Photo: Bianca Gotti

Ulrike Quade speaks at Vrije Universiteit

Amsterdam 8th December 2025 – Ulrike Quade gave a lecture as part of the Master’s course ‘Expanding Performance’ led by Dr Laura Karreman (Utrecht University). The course focuses on the broad spectrum of performance and how knowledge from the theatre can inform other disciplines, particularly the area of social robotics. The students of Expanding Performance work together with AI students of the MSc course Socially Intelligent Robotics at VU Amsterdam in an experimental collaborative project called ‘the robot intensive.’ Here they develop the social capabilities of the Nao robot and showcase them on stage.

Artistic Research

Ulrike Quade was invited by Karreman to give a lecture to students about her research into robots in a theatrical context. Quade presented several artistic research projects including SPOT x KAFKA, a collaboration with tech incubator YES!Delft which stars the quadruped mobile robot Spot. As the first etude of the NWA project Dramaturgy for Devices, this performance introduced the students to the burgeoning field of theatre and robotics.

A predecessor of the robot

According to Quade, ‘the puppet is a predecessor of the robot’. Quade’s puppetry practice explores how when an object is moved by a need and an urgency, it reveals an ensoulment of the object. This ensoulment becomes a way for the audience to relate and respond to the object on stage, be it puppet or robot.

Quade then did a live demonstration on how to direct the presence of a puppet by focusing on its intention, how it moves in relation to the performer and how it connects to the world around it. The lecture ended with some helpful tips for the students as they embark on their interdisciplinary experiment together: embrace failure, turn the world upside down through innovation, and have fun!

Stay tuned

Our upcoming artistic research project Roman & ELIZA will tour the Netherlands this coming spring 2026. Would you like to follow the creative process and/or receive early updates? Subscribe to our newsletter and follow our channels.

Productions

Autonomous drone kills human being. No human in the loop. Roboverse explores the underbelly of technology, the robot from within. What would the world be like from a robot’s perspective? A dancer, a drone and different robots share the stage — their sensors turning movement into sound and music. Human and machine mirror and challenge each other, from target to companion.

Theatre of the Future: Choreography of Flesh and Steel – A conversation with pioneer of human-machine performance Ulrike Quade

2 July 2026

Ulrike Quade interviewed by Hayel Ali Al-Mathabi for Arab Theater Magazine. At the heart of the radical transformations taking place in contemporary performance, the work of Netherlands-based director and scenographer Ulrike Quade stands out as a bridge between the richness of tradition and the precision of technology.

Photo: Erfan Abdi

"By bringing together science, technology, and art, we create a powerful space for innovation—a space that challenges social norms and opens up new perspectives on the issues that define our world today."

Photo: Bianca Gotti

Ulrike Quade speaks at Vrije Universiteit

Read more

D4D Consortium Meeting

Roboverse – No human in the loop

Theatre of the Future: Choreography of Flesh and Steel – A conversation with pioneer of human-machine performance Ulrike Quade

Photo: Erfan Abdi

"By bringing together science, technology, and art, we create a powerful space for innovation—a space that challenges social norms and opens up new perspectives on the issues that define our world today."

– Ulrike Quade

Ulrike Quade Company

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