›In Medias Res‹ is the second part of Richard Siegal’s trilogy for the Ruhrtriennale and is based on Purgatorio, the middle book of Dante’s ›Divina Commedia‹. Siegal’s purgatory presents itself as a colourful cabaret evoking the licentiousness of the 20th Century’s Roaring Twenties. At the same time, it examines art’s possibilities of operating as a form of political regulation. While cabaret in its original form used verbal and musical means to question politics and sexuality, Siegal’s choreographic perspective focuses primarily on the body – conditioned by social, political and economic structures while at the same time full of vitality and energy. Four dancers and three musicians (double bass, cello and live electronics) use improvised ›numbers‹ to research diverse rituals of purification and investigate their political dimensions. Is there such a thing as resistance art, an aesthetics of resistance?