Ophelia’s Got Talent

Hardly any other performance artist has attracted more attention across Europe in recent months than Florentina Holzinger: the Austrian choreographer has been named the most influential artist of the year 2024 by the renowned art magazine ‘Monopol’, her opera project ‘SANCTA’ has caused a sensation far beyond the cultural scene, and her plays at Berlin’s Volksbühne are regularly sold out and at the 2026 Venice Biennale she will be presenting the Austrian pavilion with ‘Seaworld Venice’. asphalt has been closely associated with Holzinger for many years. Her highly acclaimed work ‘Ophelia’s Got Talent’, co-produced by asphalt, will be presented for the first time in Düsseldorf at the 2025 summer festival.

In ‘Ophelia’s Got Talent’, Florentina Holzinger stages Shakespeare’s Ophelia from ‘Hamlet’ as the central figure of an extravagant, maximalist show in a fantastic water landscape with swimming pools, water tanks and a floating helicopter. An all-female cast of superheroes of varying talents deconstruct stereotypical notions of body image and femininity in a mix of acrobatics, dance and grotesque humour. The spectacular revue alternates between ballet, contemporary circus, stunts and cinematic action scenes. While Shakespeare’s Ophelia is passive and conflict-averse in patriarchal structures and ends up as a beautiful drowned body, in Florentina Holzinger’s version she is allowed to be powerful and independent. Ophelia’s walk into the water is reinterpreted as a feminist empowerment strategy, a self-determined and controlled flirtation with mortal danger.

‘Ophelia’s Got Talent’ was invited to the Berliner Theatertreffen in 2023 and won the Austrian NESTROY Award for Best Actress (Saioa Alvarez Ruis) and Best Set Design (Nikolas Knezevic). Germany’s most prestigious theatre award, the FAUST, honoured the play as Best Dance Performance.

“Her work has a visual and emotional impact that leaves no one cold, and is unparalleled in its consistency in the art world, ” said Monopol magazine when it named Holzinger Artist of the Year. “She thinks bigger and freer than many in the classical art world and shows no fear of pathos or spectacle.”

Holzinger is unique in the world of theatre with her vitality, powers of persuasion and creativity.

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What the press says:

“Ophelia’s Got Talent‹ unleashes a magical allure, a visual power, a seductive force that can hardly be experienced anywhere else at the moment.” (Berliner Morgenpost)

“Strong ideas, strong images” (Süddeutsche Zeitung)

“Holzinger’s Mermaid Sabbath has almost achieved cult status in Berlin, with standing ovations at the end and an exuberant atmosphere like at a pop concert.” (Wiener Zeitung).

“Holzinger is a master of all the creative tools at her disposal. It is rare to see something as beautiful and touching, even sublime, as the moment when a tightrope walker, swinging through darkness, embodies a drowning person.” (Die Welt)

“Discomfort is central to the work of Holzinger, who has recently become a star of the European dance and performance worlds by pushing the limits of what performers — and audiences — can endure.” (New York Times)

“This feminist dance spectacle is one of the most technically sophisticated and complicated pieces of theatre currently on in Berlin.” (Stage)

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