Text: Tatjana Dreit
Cinematography, Support Sound: Felix Röben
Editing:Kristina Kusmina Dreit, Felix Röben
sdffffff The installation Fashionshow: Working Class Daughters consists of a specially designed T-shirt collection and draws on images of Eastern European markets and informal trade. Subtly, it references on current phenomenon in which so-called workwear, or clothing typically associated with labor, has made its way into high-fashion contexts.

The installation takes place at the edges of institutional spaces (the forecourt of the Berlinische Galerie / inner courtyard of the Sophiensaele / parking lot in front of the Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof) and casts a gaze on their (in)formal entrances and exits.

The installation was presented in 2022 at Berlinische Galerie as part of the exhibition Klassenfragen and in 2021 at the Performing Arts Festival Berlin on the Introducing… platform, as well as at Sophiensaele Berlin and at Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof Hamburg.

Fashionshow: Working Class Daughters

ffffffff 2019
Performance, 60 min.
german

Concept/ Artistic Direction:
Kristina Kusmina Dreit, Karolina Dreit
Performance:  Kristina Kusmina Dreit, Karolina Dreit,
Anna Trzpis-McLean
Scenography: Anna Trzpis-McLean
Sound/ Support Lightdesign: Curtis McLean
sdffffff Based on interviews conducted with women and queers from our circle of friends and acquaintances, we developed a setting based on biographical and performative moments of class at the Frankfurt Lab Studio. A fashion show without models—where the clothes stand on their own, and voices emerge from beneath the audience‘s seats.

Throughout the performance, it remains deliberately unclear whether we are in front of or behind the stage. Our roles shift continuously between spatial arrangers, performers, designers, stagehands, and attentive listeners.

Working Class Daughters

ffffffff 2018
side specific Intervention and Installation
45 min.
german

HD-video, 4:35 min; two printed banners; historical banner form the first hunger strike of the Hoesch women‘s group Dortmund, three tables and six chairs, corduroy vest, beer and glass, glass ashtray

Concept/ Artistic Direction:
Kristina Kusmina Dreit, Karolina Dreit
Performance:  Kristina Kusmina Dreit, Karolina Dreit,
Anna Trzpis-McLean
Scenography: Anna Trzpis-McLean
sdffffff The performance and installation Working Class Daughters was created in engagement with the history of the former Hoesch Spundwand site in Dortmund’s Unionviertel. From a feminist perspective, it seeks the voices of the workers: What experiences shape the image of the area? Where and how were structures and representations of (industrial) labor fought for? What continues to persist?

A staged demonstration begins at the factory gates of the former Westfalenhütte, where, in February 1981, the Hoesch women’s group went on hunger strike to protest against impending job cuts. During the collective demonstration, voices from a loudspeaker are heard: two former Hoesch women recount organizing a mass demonstration, their confrontations with unions, their desires and aspirations. For a brief moment, the women’s movement and the labor movement—though not without conflict—came together.

The demonstration ends in a walkable stage set reminiscent of the former strike venues. In this space the documentary material is framed by imaginations of possible futures for the former steel sites.

This work was created as part of the WORK AT WERK UNION scholarship and was presented at the FAVORITEN Festival 2018 in Dortmund, accompanied by an artist talk and a discussion on feminist perspectives on labor.