Performance by laborgras featuring Liam Byrne & Ensemble
In our performance-oriented society, failure is seen as a blemish. But what if failure also holds its own poetry—one that is more than mere failure? Inspired by Samuel Beckett’s words, “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better,” laborgras’s “Joyful Failure” conceives of failure as movement itself—as an ongoing process that opens up possibilities.
Image gallery
Joyful Failure – Ein Abend über die Poesie des Scheiterns 2
Joyful Failure – Ein Abend über die Poesie des Scheiterns 3
Joyful Failure – Ein Abend über die Poesie des Scheiterns 1
In their new performance “Joyful Failure,” laborgras explores precisely this fragile moment of failure.
At Radialsystem, six dancers, together with musician Liam Byrne, create an open choreographic-musical structure in which uncertainty, hesitation, and instability are not overcome but rather made visible.
The bodies encounter and miss each other, lose their balance, and find new forms of closeness. Sound and movement intertwine: Byrne’s composition, carried by the historical instrument viola da gamba, emerges in direct dialogue with the dance.
In an era marked by crises, acceleration, and the pursuit of greater efficiency, the piece explores forms of coexistence. What emerges when we let go of the logic of control and self-optimization?
Rather than viewing failure as a shortcoming, the production focuses on its productive power: as an everyday, unifying, and deeply human experience. Thus, a space unfolds between stumbling and regaining one’s footing, between loss and a new beginning. A space in which what has not succeeded is not suppressed but remains visible—quiet, defiant, alive.
Additional information
Dates
August 2026
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