Mia San Mia
Immersive Performance by Tamira Kalmbach & Team
How does one »correctly« come across as a Black woman in the land of white sausages? Does the dirndl suffice? The tolerance to alcohol? The Schlager songs sung without problems? The director and performer Tamira Kalmbach and her team take the audience on a journey through time in Kalmbach’s biography. In 2015, she moves to Bavaria to study. So far, so good. But even if Bavarian culture appears so easy to see through, fitting in is hard. The acid test comes at the Oktoberfest. »Cheers, you jerks!« – »Cheers, you jerk!« Little by little, the performers and the audience delve deeper into the customs, mysteries, and truths of the Oktoberfest. Soon a game commences in which traditions and customs are called into question, the Oktoberfest is deconstructed, and something new is created.
Tamira Kalmbach & Team
The group centered around Mia San Mia formed at the Institute for Applied Theater Studies in Giessen. As a FLINTA* team, they develop immersive theater formats in which the audience does not merely watch but becomes part of the action. Their work emerges from an exploration of social tensions—between identity, power, and belonging. In doing so, they view collaboration as a political space: diverse, intersectional, and deliberately polyphonic.
Johanna Lehnert (she/her) is a performer, theater technician, and stand-up comedian known as Luzie Fieser. She blends theater and stand-up with wit, charm, and a keen sense of timing—sometimes on stage, sometimes behind the scenes. Her affinity for the stage began in the youth choir of Theater Trier, led her to the Junges Theater Freiburg, and eventually to her studies in Applied Theater Studies in Giessen. There, she has been writing, performing, and working with technology since 2022—most recently on stage in Mia san Mia (Tamira Kalmbach) and as a lighting designer for Save A Horse, Ride A Cowgirl (sandyatemyheart).
Instagram @johannaaluciaa ↗
Isabel Sophia Junker (she/her), born in 2000 in Karlsruhe, is a young theater maker and has been a student of Applied Theater Studies at Justus Liebig University in Giessen since 2022. As an artist, she works across disciplines in film, performance, and sound. For “Mia San Mia,” she takes the stage and treats the audience to the latest Oktoberfest mashups.
Instagram @isabelsphia ↗
Tamira Kalmbach (she/no // 1996, Heilbronn) is a performer, director, and theater educator. After working as an assistant director at the Stadttheater Regensburg, she realized her own projects, including “All das Schöne,” which was invited to the assistant directors’ festival “Summer Up 9,” among others. Since 2022, she has been pursuing a master’s degree in Applied Theater Studies in Giessen. Her production “Mia San Mia,” developed there, was presented at venues including the Münchner Kammerspiele and was shortlisted for the Körber Studio Junge Regie in 2025. Most recently, she directed the world premiere of “herzkopfüber” at the Stadttheater Gießen. Her next work will premiere at the Theaterhaus Jena under the title “La Bohème – eine Lip-Sync Oper.”
Instagram @Tamira_Kalmbach ↗
Féline Rathke (no pronouns // 1995, Hamburg) is a stage technician, theater scholar, and dramaturg. After completing an apprenticeship at the Hamburg Schauspielhaus, Féline studied applied theater studies in Giessen and dramaturgy in Frankfurt. Practical work has included collaborations with the F.E.T.T. collective (2021), as well as projects at the Flucto Plasma Festival (2022 with her own [sic!] collective), the Fusion Festival (2025), and Körberstudio Junge Regie (2025). Féline is a fellow of the Hans Böckler Foundation and part of the research project “Monstrous Matters: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Stagings of Monstrous Figures, Bodies, and Orders in Contemporary Theater and Related Arts” at Justus Liebig University in Giessen.
Instagram @feli_thk ↗
Lotte Luzie (2002, Berlin) studies Applied Theater Studies in Giessen and works in the fields of directing, video, and lighting. Her short film “weisser riese” has been screened at several festivals. In the production Mia San Mia, she worked in the areas of lighting and performance. In 2025, she held a teaching position at the Folkwang University of the Arts.
Instagram @lotteluzi.fer ↗