31 Questions for the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich

We’ve been around since:
2004; the Dadaists since 1916.

What we do in 3 words:
Revitalising Dada today.

Our guiding principle is:
Understanding Dada as a mode of inquiry.

Our annual budget:
CHF 880,000 (catering & culture).

We receive our funding from ...
... the City of Zurich, the Canton of Zurich, foundations, revenue from catering, rentals, members, as well as through our programme and outreach activities.

If we had an extra 1 million at our disposal each year, we could ...
... plan and organise our outreach more sustainably, create better budgets for communication, production and outreach, afford exhibition displays and pay higher fees, as well as extend our opening hours during the day.

We are most efficient ...
... in hospitality.

If we had to describe Dada in a nutshell, it would go something like this:
No fixed programme, no style, but a radical openness to the process.

Our programme ...
... provokes.
... educates.
... seeks the new.
... loves chaos.
... breaks with conventions.
... breaks with expectations.
... adapts to global political events.
... is a continuation of the events of 1916.
... would probably not really appeal to the Dadaists of that time.
... generally has no intention of pleasing.
... moves between careful planning and enthusiastic spontaneity, between research and experimentation, and between the established and the unknown, linking different arts and debates in the process. ✓

We are primarily concerned with ...
... the past.
... the present. ✓
... with the future.

Through our programme, we promote ...
... love. ✓
... knowledge. ✓
... criticism. ✓
... historical awareness. ✓
... irony. ✓
... transcendence. ✓
... faith. ✓
... world peace. ✓
... endangered species. ✓
... irrationality. ✓
... reason. ✓
... justice. ✓
... confidence. ✓

Dada in 2026 is ...
... everything that is punk.
... an ICE OUT pin on your chest.
... steaks for breakfast.
... Lara Stoll.
... Christoph Marthaler.
... Putin’s shitbox.
... a membership of Exit.
... watching the ZDF’s Traumschiff.
... ‘Dada 1916’ as a historical avant-garde movement, just as much as ‘Dada 2026’ – understood as something that must constantly reform itself in the present moment. ✓

Dada is good for Zurich because ...
... not everything has to be neat and tidy. ✓
... not everything has to be planned out. ✓
... not everything has to be symmetrical. ✓
... not everyone has to be so serious. ✓
... not everything has to be serious. ✓

Contemporary art owes it to the Dadaists that ...
... you don’t have to be an artist to make art.
... you can simply stick a banana on the wall.
... art schools are unnecessary, indeed even superfluous.
... nothing at all has to be anything.
... they opened up the vocabulary of contemporary art and showed that art and life are inseparable. ✓

The advantages of a historic building are:
᛫ the tourists come anyway.
᛫ fundraising runs like clockwork.
᛫ for once, this building won’t be demolished. Hallelujah!
᛫ it makes the urgency of fighting against historical amnesia immediately palpable. ✓

If our programme were a dish, it would be ...
... a linguistic mishmash à la Friedrich Glauser.

We will soon be breaking this taboo:
We should probably all talk more about fascism.

A persistent rumour surrounding our work goes like this:
Dada was just nonsense.

We would love to see these superstars, dead or alive, on our stage one day:
Emmy Hennings, Hugo Ball, Sophie Taeuber, Hans Arp, Tristan Tzara, Suzanne Perrottet, Marietta di Monaco, Richard Huelsenbeck, Hans Richter and Friedrich Glauser.

Cultural life in Zurich has something you won’t find anywhere else in the world, and that is...
...a wealth of culture in a small space.

What we’d like to see for cultural life in Zurich is...
... lots of different cultural venues – and quite a few large ones.

The best drink at our bar is the ...
... Dada Sour.

For people in wheelchairs, our venue is ...
... unfortunately only accessible via the Historic Hall.

By inclusion, we mean ...
... breaking down physical, communicative and substantive barriers without reducing complexity. Listening, observing and learning from people with different experiences.

This is how many people work for us:
Thirteen (ten of whom work in catering and booking)

By team spirit, we mean ...
... working together – and a great deal of trust.

The average salary of our staff is ...
... CHF 5,300 on a full-time basis.

We make this mistake time and time again:
We try to do too much.

The hardest part of our work is ...
... the versatility.

The best part of our work is ...
... the versatility.

Working for culture is worthwhile because ...
... culture brings people together, because it raises awareness, sharpens the mind and liberates.