Ulrike Quade Company

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Nederland
Amsterdam
Ulrike Quade Company

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beeldend theater | visual theatre | theatre visuèl The performances are engaged, but also, surprisingly nimble, surreal, ironic, poetic.

The visual theatre of Ulrike Quade Company is a combination of sculpture and dance, mime and performance, language and music.

20/08/2026

Before theatre in Japan, there were puppets, and the puppets were gods.

Japanese performance was born from ritualistic beginnings where figures of deities were carried out of temples and shrines and into the streets. Wandering puppeteers performed with puppets on days of celebration, bringing blessings door to door. The puppet was not entertainment, but divine presence made portable.

From here grew the great Japanese stage arts: the supernatural masks of Noh theatre, the stylized spectacle of Kabuki and of course Bunraku, where three visible puppeteers give life to one figure. Ulrike Quade studied inside that tradition; its craft and care for objects today inform her understanding of technology.

Whether artificial social technologies or industrial robots, technological objects carry a presence similar to that found in ancient traditions of ritual and performance - we treat them as avatars, dopplegängers and stand-ins for the human. Before our eyes these (digital) puppets become omniscient and godlike.

But when technologies (and the systems in which they operate) are designed to elicit certain interpretations and behaviours from its human users – how can we shape technology with other kinds of visions where digital material meets the divine?

Image - Ulrike Quade with Artists of Hoichi Okamoto’s community, Nagano (Japan)

11/08/2026

We were so delighted to be invited to be part of this year’s Kilowatt Festival at San Sepolcro, Italy. We met several partners from the Creative Europe DIGITAL on STAGE consortium to share insights about the field of art and technology.

During our presentation, we introduced our research on grieftech, speaking about our 2026 theatre performance Roman & ELIZA and our work with the 3D Universum ‘Deep Therapy’ tool. Both cases serve to highlight how performance research is an important lens to consider artificial sociality and our relationship to the tools that produce it.

When avatars and chatbots are designed to ‘role play’ as close personal relations, this raises many questions concerning our perception of (a)liveness. We propose that the practices of dramaturgy, puppetry and scenography can become ways to understand these emotionally fraught contexts of human-machine interaction.

We are extremely grateful to the festival directors Lucia Franchi and Luca Ricci as well as Bas Ernst the Dutch Embassy in Rome The Netherlands in Italy who made this collaboration possible ✨

Intercult ACE Kibla MMMAD Festival Onestopcreative cube_nonprofitorganisation

20/07/2026

Why should human perception be the measure of all things?

Inspired by philosopher Thomas Nagel’s “What is it like to be a bat?”, UQC employs a more-than-human approach. A machine is not a human that happens to calculate faster; it senses the world differently. Rather than understanding technology by projecting our own experience onto it, we question it on its own terms: what is a machine, how does it behave, how does it detect and sense us, and what do these modes of observation say about us?

Technological modes of sensing and detection increasingly determine how we interpret, understand and especially act in the world. UQC deconstructs these entities to make them and their modes of observation more tangible, we open up discussion on stage by giving a voice to machines alongside other non-human perspectives and positions.

Image: Kiriko Mechanicus (2023) Rehearsals for Orito

17/07/2026

Our consortium has been selected for round 1 of ADRIE (CIIIC)!

Inside Out Outside In (IOOI) is one of five consortiums that have been selected for round 1 of The Artistic & Design Research for Immersive Experiences Grant Scheme – part of the Creative Industries Immersive Impact Coalition (CIIIC).

IOOI is a consortium at the intersection of artistic research, mental healthcare and neuroscience. The basic premise is that human consciousness is not confined to the brain, but is a physical process that is influenced by external factors and other organisms. The consortium wants to research how medical technologies and scientific insights in this area can contribute to embodied, multi-user immersive experiences. The programme to be developed consists of artistic research trajectories and an incubator programme for new talent, with the aim of building greater understanding of mental health and new working methods for the broader IX field.

Lead applicant: Studio Biarritz
Co-applicants: Ulrike Quade Company Polymorf Edit Kaldor Amsterdam UMC Waag Futurelab IDFA doc lab

International partners: Anagram | Makropol | Toby Coffey Ars Electronica | SXSW

Other partners: iii | Cream on Chrome | Simon van Gaal (University of Amsterdam) | Remco Kort (ARTIS-Micropia, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) | Maaike Bleeker (Utrecht University) | Holomicrobiome Institute | Roomforthoughts (Jennifer Kanary)

14/07/2026

How will robots be designed and puppeteered? What kind of strings will be attached?

On 29 June 2026 the Dramaturgy for Devices consortium met to review progress  of the overall project. The central question remains how the performing arts can help develop human-robot interaction (HRI) so robots can be integrated better into society.
  
At the meeting, we discussed the possibilities offered by improvisation-based robot interaction and the developing phenomenon of ‘robot-puppeteering.’ We also discussed how theatre can inform speculation about robots and their future implications. We spoke about how these ideas can be ‘validated’ (testing assumptions and robot behaviours) and ‘activated’ (engaging diverse audiences including youth and digital illiterate).
 
The consortium provides a broader perspective than projects that work on technology from a purely technical angle. It also strengthens artistic research as a reflective counterbalance to technological acceleration. Our participation in D4D foregrounds how exploratory, rehearsal-based and intuition-centred skills and methods from the performing arts can shape interdisciplinary study of emerging technologies.

This work informs preparations for our 2027 performance ROBOVERSE. What does it mean when a robot is autonomous? What drives the robot when no puppeteer is involved? Is full autonomy even possible?

Image: Adem Gümrükçüler, D4D Festive Opening

09/07/2026

Autonomous drone kills human being. No human in the loop.

Roboverse explores the underbelly of technology, the robot from within. What does the world feel like from a robot’s perspective? A dancer, a drone and different robots share the stage — their sensors turning movement into sound and music. Human and machine mirror and challenge each other, from target to companion.

Together with scientists, technologists and artists (Utrecht University/D4D, ICK), we work toward an alternative future with technology. There may be other ways of looking at the other.

Technology inherits our intentions. Let’s give it better ones.

Premiere 2027.

ArtScience ResponsibleTechnology

08/07/2026

What can a robot do on stage?

Playing with Dorna arms and projections in rehearsals for our 2027 premiere, more info coming soon
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RobertaMaimone Ulrike Quade Sorcha Ni Bhraonain

03/07/2026

Theatre of the Future: Choreography of Flesh and Steel – A conversation with pioneer of human-machine performance Ulrike Quade

Interview by Hayel Ali Al-Mathabi for Arab Theater Magazine/ Arab Theater Institute translated from Arabic to English now published on our website

> • Read full interview at link in bio

> • Image by of Robot from De Fetushemel 2023 by Bart Grietens

23/06/2026

This month artistic researcher Ulrike Quade and dramaturg-researcher Sorcha Ní Bhraonáin were invited to speak at the Data CARE Festival organised by Inclusive AI Lab

The session took a look at the prototype built by tech-startup 3D Universum which uses deepfake technology to allow licensed therapists to role-play as someone else with a patient. Vibrant discussions ensued with participants, considering the different contexts of use, ethical implications and potential harms of such a tool.

As UQC continues to develop artistic perspectives on emerging technologies, we think about user-machine interactions through dramaturgical, scenographic and puppetry techniques. How might modes of address, object liveness and role-playing help us to consider the responsible design of virtual avatars and bots?

29/05/2026

Hi Roman! Bye Roman!

Yes, all good things come to an end (or remain in a digital form indefinitely?)

We are wrapping up the Dutch tour of Roman & ELIZA at today and tomorrow.

It has been a wild ride making this show over the past two years, from our work with students to .idlab and performing our pilot for & Society 5.0 festival.

If you haven’t seen the show yet we hope to share it with you one last time. The team will be having a drink at Frascati cafe this evening so come say hi!

Adres

Burgemeester De Vlugtlaan 125
Amsterdam
1063BJ

Website

http://www.ulrikequade.nl/

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