UBU is a multidisciplinary ensemble of musicians and dancers. The ensemble develops new concert performances at the points of friction and in the spaces of collison between music, dance and other art forms. uBu exists since 2016 and is based in Cologne.
We are…
Anna Neubert
Magdalena Öttl
Esther Saladin
Sophia Spies
Antonia Stäcker
Christoph Stöber
Yves Ytier
We use our cast of musicians and dancers as a space of resonance and reflection for the following questions:
How does music have a transformative effect on people? How does it exert power over bodies, create identity, ideals and communities?
In the continuous collaboration of the ensemble members, we test the exchange of methods, knowledge and understanding of interpretation.
In our increasingly collectively developed performances, we are interested in consciously crossing the boundaries of formats, role attributions and artistic disciplines, composing new forms of community. uButopian?
News & Echo
New perspectives for future mutations, collisions and explosions: from 2023 on for the next three years, uBu will receive the Ensembleförderung Musik from the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia.
"That it only takes the right performers to quickly turn the impression of complexity into the opposite was shown by the "Ensemble Ubu" (...) In a mixture of Ballet Mécanique and the aesthetics of René Magritte, of Dada and the theatre of the surrealist Alfred Jarry, everyone acted here in a spectacle that was as grotesque as it was poetic".
(Heidelberger Nachrichten, on the Schwetzingen Festival 2018)
"The dancers sway on a small bench as if under the control of others, become unbalanced, hang in imaginary ropes, on invisible strings. Is it the musicians who, as puppeteers, dictate the movements with their sound? (...)Who dominates whom? Who counteracts what? A play that, without being explicitly political, has a high potential for dealing with today's society."
(Natalie Godziak, Hoertz24, 2019)
Latest Projects
' /%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Portrait Film
We are very pleased to be able to offer an insight into the uBuverse surrounding our ensemble with a new portrait film.
![]()
Let's Dream Together
From March 6 to Mai 23, uBu invites the public to contribute to a playlist over the course of one month—with music that is personally connected to dreams.
to the Playlist:![]()
OPEN CALL
As part of the Blurred Edges festival, uBu, ensemble between music and dance from Cologne, is organising a double concert on 31.05.2025 at resonanzraum St. Pauli.
We would like to invite musicians/ensembles from Hamburg to create the evening together with us and to show their work in this context.
Upcoming
26.04.2026
Studio der Musikfabrik, Köln- View project
- 3:00 PM
Mutants in Music: III. Dreamteam
With the production “Dreamteam”, the Cologne-based ensemble uBu explores ways to bring dreams together in music and dance, searching for a shared utopia in the virtuosity of the collective, for brilliance in dealing with pluralism, for mastery in collective dreaming.