Huggy Bears turns 10! To celebrate the birthday of this unique support programme, imagetanz presents a sample of Vienna’s young performance scene. In this special edition of brut’s Handle with Care series feat. Huggy Bears, Daria Nosik and Sunggu Hong allow exclusive glimpses into their projects and stages of creation.
Daria Nosik – DOG
DOG is a performance experiment on reversed evolution. It revolves around a person who, driven by the desire to be fashionable, trendy and perfect, returns to an animal state. The performance examines not only how systems drill and shape a person, but also how we voluntarily submit to social norms via trend culture and the pressure of digital perfection. DOG is not a tragedy but a grotesque farce that reflects the fears of our age.
Daria Nosik (she/her) is a performer, director and actor who has lived and worked in Vienna since 2017. She graduated from Mikhail Shchepkin Theatre School in 2007 and acquired a degree in directing from the School & Studio of Modern Variety, Film and Television in 2009. Since 2010, she has been making prize-winning short films that are presented at Russian and international festivals. She has performed in more than 80 theatre and film productions, which included a lead role in the Austrian feature film Kaviar directed by Elena Tikhonova (2019). Daria Nosik has worked with, among others, Oleg Soulimenko at brut Wien and Tanzquartier Wien. She has been running the Nosik Family Lab – Actors Training & Coaching since 2019.
Info
In German, English and Russian
On Sat. 14.03., the show will be followed by Huggy Bears’ 10-year birthday celebrations.
Content notes
This performance features explicit language, nudity, haze, strobe light and loud noise.
The audience is free to move around the space.
Credits
Concept & performance Daria Nosik
A co-production by Bears in the Park and imagetanz 2026/brut Wien
Sunggu Hong – Raised by the Chronic; Beyond, the Moth
To grow up means not only to receive attention, care and love but also discipline, conflicts, resentment and hostility. And yet, it results in the possibility to live together. Sunggu Hong’s performance Raised by the Chronic; Beyond, the Moth is a research-based project about fear and the complex relationships between humans and non-humans from a decolonial point of view. It challenges the lines between those two and the concept of how we live together, asking: ‘Who raises whom – and how?’
Sunggu Hong (he/him), born in Seoul, is a Vienna-based artist who works in the fields of visual and performance art. He studied visual art in South Korea and performance art at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. ‘Relationship’ is a key concept of his practice which allows him to ask how we should/could live together within mutually dependent, entangled, complex relationships: Why do alienation and hate tend to arise within such entanglements? His current interest is directed at the relationship between humans and non-humans. By focusing on their mutual dependencies and entanglements, Hong tries to deconstruct an anthropocentric perspective and take a fresh look at our complex relationships, the events that shape them and ways of living together. The main question guiding his entire work process is: How are we raised by one another?
Info
In English
On Sat. 14.03., the show will be followed by Huggy Bears’ 10-year birthday celebrations.
Credits
Concept & performance Sunggu Hong
A co-production by Bears in the Park and imagetanz 2026/brut Wien
Since 2016, Huggy Bears has been a pillar of innovative performance art, supporting emerging artists in Vienna. Each year, the supporting programme provides three or four individual artists or art collectives with comprehensive support in areas from production to administration, equipment and dramaturgy. In a series of different presentation formats as well as regular feedback sessions within the group, the young artists’ projects develop into very special pieces. At the end of the supporting programme, the mentees get to present their performance projects for the first time. The programme is operated by the initiative Bears in the Park seated in Vienna’s 11th district and run by Philippe Riéra and Charlotte Bastam, one of the city’s ‘cultural anchor centres.’ Bears in the Park is dedicated to supporting Vienna’s independent performance scene and has become an important place to work, connect and join forces in creativity. In addition to the Huggy Bears programme, the initiative provides rehearsal spaces free of charge in its dance studios and awards residencies for the sound studio as well as for an artist studio to be used by visual artists. bearsinthepark.org @bearsinthe.park
Bears in the Park Art Place
Eyzinggasse 12, 1110 Vienna
not accessible