“If you don’t respect your colleagues, you’re not gonna open any cans of worms. You’re not gonna be able to be vulnerable, to be really honest with people, if that respect isn’t there. I think we respect each other, I think we trust each other, and that provides fertile ground for trying out new things.”
Olivia Palmer-Baker
Kollektiv UNRUHE, the 13-member Berlin-based group, says loud and clear: Collaboration is the future, and it’s here to stay.
Founded in 2021 by students of the Universität der Künste Berlin, Kollektiv UNRUHE are a group of composers and performers bringing freshness to contemporary music in Berlin and Europe. UNRUHE strives to champion and facilitate non-hierarchical forms of collaboration — uniting their diverse skills as artists through groundbreaking contemporary music that showcases their many different personalities and backgrounds. With members from 10 different countries including Argentina, Italy, Greece, and Ireland, Kollektiv UNRUHE’s unique approach has resulted in performances with Rainy Days Festival Luxembourg, impuls Graz, and Därmstadter Ferienkurse, a tour with Ensemble Orbis, and large-scale commissions from Klangwerkstatt Berlin. Throughout 2024/25, UNRUHE have been Resident Ensemble for Contemporary Music at the Musikakademie Rheinsberg; and their latest collective work SPELL, commissioned by Klangwerkstatt, premieres at Kunstquarter Bethanien on 12 November 2025.
Following UNRUHE’s residency in Rheinsberg, Zygmund de Somogyi travelled to Berlin, in conjunction with the field notes Visiting Program of the Month of Contemporary Music, to meet with the collective. In Berlin, they spoke with bassoonist-composer Olivia Palmer-Baker, composer and founding member Ádám Bajnok, and composer-performer Luca Staffiere about collective composition, improvisation, arts funding, finding common languages, and more…
header photo © Maria Sturm
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Zyggy/PRXLUDES: Hi Olivia, Ádám, and Luca! Thank you so much for joining me today. We’re talking following the culmination of a year-long residency with Kollektiv UNRUHE in Rheinsberg — can you tell me a bit about your time in Rheinsberg, and what you explored musically during the residency?
Olivia Palmer-Baker: We had three different “phases” planned — three sets of one week each. We got the residency as the New Music Ensemble-in-Residence for Rheinsberg. The first week, we focused a bit more on ensemble repertoire, on acoustic repertoire; we played a concert in Berlin at the Kulturhaus Schwartzsche Villa — it was very cute.
[In] the second phase, we focused on multimedia works. This was a very important phase for us, as usually we don’t have the resources to work on such a level; we needed microphones, large projections, recordings. They let us use three cameras to document everything. It was a really big deal for us in getting these materials, and being able to try out complex productions. There, we worked with Beniamino Fiorini — we did ‘Underwater Music #1: Two Lullabies’ — as well as a work by Óscar Escudero.
We did a new version of [Escudero’s] ‘Custom #2’; we developed our own version, José Luis Perdigon led that. It was nice, [because] there was one person who covered each task; I was doing the documentation, José Luis [did] the concept, and me, José Luis, and Elisabeth Müller featured in the video, recorded by Camilo Hischhorn. We recorded the video right after my final recital, and I was exhausted… But my exhaustion works really well on the tape. -laughs- Then there was Camilo, Malin Sieberns, and Ilona Perger performing — they had to take the score, and arrange all their own sounds in accordance to the specific symbols in their parts. It really is a piece that can appear very different, depending on how you interpret it. It was a good creative challenge for us, as well as a technical challenge — but it was really important we took on this challenge.
Zyggy: Yesterday [at time of interview] was your final concert of the residency in Rheinsberg. What did you present as part of the concert?
Olivia: This phase, in comparison, was super chill. We did music theatre works — so the opposite, in terms of technological precision or organisation needed. We’re not having to play technically challenging repertoire on our instruments, or figuring out how to route the whole thing; we’re playing kazoos, and throwing pom-poms around… Having fun, to be honest. -laughs- We did works by Jennifer Walshe, by Jessie Marino, we did two improvisations, [and] we did a work by Katia Geha — which was so cool. It was a work that we couldn’t rehearse in its entirety, because it culminates in destroying a brick… And I just had one brick. So we had to practice carefully for that one.
Zyggy: Is this the first kind of long-term residencies that you’ve done as UNRUHE — or is this something you’ve explored in the past?
Olivia: The first big one, I’d say, was Impuls — when we were there [in 2023]. I feel like Impuls was the moment when we were like “oh, we’re a group”; I had that feeling for the first time there. We worked on three different programmes; it was our first time on tour, really. Our most recent tour with Ensemble Orbis — ANTIPODES — was also a big point of growth. When you have that reason to be together for a lot of time… Rheinsberg was a nice thread, connecting many big changes. Good changes — getting to a new level. Although I wish there was room for everyone! The residency had a limit of 7 people, so we had to decide who would join. That was a hard line to tow.
Luca Staffiere: The first week of Rheinsberg, the concert was in Berlin. The second week, it was more [of] a recording session; but this week, you actually did a concert in Rheinsberg. Since I wasn’t in Rheinsberg, how was the audience?
Olivia: It was nice! It was small — we were meant to perform outside, but we moved everything inside as they said it might rain. Music theatre’s super accessible for people; sound is maybe a secondary element, there’s more performance [there]. Even the Jessie Marino work we did: it’s the middle row of an airplane seat, and [the performers are] kind of sitting like they’re in an airplane. Someone joked saying we should do a version for nine performers — and then another person joked [that] if we’re ever flying on a tour, we should just perform this in the airplane, with no explanation… -laughs-
Zyggy: I think that’s a fantastic idea. -laughs-
Olivia: I would really love to do that! We just need a headphone splitter for nine headphones…
Ádám Bajnok: And use Bluetooth on the airplane.
-we all laugh-
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Zyggy: Ádám, you founded Kollektiv UNRUHE here in Berlin a number of years ago, after moving here from Budapest. Tell me a bit about what spurred you to start the group, and how you gathered all of these artists together?
Ádám: The collective started to form in the spring of 2021 — one year after the world stopped because of covid. That’s certainly an important piece of the puzzle; composing itself is the most isolated part of music-making, but lockdown certainly didn’t help. We all had a shared desire to break out of the solitude that composing can be, normally. When I moved to Berlin, I really got amazed [at] how good everyone is, from all the composers that I met…
Olivia: What does “good” mean?
Ádám: Professionally — at a high level, artistically. I thought they [did] really interesting stuff. But small scenes tend to get rivalising, at times; and my idea was, instead of competing, what would happen if I tried to work together with these people? And so I had the idea of bringing together composers first — 8 composers, for a concert we would do.
There was a sort of role model for me from Hungary in the 1970s — the New Music Studio Budapest — a collective of composers and performers who pioneered collective composing, among others. Those people were my idols back in Hungary. I really did want to do something similar, even though in the end, it turned out to be something quite different.
So I wrote to Nik Bohnenberger, and talked to Eli Simić-Prošić, and asked what they thought about the idea; organising a concert together, and which composers to ask. Then I started asking composers — not the ones I knew the most, but whose work I thought was really interesting — and asking if they would take part. At that point, the question of performers was really unclear. And then, there was one of them who wrote to me first — before I could get to them — and that was Beltrán Gonzalez — who said “great idea, I’ve wanted to found an ensemble for years now, how about we connect the two ideas?”. Have composers and performers. That’s how we started, really; six months later, we had our first concert.
Zyggy: So as I understand, your initial vision was purely composers, and Beltrán brought the performance / ensemble element into things?
Ádám: It was only composers [who were] members, at the beginning. Some of the musicians we asked really engaged — were really passionate about doing stuff. Originally, we thought that there would be a group of composers, and then an ensemble; but as time went on, we realised the distinction was unnecessary. It took us some time until we found ourselves: a group where we don’t have a difference between composers and performers. Where everyone is on a spectrum between the two. Embrace the collective nature of this.
Zyggy: I guess there’s something about creating a community between yourselves, rather than having these composer-performer delineations.
Olivia: It’s interesting. There’s this tendency toward combining, rather than spreading apart. I bumped into [UNRUHE] at the concert in February 2022. This was when I [first] saw it; I was fresh in Germany, I moved over during pandemic times. I was studying historical music, so I was desperately trying to find anyone in the new music scene — because that was more my thing. I was at uni, and I thought “these are nice people, this is interesting!” — and then I kind of don’t know how it happened, but Luca was like “I wanna write a piece for you”…
Luca: It was madness, how it happened. -laughs- We all first met for the dulcian quartet…
Ádám: A project about Renaissance bassoons.
Olivia: Dulcians — that’s very important. That’s the real beginning. -laughs- The UdK [Universität der Künste Berlin] was recording an album of music celebrating the anniversary of Praetorius, and there was all this music for organ, and gamba — lovely stuff. And then they wanted some people to write for these historical instruments.
Ádám: This project happened exactly at the same time that UNRUHE was forming. So we had this sideline, in the first months of UNRUHE — the most professional recording any of us have done. -laughs-
Olivia: And then you [Luca] were like “I would like to write a bassoon piece”, and I’m like “that’s lovely — I’d like to be involved with this bunch of people”. Then I rocked up, and we did a piece that you wrote for bassoon, electronics, and loop pedal. Anna Petzer did the video for us. And then we performed the piece at 48 Stunden in Neukölln. After that, it organically proceeded. I became close to some people, and there were talks about some sorts of “let’s meet up, and jam” — workshop some stuff, play some improv games. It all came out of that.
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Zyggy: Tell me a bit about the working environment of the collective in these early days — what did you explore in these initial workshops?
Ádám: At the time, it was still baby steps. Basically, these meetings every two weeks were for the performers to find a common language they could work with. At that point, we had enough performers; after the multimedia concert [at 48 Stunden], I was telling the others “Olivia is really engaged in the projects she does” — and we found Camilo, as well, with the same level of passion. And then Ilona and Malin were there from the start, helping with all the organising. We had a core who were not just playing, not just thinking about a project as a “gig”, but something that’s their own project — something they had a stake in.
Olivia: There were some people who were more there composing [at first] — for example, José Luis — he both composes and performs at a very high level. He’s a trained violinist and a trained composer; at first, he was like “maybe I’ll do violin for this one thing” — but he’s doing it a lot now, and it’s really nice. He’s able to view this instrument in a way that’s not bound by expectations of how you should play it — as a sound source. It really comes across in his playing.
Zyggy: You’ve mentioned this non-hierarchical approach — not delineating between composer and performer. How did you discover your musical language, as a group?
Olivia: I think we discovered we’re multilingual. Literally and musically.
Ádám: We were thinking about the possibilities that a group like this opens up — the spectrum of different things we could do, having a group of composers, performers, people in-between. And we landed up interested in composing collectively, together; what that could lead to, artistically.
Olivia: Trying to figure out what that even means.
Ádám: Coincidentally, [this] came together with a wonderful commission we got — as absolute newcomers — from Klangwerkstatt Berlin.
Olivia: Which was a fantastic opportunity. You know, a festival put their entire trust in us, gave us a five-figure sum of money… We could afford to pay ourselves, and work long-term. It was such a big, creatively enabling gesture.
Ádám: That was before our second concert… -laughs-
Zyggy: Of course. What did the commission for Klangwerkstatt mean for you, at such an early point as a collective?
Olivia: This was a big statement. They trusted in us — and trusted [when] what we do might fail massively. And that’s a very powerful gesture. Especially the way things are going now, funding-wise, I hope the space to take risks is not lost. I think it’s one of the most valuable things.
At least in Germany, there are funding cuts happening, [but] there is still money, and there historically has been money. I mean, the history of East and West Germany as well is a whole interesting topic; why, especially in Berlin, the West was a sanctuary for the arts, and one of the ways to encourage people to stay was to give them tax relief. And that’s why West Berlin became such a haven for the arts. East Germany meanwhile had the highest concentration of orchestras in the world. So Germany [has] a very special circumstance, where we are now. Because of this very generous funding, which is slipping away — we have to fight that with every ounce of energy we have.
Is there such thing as “good” and “bad” art? That’s a whole different topic. There’s some stuff that might feel “oh, it’s undercooked” — but it’s more important that people have the space to take risks, and something can fail; because that’s the only way to grow. Artistically, as a society, we need that space to take risks — to fail, and to grow. Not just in art: how else can anyone learn to solve the biggest problems in the world right now? We need space for originality. It’s very threatening that that can fall from beneath our feet, before we know it.
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Zyggy: Over this past weekend, you’ve taken me to experience some of Berlin’s contemporary music scene together as part of the field notes Visiting Program. Tell me a bit about Berlin — how has the city and its music community shaped you as a group?
Ádám: I have two or three thoughts on that. Berlin opens up for everyone — artistically doing things differently. It’s not only a centre for new music, but a centre for other art forms, which by default brings an interdisciplinary interest with everyone who is open, [and] especially to us. Berlin is a big melting pot — just like we are. We do take care to keep our identity within the group, but I’m sure we are all influenced by each other in our work in a positive way.
My teacher at UdK [Universität der Kunste], almost twenty years ago, founded a very similar group that I had no idea about. When we had a lesson, he was asking me “how is your unnamed composers alliance going?” — and he was approving. -laughs- It was a nice feeling to be treading in his footsteps without knowing.
Luca: Some of the members are not from UdK — but I think UdK is a really good, positive influence on us, [and] on the environment. Implicitly, it’s the kind of people they select, but also the environment they create of openness; not only towards multidisciplinarity, but also composing intended in several different ways. As opposed to HfM [Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler], which has its own direction a little bit — which can be good if you want more input — UdK is really open. It’s a good influence to remain open to new possibilities.
Olivia: Even as a performer. There [are] a lot of schools that force you to perform certain repertoire, on certain projects, and you can tell people don’t want to be there; but at UdK, I was always allowed to choose what I wanted to play. That’s how I made contact with people. There’s many different schools of composition [at UdK], there wasn’t so much infighting, because they were doing such different things — there was space for that.
Ádám: For me, that was one of the main impulses before UNRUHE. Talking to these people, on whatever train ride — realising I could talk about pieces and composers — having a shared interest that I didn’t find any other composers before to share, or to talk to. It did bring people together that were concerned with similar stuff.
Luca: The composition department [at UdK] was a very positive bubble. I sometimes realise how, even though we’re really different, we share so much. I found such a high level of ease in communicating with people from the composition department. Maybe we were lucky. Not every generation is like that. My partner — also at UdK, but in another department — she’s in the opposite situation; this competitiveness poisoning the relationship between the colleagues. I’m so blessed it was completely different for me.
Ádám: It was a nice constellation of people at the same place, at the same time. Everyone often [had] quite different aesthetics, but many similar interests, and a shared language to talk about them.
Zyggy: One of your first major projects as a collective was playstop, editplay, which was hosted by Klangwerkstatt in 2023…
Luca: From the perspective of melting this composition and performing — I think playstop, editplay was really good for that. It was really a project where performers could compose the piece. It was not necessarily a thoroughly “composed” piece, it was more like a set of rules to improvise. We created four open pieces, where the performers were free to play what they wanted — within the rules of the “game”. And also, a lot of composers performed for the first time. For example, it was the first time I performed with everyone.
Ádám: playstop, editplay took place when we were meeting every two weeks to develop a language together.
Luca: Olivia really helped structure them at the beginning. She was the most skilled in improvisation workshopping [at the time].
Olivia: When I came to Berlin, I was like “I need something to keep me sane during this pandemic time”. There’s so many different seminars in UdK that I could get credits for: like, I’m not just gonna do Instrumentenkunde, I want to do something a bit different.
I had the opportunity to take part in a seminar led by Matthias Schwabe. He leads the exploratorium berlin — it’s an organisation that does a lot of improvised music, workshops, all sorts of things. Every week, I would turn up with my bassoon, maybe a tin can and my shitty B1 German, then improvise and try and teach improv concepts. We went through a lot of literature, he played a lot of musical games with us; and at the end of this year and a half long process, I had to give a half hour long exam with my own concept, guiding people through this in an educational way. That was really influential on me. You learn how to build up textures… Real time composing, in a way. It opened up a space for me to step away from the limitations of the education I was being given, as a classical bassoonist; trust that as an instrumentalist, I can also have ideas.
Zyggy: That sounds so wonderful — would you say these ideas developed through being part of UNRUHE, or were they always in the back of your mind?
Olivia: I’ve always had ideas — we all have ideas. Malin wrote a piece for me and Ilona, for sampler, bassoon, electronics; she also went to Italy and studied electroacoustic composition. All of us have this space to try out ideas within UNRUHE. It’s like a nursery. I found that super enabling [in] playstop, editplay, this gesture of “okay, maybe I can bring something to the table” — and as part of SPELL in November, I’m on the roster to compose!
It’s been an interesting experience, coming from a different angle. But many of us do! Lara Alarcón did a lot of improv in the past, and now she has a band, she has her composer persona and her performer persona…
Luca: I studied anthropology and literature.
Olivia: And Ilona [studied] music management, and then she went to do teaching; and now she’s doing composition. There’s so many of us who are trying out these different things, which is very exciting, very enabling. It’s very grassroots, in that sense. As always, you’re stronger than the sum of your parts, if you can combine all these things. We can learn from each other. It’s astonishing how much I feel like I’ve learned from everyone.
Ádám: What also helped in all of this is that everyone can bring something to the table — everyone can bring in a project. That goes back [to] the level of these sessions, where everyone could take lead for developing material together. But the thing that characterises us on a global level, how we work, is that we can all bring in projects — bring in new ideas. And everyone feels that it’s open to all of the members to realise what we couldn’t do with external commissions or groups. Projects the way we want them done — that was one of the early sayings we had about UNRUHE.
Olivia: Going back to the “common language” topic — there are many languages. There are certain projects people would propose and lead because it’s their passion project — [and] we’re part of that — it can be something outside, it can be something inside. I hate this phrase — -in a really kitsch accent- holding space… -laughs- — but we are. There’s space to be like “this is something I love, you want to be a part of it?”. It’s resourceful, it’s sustainable.
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Zyggy: This kind of collective approach feels more like a band, in a pop music sense, than a traditional ensemble — what are your thoughts on that?
Luca: The ensemble is definitely able to work with other composers, in a classical sense. We do all sorts of things.
Olivia: Although the question these days is, is that the direction we go? Some of us are less interested in playing only repertoire. From my experience, playing in ensembles who are just instrumentalists, things can get binary quite quickly; there’s a lot of people who are like “ugh, composers, right?”. Some can be quick to find antagonism with conductors, or with composers.
I think having many different types of personalities, and a big range of skills and interests in the group, means that no-one gets too small-picture about anything. It’s the classic “here’s a bunch of specialists trying to solve a problem”, versus “here’s two specialists plus other people doing different things” — they’re more likely to find a solution, because the specialists are too focused on one thing. We have that range of people. We challenge each other — we definitely do. And because we’re friends, we can be honest with each other, as well.
Ádám: We never wanted to pose as a rock band. -laughs- But I always liked that we are called a kollektiv, because of the techno group Kollektiv Turmstrasse. So it does have something from the underground, I think; something that’s more outside of an academic environment. Something that embraces other works of music production, outside of what you have with a symphony orchestra or a traditional ensemble. That’s more [of] a pluralism of ways of working — than an actual difference compared to a pierrot ensemble.
More like building upon ways of working, rather than discarding ways of working.
Olivia: Trying them on, like suits. Or even, you try something, and realise five years later “we have the skills to do this — let’s try it again”.
I was thinking about pluralism, and you [Ádám] mentioned pierrot… We have a very strange instrumentation. I remember [in] Darmstadt 2023, there was some bloke giving a lecture; and he had this one moment of saying “composers these days are writing for more and more unusual instrumental combinations”… And he puts up a slide, and it’s the entire instrumentation of UNRUHE. -laughs- Like, bassoon, accordion, flute, violin… I gasped.
Ádám: We’re onto something…
Olivia: I feel so seen right now. -laughs-
Zyggy: One of your largest-scale pieces so far has been NOT FOUND; your large-scale commission from Klangwerkstatt, that premiered in Berlin…
Ádám: I think we can admit the title has a great deal of self-irony. -laughs-
Olivia: Where did the original idea come from, for doing a piece together?
Ádám: We sat down for a pizza with the directors of the festival, and afterwards we had to send a short paragraph of what we were going to do. Three of us drafted a text — Nik, Eli, and myself. We thought [to] do collective composing; there were a bunch of people for the idea, there was no one really against [it].
Luca: It was the first collective composing experience for some of us — most of us. But also, it was a way to involve every composer in a single concert. It was looking to be one of the nicest concerts we had done so far, the best paid… So it was only fair to try to involve everyone that had worked for the collective already.
Ádám: There was a huge communication process — which you don’t need in “normal” composing, so to say. Much of it was futile. -laughs- We were looking for a title, the deadline was coming closer, and Lara threw in “it’s just what comes to mind about us — ‘NOT FOUND’”… -laughs-
Olivia: It was a “404 signal not found” sort of thing.
Ádám: Everyone liked it: let’s do a piece about the messages that are lost, about communication that fails, or has a mixed degree of success. Us being a heterogenous group, we often had this mixed degree with these communications.
Olivia: How it manifested in the end was as four scenes on this topic. The first scene, colloquially we called the “whatsapppiece” — with three p’s. It was you [Luca], Nik, and Ádám: they made this piece where the performers were stationed around the hall, the audience were walking in and out, and they were recording on WhatsApp (or their preferred communication platform) what we’re playing. Then they had instructions: if you think this, then you’re going to this instrument, and you’re playing it back at 1x speed, or 1.5x speed. There’s this strange choir of phones, depending on what the audience record in the moment.
The second part was this “anti-trio”, maybe I could call it; three performers juxtaposed against each other. I think they decided the structure by playing card games — like, we’re gonna play a game and make a structure out of this — the electronics were the connecting element. Three performers: a clarinet, Luca on e-guitar, a percussionist playing semantron… And it got stolen in the end! The plank [for the semantron] got stolen — Beltrán was keeping it, and someone in the flat’s communal area stole the plank. And I heard about the extensive conversation of you [Àdàm] and Jose Luis choosing the wood…
Ádám: It was beech, I think. I was always for spruce, because that’s what they make pianos from.
Olivia: But you don’t whack pianos with a hammer, Àdàm.
Ádám: But it’s the most resonant, it’s one whack but it sounds so good…
-we all laugh-
Olivia: I really liked the sonic result of it. One composer did each instrument; each composer was singular, but it worked really well.
Ádám: Like a triologue. Three people trying to have a conversation.
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Olivia: The third part was you and Saemi Jeong…
Ádám: That had several different parts in itself. The flute solo about Google poetry — Google searches that get lost in this grey zone, messages that are never read, broken radio that brings in collage[s] of Renaissance music.
Olivia: The unintentional detuned, double-choir doppler effect. Because the accordion was [tuned to] 443Hz, and the harmonium was 440Hz… It was very jarring.
Ádám: It was creating a big echo in the space we were playing. It was formerly a church. And in that echo, all of the messages got lost.
Olivia: And the fourth was me, Ilona, and Lara. It was leaning towards a choral aesthetic, I’d say: long sustained chords, and the ending [just] cuts. Actually, it wasn’t even intentional — there was meant to be a freeze effect, but then this brutal cut — lights on — suited the piece in the end!
Ádám: I always compare it [NOT FOUND] to a Jim Jarmusch film, where you have unrelated scenes about a similar topic. Like, Night on Earth — five scenes about taxi drivers — NOT FOUND was a little bit like that, four separate scenes on a topic. What I like about it is [that] in the end, it does have something to say. Despite my worries that it would end up lacking a core meaning, in the end, it’s there.
Zyggy: Looking ahead, the process of NOT FOUND has directly led into the creation of your next large-scale work, SPELL — premiering this November in the Kunstquartier Bethanien. What lessons have you learned from NOT FOUND and how are you applying them in this new work?
Olivia: We learned a lot from this process. About communication, about structure — when structure is needed — when limitations are needed, [and] when limitations can enable freedom artistically. This time around, we’ve been much more deliberate. Financially, we’ve been able to reimburse people with a professional budget from many different sources — thank you, Berlin… -laughs- — and give out 8 composition commissions, bring in extra musicians, and bring in a stage team. We have costume design, set design, directing assistance, light[ing]. Many different sets of skills to make the whole thing a lot more cogent; bring us out of our “composing mindsets” and think about dramaturgy, narrative, stories. They can help [us] tie it together into a cohesive work — a piece that has an arc — and we have that freedom, within our own parts, to hold on to the dramaturgy but to musically be quite different.
I have a good feeling about this one, I must say. I think it will be on a different level [to] what we’ve done before; production-wise, but artistically. It’s a big risk — there’s room for many different aesthetics — to tie it together is gonna be a challenge, but it will be something very nice.
Luca: I think it’s one of the projects that shows the lunacy of composition the most. There were a lot of practical decisions we could have made, and we made the opposite. -laughs- Each one of us is thinking: “what do I want to do?”.
Ádám: We are uncompromising in this. -laughs-
Olivia: I mean, if we’re working on a music theatre production, and we’re paying a whole crew of people, we need to work with proper conditions. To take a moment of convincing people: we need a theatre space, we need to work with lights, we need to work with sound. Theatre takes weeks and weeks! You need good conditions in order to create work and take risks. We need proper spaces, rehearsal spaces.
In Berlin, there were threats to cut funding for some of the culture spaces that are reimbursed by the German government. There was obviously a massive uproar. We need this artistic security. If we lose government subsidised rehearsal spaces, so many groups’ budgets will go up exponentially; some of the groups that are based here, like Ensemble Mosaik, Zafraan, would have to massively increase their budgets in a time of funding cuts.
Zyggy: Of course. And on the subject of music theatre, I understand you’re working with Bernat Pont Anglada on a collaboration, as well?
Olivia: In 2026! As part of the Junge Akademie der Künste; we just got the Deutsche Orchester-Stiftung, who supported this collaboration; we will do a project called Gatcha Project, which explores a ton of stuff. It’s so exciting!
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Zyggy: Finally — I imagine you’re all good friends, as well as professional colleagues? How do you maintain having these personal relationships with each other in the working environment of the collective?
Ádám: We’ve been through a lot together. -laughs- And that creates a strong bond.
Olivia: The initial impulse that the collective came out of — this need for security in post-pandemic times. This need for collectivity, exchange; as you were saying, Àdàm, a means to bring people together who had common interests. And a need for this space — I think that’s a societal thing. The reason why we are drifting together… Perhaps why more genres are overlapping, and people are doing different things, [is] a need for exchange. It’s an open question.
Ádám: On a professional level, for sure. We were much more careful about having to learn how to discuss — how to disagree, constructively, at times. There was a lot of trust built up over the years.
Olivia: I think respect, as well. If you don’t respect your colleagues, you’re not gonna open any cans of worms. You’re not gonna be able to be vulnerable, to be really honest with people, if that respect isn’t there. I think we respect each other, I think we trust each other, and that provides fertile ground for trying out new things.
There’s a really important thing in learning to disagree, as well, and to sit with that. When democracy votes my opinion out — that’s not always personal, you have to accept that. If you’re a single agent, and you’re not having that scrutiny, it’s very easy to navel gaze. I think having that healthy push and pull from each other — that healthy pressure — is important.
I think because we all do different things in our own lives too, we can step away — I have space in my own life to do what I want, and that’s fine. There’s space in the collective for things together, but we also have other outlets —so there’s also this constant influx of ideas.
Ádám: What keeps it from becoming competitive internally is a high degree of shared responsibility that everyone takes. We want the outcome, what we deliver in the end, to be really good. When we disagree, it’s because we have that shared responsibility; and I think that makes a big difference in how we work.
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Kollektiv UNRUHE’s newest work, SPELL, takes place on 12 November 2025 at Kunstquartier Bethanien, as part of Klangwerkstatt Berlin 2025 – learn more and get tickets at:
- https://field-notes.berlin/en/kalender/spell
- https://t.rausgegangen.de/tickets/spell-klangwerkstatt-berlin-2025
Learn more about Kollektiv UNRUHE:
And learn more about the current lineup of the collective:
- Olivia Palmer-Baker
- Ádám Bajnok
- Luca Staffiere
- José Luis Perdigon
- Elisabeth Müller
- Camilo Hirschhorn
- Malin Sieberns
- Ilona Perger
- Nik Bohnenberger
- Beltrán Gonzalez
- Lara Alarcón
- Saemi Jeong
- Faidra Chafta-Douka
This article was last updated on 21st October 2025.
