How to reinvent skateboarding: Displaying a punk attitude and a lot of DIY, Flora Renhardt and Maria Mam will transform the venue at WUK into a skatepark for their performance sk8r grrrl. They will assemble, construct and deconstruct. On the trail of famous feminist movement Riot Grrrls, the two artists will find freedom in skating as they claim a space that welcomes friction as well as softness and liberation. Flora Renhardt and Maria Mam play with materiality, imagining ways to overcome un-skatable objects and to subvert dated gender roles and facing audience expectations with humour and softness. In a choreographed balance between safety, control and chaos, they will roll from ecstatic, liberating self-empowerment towards crashing and failing – and then back again, developing a new logic for their own visual and emotional language to depict fantasies and utopias.

sk8r grrrl can also be called a tribute to the FLINTA* skating scene, a galaxy of places, people and practices that coined the artists’ desire to skate and conquer open spaces. A dialogue among like-minded sister circles, where everyone supports each other.

Flora Renhardt lives and works as a dancer, choreographer and art educator in Vienna. Her work focuses on practices of self-empowerment and a study of natural phenomena. She has dedicated herself to building bridges between living beings and works with people of highly different identities. Also, Flora Renhardt practices several board sports, exploring physical principles with particular curiosity. In short, her work is all about the joy of movement.

Maria Mam is a multimedia artist. Her work meanders between analogue and digital worlds. After acquiring her bachelor’s degree in comic-book art and illustration in Italy, she turned to a more multimedia approach to storytelling. During her studies at the Vienna University of Applied Art, she experimented with video games, immersive digital environments, soft sculptures and constructions. She lives in Vienna and tours internationally with Galiens, a performance project with Olio Tronix.

About Bears in the Park and the Huggy Bears Supporting Programme
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 individuals or 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 artists’ projects develop into very special pieces. At the end of the nine-month programme, the mentees get to present their performance projects for the first time on a big stage in Vienna. In 2025, the Huggy Bears Days will be held as a co-operation between brut Wien and WUK performing arts. Additionally, this year the Huggy Bears artists have been supported through a project fund by the Bundesministerium für Wohnen, Kunst, Kultur, Medien und Sport (BMWKMS). The programme is operated by the initiative Bears in the Park run by Philippe Riéra and Charlotte Bastam and supported by City of Vienna’s Department of Cultural Affairs (MA7). The initiative is dedicated to supporting the Vienna performance scene and helping it grow. To foster this goal, the Huggy Bears are offered not only reliable advisors but also rehearsal spaces. Each autumn, Bears in the Park releases an open call for artists to submit their project proposals for the following year. bearsinthepark.org @bearsinthe.park