Hartmut Rosa
*1965 — Resonance TheoryResonance is not a mood — it is a way of relating. Something touches you, you respond. Both sides are changed. That is what we cultivate.
About
There is a kind of work that sits between all categories.
There is a kind of work that sits between all categories.
Not consulting. Not training. Not coaching.
It begins with a simple observation:
We have forgotten how to live in responsibility.
We function out of conformity — and in doing so, lose contact with ourselves.
That costs us more than efficiency.
It costs us the ability to act freely — instead of merely reacting.
What drives us
Organizations do not have a knowledge problem. They have a courage problem. The courage to say what is. The courage to truly listen. The courage not to know.
Tasks become blurred — overlaid by expectations that no one has articulated. By roles that people identify with without noticing it. People function — and often sense themselves that something is missing. Not out of indifference. But because the space in which curiosity could exist simply isn't there. They listen in order to respond, not to understand. They change — on paper, not in the body.
This is the result of a culture that has forgotten: A task needs someone who truly fills it. Alive. Curious. As himself. And it is precisely this person — of whom no copy exists — who disappears in the noise of general norms and contradictory objectives.
Capabilities that are needed for transformation and innovation cannot be prescribed. They also cannot be implemented. They emerge.
We assume that the value of a human being does not have to be earned — it is there. Independent of performance or external standards. We work with the potential of intrinsically motivated people. And we know: Without incompleteness, nothing new can emerge.
That is why we start there — art- and experience-based. We make visible and developable what has long been present in every person — but what concepts, theories and methods can neither grasp nor cultivate, because it is nothing general, but the most particular thing in each human being — and that is precisely what we create space for.
Who we are
At the core of Zukunftstheater is me — Lukas König.
At my side: Samuel Wolff — actor and meditation teacher, a long-standing playing partner and colleague who has shaped this work from the very beginning.
Lukas König
Samuel Wolff
Behind that stands a grown network: actors and performers with a shared history of practice, musicians, partner organisations from consulting and research, specialists from various disciplines.
Not assembled on demand — but grown over years in real projects.
More than half of the organisations that have worked with us have come back. Since 2023.
"You moved us emotionally with great sensitivity: the playful ease with which a new way of working together among leaders was brought to life was encouraging and deeply inspiring!"
"It was simply incredible to watch you … at times I had tears in my eyes, seeing how precisely and 'mercilessly' situations were made visible. Thank you to the whole team — extraordinary!"
"You helped us deepen the personal experience at our Leadership Mindset Conference. You created productive disruption — a momentum that makes formats like this stay with you."
"Thank you to Zukunftstheater for shaking up my inner comfort zone once again. Not always easy — some of what was new was genuinely hard to sit with — but that is precisely why it works."
"We started with curiosity — and over the course of the day, fascination joined in: the speed and ease with which our approaches sharpened, and the realisation: the foundation is always deep understanding first."
Lukas König
Founder · Actor · Director · Performative Keynote Speaker · Process Designer
I left school without finishing. Not in protest. But because I realised: I only know what I don't want.
What I did want, I didn't find in the curriculum. I found it in actor training — because it addressed me as a whole person. Not just the mind. The body. Feeling. Imagination.
And because success there didn't depend on conforming — but on accessing myself.
That is still the foundation of my work today.
What followed was not a straight path. But one that unfolded through encounters.
Eugenio Barba. Pär Ahlbom. Iris Johansson. Three people who shaped my understanding of presence, body and change in fundamental ways — each in their own way.
Zukunftstheater did not begin as a business idea. It emerged from an artistic research project — and because requests suddenly started arriving. From outside. Unexpectedly.
It continues to develop organically. Not according to plan.
Certified in conflict management and mediation, with further training in trauma therapy. Several years as a seminar actor inside organisations — from within, not from outside. Contextual knowledge that helps understand what actually works in organisations and people.
I have led performative keynotes, accompanied leadership teams and shaped transformation processes — for groups and organisations of 2 to 3,000 members or employees. And in other contexts: in spaces where communication is particularly difficult — and particularly necessary. With young people on the margins. In encounter formats where interests collide.
What I hope for every day I work with people:
That someone pauses briefly during a break — and notices: I'm really here right now. Not functioning out of conformity. But relaxed — present as myself.
That they feel what connects us — and at the same time, how singular each person is. That both hold true. At the same time.
That is not something I can bring about. I can only shape a space in which it becomes possible — and then step back.
Belonging within openness. Curiosity instead of control. Welcoming the ungovernable.
Our field of experience
Intellectual bridges into our work
Three thinkers who have found words for what we deal with every day.
Mihály Csíkszentmihályi
1934–2021 — Flow TheoryComplete absorption in an activity. Challenge and skill in balance. The most fulfilling human experiences arise, for us, exactly there.
Erich Fromm
1900–1980 — Being vs. HavingReal communication is an expression of being — not the transfer of information. His distinction between the having-mode and the being-mode explains why many organisations are trapped in a culture that has long since ceased to sustain them.
Beyond method
The Unavailable
The unpredictable. The uncontrollable. What arrives while you are busy making other plans. It cannot be possessed, forced, or avoided.
Those who can work with it — not against it — lead differently. Decide differently. Stay present when others react.
This is no technique. No model. It is a trust that forms — from within. Art and play make that possible: without fear. With curiosity.
What do you need to work with the unavailable — instead of against it? → To the capacities
For those who want to look closer
Our work is scientifically grounded. I — Lukas König — research in the field of performative sociology: an approach that treats bodily experience and playful experiment not as the opposite of theory, but as its extension into reality. The central question: how does change inscribe itself in the body — and how does it become the starting point for something new?
In 2025, a collaborative article with a transdisciplinary research collective was published in the journal SOZIOLOGIE of the German Sociological Association (DGS). The piece describes an experiment in which researchers from different disciplines — together with me as an embodied manifesto — took steps toward a different kind of society: not as a thought experiment, but as lived, documented practice. (Available in German only.)
→ Read the article: »Playing Towards a Next Society?«
That artistic intervention in organisations works — not just as a felt sense, but measurably — is demonstrated by a dissertation study from the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm. Julia Romanowska examined a year-long art-based leadership programme against conventional leadership training, using a randomised design. The result: leaders in the art-based programme changed not only their behaviour and self-awareness. The effects were also biological — measured in stress markers, both in the leaders themselves and in their employees. Change is contagious. It is not confined to the person who participates in a process.
→ Read the study: »Improving Leadership Through the Power of Words and Music«
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