Romy Seibt
Pool Cleaning

My body is an archive. I’m just beginning to decipher it.

A body forgets nothing. In her research project “Pool Cleaning,” contemporary artist Romy Seibt (still hungry) returns to the setting of her childhood: the indoor swimming pools of the GDR. As a former champion high diver, her body was drilled early on to function like a machine and was monitored by the Stasi as part of a “security procedure.”

During an intensive 14-day residency, Romy Seibt, together with an interdisciplinary team drawing on choreography, acting, dramaturgy, and film, explores the bodily memory of a dictatorship. Drawing on newly uncovered Stasi files and diaries, the participating artists conduct research at the intersection of contemporary circus, theater, text, and documentary film.

The goal is to make the imprints of drill and surveillance visible and to physically overwrite them.

An exploration of a body that was taught to move with lightness in a jump—and in the process lost that lightness.
About the imprints left by the drill and the burden of that legacy.

Artistic Team:

Geordie Brookmann
Cristiana Casadio
Rachel Hameleers
Nicole Ratjen
Katarina Schröter

Romy Seibt

Romy Seibt is an author, performer, and contemporary circus artist with over 25 years of professional experience in the independent performing arts. She is a state-certified artist (Die Etage, Berlin) and co-founder of the collective still hungry. Her work has received funding on multiple occasions, including from the Performing Arts Fund and the Federal Cultural Foundation; in 2019, she received the Scotsman Fringe First Award, and in 2002, the Prix du Cirque. As a former champion in high diving (SC Einheit Dresden, KJS Dresden), she returns to the place of her childhood—the indoor swimming pools of the GDR—with her current research project, “Pool Cleaning.” She has been a member of Doping-Opfer-Hilfe e.V. (DOH) since 2025.