The Festival »Dramen der Gegenwart #2« takes a look at the diversity and qualities of contemporary theater texts. A total of around 20 theater texts will be presented in a broad spectrum of forms.

Saturday Program:
10:00 Caffeine Drama – Reading Speed Dating I
12:00 Writing Chamber vs. Writers’ Room
13:00 Pearls & Swine – A Drama Parcours
18:00 Poetics Pulse
19:00 The Playwright Is Present I & II – The Writers’ Ensemble
21:00 The Playwright Is Present III & IV – The Authors’ Ensemble

Sunday Program:
10:00 Caffeine Drama – Reading Speeddating II
12:00 Collision 1: “Couple IV”
12:30 Collisions 2: “visible only when viewed. chance encounters”
13:00 Collisions 3: “HOMOSPHERE”
14:30 Ways and detours to authorship
16:00 Conclusion Dramas of the Present #2

An actress stands on stage in front of a large screen, her thoughts in her past – and simultaneously in virtual worlds with VR glasses. A cascade of intertwined, immersive memory spaces emerges. A reality matroshka that begins with an inner-immersive play of the performer, continues through the virtual reality construction and the peculiar reality of a theater stage into the reality constructions of our world.

Rabea Kiel and Adolfina Fuck (Matthias Meppelink) have a longstanding collaboration, through Applied Theater Studies in Giessen and with the performance group Monster Truck. Since 2021, the duo has been exploring the medium of virtual reality as a performative tool with the aim of a productive misappropriation for theater.

In a mobile performance through four private apartments in Neukölln, director Christiane Mudra provides insight into the lives of mentally ill people and describes the situation in Germany’s psychiatric institutions from the Nazi era to the present day. In the process, »Selfie & Ich« unmasks en passant the systemic deformation of our oh-so-happy meritocracy.

investigative
stands for journalistic long-term research that is based primarily on original sources and also uncovers unknown facts.

theater
plays out the research specifically in different formats. investigative theater experiments with digital tools and seeks interaction with the audience.

The fourth edition of the LABOR SONOR concert series 2023 – back at Ballhaus Ost with concerts and performances by Maikon K, the VanProject and Rabih Beaini. Sonic & aesthetic experiments between dance, music theater and analog techno.

Labor Sonor – the series for experimental music, film and performance – presents the spectrum of current experimental forms beyond genre-specific determinability – from real-time music to electronics, performance, audiovisual formats, conceptual music, new composed music and experimental pop.

»You know the Feeling« is a theatrical performance that explores loneliness, identity designs, and actual or claimed community through five covers of the pop song “People, I’ve Been Sad” by Christine and the Queens.

If you / Disappear, then I’m /Disappearing too
If you / Fall apart, then I’m / Falling behind you

Blomen/Moré/Reiniger are a theater collective and know each other from their studies at the University of Hildesheim. They are interested in the intersection of theater and reality and let autobiographical narratives meet fictional characters in their stage plays; as an intimate and at the same time public negotiation of their present.

Kompositionen von S. Ercklentz, E. Grosskopf, R. Hoyer, S. Roigk, S. Weismann, U. Wassermann. Mit Megaphonen, Mikrofonen, Flüstertüten und Handlautsprechern werden die Stimmen zu sich wandelnden Konstellationen choreografiert.

Die Maulwerker, Kollektiv für stimmliche Experimente, integrieren Elemente aus Performance Art, intermedialer Kunst und Choreografie in ihre Musik.

In »Dogs of Love,« the queer performance collective ONCE WE WERE ISLANDS explores the intimate connection between two people that transcends space and time. Starting from their own love for each other in the here and now, the two performers* move away from each other in the course of the performance and pass through time. On the virtual path into the future and the past, respectively, they explore and relive the equally real and fictional history of queer togetherness. Located in the interstice of visual art, performance, dance and scientific research, Chris Gylee and Richard Aslan use (auto)biographical narration as well as meticulous research on life realities that go beyond the consciousness of heteronormative “normality” for »Dogs of Love«. The result is a semi-fictional family tree of queer belonging, in which Reinaldo Arenas appears as well as Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, Jack Bee Garland, Audre Lorde and Samuel R. Delany. Chris Gylee and Aslan are working as a queer performance collective under the name ONCE WE WERE ISLANDS since 2012 in the inexhaustible field between disciplines, combining theater, film, choreography and scientific research. For their poetic works, the two performers* use (auto-) biographical narration as well as meticulous research on queer life realities. The starting point of their projects are both selected research questions and a strong connection to people who see the world from a perspective that is unfamiliar to them. perspective that is unfamiliar to them. Their collaborators may be specialists, have a particular life experience or skill, think about things in fascinating ways, or simply be open to playful exploration. Their ongoing research is dedicated to diverse phenomena such as queerness, empathy, marginalization, and activism. To realize these working focuses, they use elements of performance, theater, installation, and choreography as raw material. The result is a series of contemporary rituals closely linked to performative mechanisms and laboratories. These similarly charged spaces open up uncanny experiences, provoke surprising thought patterns, and shed light on human interaction.

»Say YES! Yes or Nice! You have the choice! Or do the Monbijou da-da-dance? Make up your mind, Fennymore!« What is this strange little town where it rains all the time and everyone has to wear a rain hat? Where Doctor Uhrengut – mayor, doctor, hat monopolist and gymnastics club chairman all in one – is constantly singing the praises of the brave new world? It’s election time and Doctor Uhrengut now wants to be mayor for L-L-L-life. Fennymore, that is the childlike main character of the story, is also allowed to vote. But before that, he wanders through the small town and meets Aunt Else in her pub »Zum Dackel im Salzmantel«, Fizzy from the drinks warehouse, the sports teacher Mr. Muckenthaler, the stubborn bicycle Monbijou and – wait! – was that death back there? »Fennymore oder Wie man Dackel im Salzmantel macht« is an interactive acting performance with the audience as the main character. The stage is a walk-on and experienceable art installation with sound-composed light spaces. At the end is the mayoral election for life. The outcome depends on the result of the election and is decided anew at each performance. Kirsten Reinhardt works as a freelance writer. Her debut »Fennymore oder Wie man Dackel im Salzmantel macht« was awarded the Oldenbug Children’s and Young People’s Book Prize in 2009 as an unpublished manuscript and translated into five languages. Since then, two more children’s novels and a picture book have been published by Carlsen Verlag.Sebastian Mauksch is a freelance director and dramaturge for performance theater. He directed the youth venues of the Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, and his works with P14 made guest appearances at numerous festivals. From 2008 he staged world premieres at Ballhaus Ost with texts by David Lindemann, Helene Hegemann and Anne Tismer. For the Berliner Festspiele he is researching the art of adolescence.

What happens when togetherness becomes threeness? »All In« deals with triadic love relationships in which three people meet in the constellation of a triangle. Loving as a threesome questions just about everything we think we know about love, and requires the participants to enter a new terrain where there are few experiences and templates to fall back on. Three performer:s weave together collected interview material from people with triadic relationship experience into a polyphonic web of acting, dancing and singing that foregrounds the diversity of love forms. The socially accepted dual relationship model is questioned and encouraged to think differently about love and to open up new spaces and possibilities. And not just for love, but for all areas of life in which we limit ourselves by clinging to seemingly fixed models.   Daniel Hellmann is a dance and theater maker, singer and performer living and working between Zurich and Berlin. Layton Lachman is a performer, dancer and choreographer who has recently moved to Berlin after seven years of working in San Francisco. Anne Welenc is an actress and performance artist living in Berlin. All In is the first joint work of the three artists.

Daniel is a sex worker. In the solo performance »Traumboy« he tells about his experiences as a prostitute. He tells why he took up this work, describes his customers and their wishes. The audience experiences a young man who loves to prostitute himself. The only problem: the stigma. Kim is an actress. She is also a sex worker, once sold soap, is a barmaid, German, Polish… In »Traumgirl« Kim negotiates what it is like to work in the border area between “real work”, performance and so-called “dirty work”. »Traumboy and Traumgirl« move between documentary theater and autofiction and question the double standards of a thoroughly capitalized and oversexualized society as well as the meaning of sex and work in the neoliberal system. The bodies on stage become projection surfaces for fears, fantasies and contradictions. What is a woman/man allowed to reveal about herself? What not? And who pays the price? Daniel Hellmann is a dance and theater maker, singer and performer. His works examine bodies, bodily relationships and desire, and question social norms in the fields of sexuality, human and animal rights. After »Requiem for a Piece of Meat« and »All In«, »Traumboy« is the third work Daniel Hellmann presents at Ballhaus Ost. Anne Welenc is an actress and performer. Her works are research-based and deal with transcendence. She is interested in combining clear narratives with surreal elements.

The devised play tells of a porter. An outsider who works where others live. In the lobby in a city that never sleeps. A story about a working cosmos, the American Dream and a character that collapses when it can no longer be itself.

Meta Imbiss, founded by Stella Nikisch and Nathalie Schatz, mixes pop culture with theater, thinks content and aesthetics together and likes to collaborate, in short: it stands for fire, fun and fashion.

In his documentary »barfuß und ohne hut« (“barefoot and without a hat”), Jürgen Böttcher portrayed “Young People” (the working title at the time) with their visions of the future in the free space between school and working life in 1964. In the middle of Wedding, the Humboldthain Club will now be transformed into a beach bar on the Baltic Sea coast, where six performers will venture a reenactment with the audience: with music, in exhilaration, in movement, but also in relaxation, they will compare scenes from the film with their own professional hopes and desires.

Sebastian Mauksch & Team stage participatory theater for children and young people and research the art of adolescence for the Berliner Festspiele. Their works have been invited to AUGENBLICK MAL! – The Festival of Theater for Young Audiences as well as to WILDWECHSEL – The Children’s & Youth Theater Festival in Eastern Germany, among others.

Lisa Verbelen will not make a solo this time. In »TWO.« she forms a duo with celebrated jazz musician Hendrik Lasure.»TWO.« is an exercise to reverse thinking in opposites and to experience what is in between two extremes. Expect a musical and theatrical concert, words and music that make you feel and think, both hard and soft, both dark and light, with smoke and fire, water in the desert, not ugly nor beautiful, all yin and yang, about you and me.

Lisa Verbelen (1988) studied Theatrical Performance at De Toneelacademie in Maastricht, and a Master in Music Theatre at the Conservatory of Den Haag.  Together with five others, Lisa founded the theatre collective BOG. in 2013. BOG. is based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands and creates performances based on texts written by the creators themselves.  

Hendrik Lasure (1997) studied piano at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels and was awarded with the Toots Thielemans Jazz Award at his graduation in 2017.  Hendrik is a musical jack of all trades, known for his band SCHNTZL, the ensemble Warm Bad, the trio Thunderblender, or APQ, or Bombataz or in the band of An Pierlé.

Margarete Huber »Kartographie« (2022, UA)

Rebecca Saunders »O« (2017) 

Travis Just »Quintet 1: Five Voices« (2006/ Version 2022) 

Andrea Neumann »Rencontre 5« (2022, UA)

Boris Filanovsky »Mariupol« (2022, UA)

The program »The extended voice« will present vocal music of the 21st century in the thematic field opened by the coordinates of ‘extended vocal techniques’, ‘language as musical material’ and ‘voice as physicality in movement’.

The Maulwerkers are a vocal ensemble, music performers, music theater makers and a collective of composers. They are specialists in the intersections of music and theater, music and language, in the interpenetration of music and space, of sound and silence.

The Maulwerkers present brand new pieces, freshly written for them, show you the special sounds they have developed and perfected over the years and teach you these extended techniques. Together we will make the Ballhaus Ost ring with our bubbling, shouting, warbling, hissing and much more!

The Maulwerkers are a vocal ensemble, music performers, music theater makers and a collective of composers. They are specialists in the intersections of music and theater, music and language, in the interpenetration of music and space, of sound and silence.

At SCHRUMPF! Berlin ensembles present their current productions – in family format. New art forms are discovered, places explored, movements tried out, sounds listened to – and everyone can join in.

Daniella Strasfogel is a violinist, performer and facilitator in Berlin. She is a founding member of the soloist ensemble Kaleidoskop in Berlin and founded LOUDsoft in 2018, out of the impulse to create multidimensional musical experiences for and with families.

. . . in the dark, starry sky in the middle of the sea — still mirroring water — I cannot tell where the line is between sea and sky; looking into my own eyes, I see both reality and fantasy reflecting back at me . . . 

I have met several selves of mine: so I am never alone; I’m not only one thing, I’m not only my body. I am a question mark.  »ANAL.IZANDO« exists within this ____?____ as a continuous transformation through non-binary figures — mythological, technological, corporal and non-corporal, — as projections of my utopian consciouses. Flowing through a constant state of becoming, it oscillates in an ecstasy of multi-layered selves. This solo performance outlines the complex and paradoxical endeavour of embracing a constant state of change, embracing reflection, shadow, ecstasy, and my question mark, while re-writing pleasure into the stories we tell about transformation and becoming. 

ronald berger is a non-binary dancer and performer from Costa Rica based in Berlin. Their connection to nature and its performative qualities influenced ronald. The conflict between their sexuality and the strong catholic and chauvinist context of their natal country, inspires debates, analysis and questions regarding social behavior. 

N O T E:

The play explores themes of sexuality, among other things, and includes depictions of nudity.

Stroboscopic effects are used in this performance.

»Planet Lubunya« is a queer sci-fi journey into space with multidisciplinary performative practices and live music. It is a critical journey into space searching for ultimate utopia while using humor as a vehicel.

The project was initiated by İrem Aydın (Berlin) and Efe Durmaz (İstanbul) in 2020 as a format for digital solidarity between queer people in Turkey and Germany. It now takes off as a theater production with (mainly) Berlin based artists and is heading towards interstellar collaborations with artists from a multitude of places.

At the annual small town folk festival, two former best friends meet again after a long radio silence. Anna’s career as a racer has taken off in the meantime and Milena is in the middle of her quarterlife crisis. Between Gasoline Queen choices and BFF memories, they try to revive their relationship and face their life choices.

A queer musical about friendship, Y2K nostalgia, the absurdity of heteronormative traditions and everyday competitive culture.

cmd+c was founded by the couple Marina Prados and Paula Knüpling with the intention to create queer structures in front of and behind the stage and to deal with them in a fair, respectful and creative way. Works have already been seen at Volksbühne, Schaubude and Ballhaus Ost, most recently »Ladybitch – ein Theaterabend über den Untergang Franz Kramers«

Since the performances cannot take place due to illness, the recording of last year’s Zoom Krippenspiel will be shown here on the website on 24.12. from 11:00 to 2:30.

What would happen if Christmas didn’t exist?
Christmas is the most beautiful celebration of the year for most people, and yet everything often happens at the last minute. Many people associate Christmas only with stress and agony: Rushing through the stores to get the necessary, increasingly expensive gifts. But in a time of frantic speed, we need things to give us pause. We need Christmas to be able to live. A wintry world celebrates the breakthrough of love and hope.
God sends his Son to earth as a little helpless child. We experience God’s closeness to humanity. He shares his life with us, knows about joy and sorrow. He gives us hope, shows us how small beginnings can grow into great things. But it came to pass at that time…”, we all know the beginning of this story and also its end, but in the meantime the world has changed.
This year again we want to celebrate a morning of joy and reflection with memories and shining children’s eyes, a classic nativity play.

Six performers exchange their biographies with each other. Biographies as texts and postures that are stored in our bodies. A jaw dances the posture choreo of the will to rise, a back wheel has internalized the perfect turn of shame. Every biography is a singular narrative that never belongs to us alone.

The performance collective SEE! (SE Struck, Alexandra Knieps) from Cologne has been developing hybrid performance formats since 2005, staging open networks with a self-sufficient formal language that always addresses communalization and participation on theater stages and in urban social contexts. They were at Ballhaus Ost for the first time in 2018 with »ok panik« and most recently presented the dance solo »Sonderbare IRRE«, which was already their third invitation to the theater festival FAVORITEN.

As part of NO LIMITS – Disability & Performing Arts Festival 2022

“Who actually says what is sick – and what is healthy? As gods in white, the vorschlag:hammer collective and Theater Hora question supposed certainties of the health system – and have a lot of fun in the process.” (Valeria Heintges, nachtkritik.de)

N O T E:

The performance takes place with the auditorium darkened and the topics of hospital, surgery and death are discussed.

As part of NO LIMITS – Disability & Performing Arts Festival 2022

Nominated for the 2021 National Dance Awards the intimate performance is a peep into the shiny and sweaty push pull of living with shame while bursting with pride.

N O T E: 

The play is recommended for audiences 16 and older. In it there are depictions of kink experiences, suffocation, humiliation, dominant behavior and explicit sexuality and language, and feelings of strangeness are described. Part of the performance is loud noises, flashing lights and sexy people with disabilities.

If the climate and corona crises make us aware of our fragility, Sebastian Blasius and his accomplices experiment in five prototypical etudes with a theater model that starts from precisely these experiences: What are the potentials of a ‘theater of the unsovereign’?

The director, choreographer and theater scholar Sebastian Blasius realizes projects at the interface of performing, visual and acoustic arts. At Ballhaus Ost, he most recently showed »Die Räuber der Geschichte«.

On Nov. 25, 2022, following the performance, there will be a conversation with the team, »Vom Versuch, Theater von Fragilität ausgehend zu denken,« moderated by Dr. Marcus Quent (University of the Arts, Berlin).

A film whose image does not show itself. An exhibition whose context is missing. A song without artists. A piece within a piece without a piece. Identities that flush down the toilet. »Sexy Straight White People« is a theatrical performance about the power of gender identities. vT.corp challenge habits of seeing, living and sexing to question the lifestyles and loves of the heteronormative mainstream.

Hannah Müller and Max Gadow are a sexy white artist couple from Hamburg. Known as virtuellestheater since 2015 and merged into vT.corp at the beginning of 2020, they are already a well-established team at Ballhaus Ost. Most recently, they invited friends to spend time with them as part of “It’s about time”. Very close to the zeitgeist and extremely adept at transforming between the arts, their performances form hybrids of video art, performing arts, music and exhibition.

13 queer artists are developing a collection of multi-media artworks – an EP, a book, films, an online archive, and a live event – in response to the queer language Damiá and the political and artistic questions it raises.

The work is available digitally via a website archive – www.queertongue.com – and in limited edition analog formats. On December 02, 2022, the EP will be released online.

Once upon a time there was a fan from Thuringia. He was enchanted by a famous tennis player from West Germany. But one day, a nasty, moaning opponent from Yugoslavia appeared on the scene….

The piece tells the story of the attack on tennis star Monica Seles in the context of the global political events in the early 1990s and seeks ways out of media tales of good and evil, East and West, perpetrator and victim.

In his work as a director Demjan Duran deals with his country of birth, Yugoslavia. By researching the past, he digs out themes into and for today, and places them in an overall social context. »Ein Fan aus Thüringen« is his first piece in Berlin.

The documentary performance deals with the meaning of the body – the flesh – in today’s society. Three performers navigate through live music, live video and pan-European interviews with protagonists from the porn industry, the church, the food industry, and many more.

N O T E :
Part of the performance includes loud noises and flickering lights.

The multimedia performance is an allegorical performance-essay that speculates about the possibilities of returning to a primordial state of fluid equality amongst all lifeforms. With little action and much space for mind-wondering it invites to linger and digress while listening to atmospheric water sounds, pounding bass drums or the seductive voice of Baby Marcel.

In his works Max Gadow focuses on the investigation of Western myths and power structures and derives performative processes from them. The formats range from installations to workshops and stage productions.

Apart from the flock, a sheep encounters a wolf. To avoid being eaten, it devises a ruse. It asks the wolf to play the flute so it can dance one last time…

Based on a fable ascribed to the ancient poet and slave Aesop, the piece investigates figurations of resistance within asymmetrical power relations.

In »Queens« Mary Stuart and Elizabeth I are two washed-up, undead drag queens who have been living a shared existence in Limbo for some 500 years. Until an earthquake opens the gates to the present for them…

The piece is Anne Welenc’ writing and directing debut. Most recently, she has appeared as an actress in transdisciplinary performance projects such as »All in« and »Traumgirl.« In »Queens« she continues this practice by expanding the classical theater material with impulses from related performing arts.

N O T E:
Part of the performance includes loud noises, flickering lights (strobe effects) and fog. There are depictions and mentions of earthquakes, natural disasters, death, murder and explicit sexuality in it.

How much inequality can a global friendship take? Jorge Antonio Arias Cortez was born in May 1985 in Oruro in the Bolivian Altiplano, Nicola Fritzen in October 1978 in Berlin. For »Dos Vidas«, the two befriended actora subject their biographies to a comparison and stress test – with all the extremes, high points and painful details.

Since 1991 KLARA has been exploring different theatrical languages, new dramaturgies, and the blending of fictional and documentary performance. The two protagonists of »Dos Vidas« already know each other from the long-term research process for the last work »Palmasola«, which was shown at Ballhaus Ost in 2022.

Following the performance on Sunday, there will be a discussion format for German-Spanish language learning tandems. All language levels are welcome and no registration is necessary.

Después de la representación del domingo, hablaremos de lo que hemos visto en alemán y en español (tandems) para practicar nuestros conocimientos lingüísticos. Si es necesario, ¡con manos y pies – todos los niveles de idiomas son bienvenidos! El intercambio lingüístico es gratuito.

Across an unimaginable void lies a world inhabited only by Queer people. The theatre piece tells the story of how cracks arise in this utopia. Written and performed in Damiá, a Queer language, »The Crossing« asks if brand new words could be the place we finally build a home.

Written and performed entirely in Damiá, a Queer art-language developed by Aslan since they were a teenager, The Crossing was originally conceived of as a live stage performance. This film adaptation was created after the premiere and 2022 shows were cancelled due to COVID. The film is available online, free of charge, for two weeks from 28th February to 13th March 2023. The text is translated for the audience with subtitles into English and German.

Since 2012, Queer performance collective ONCE WE WERE ISLANDS — Chris Gylee and Aslan — have worked in the fertile ground between disciplines, combining theatre, film, choreography and research. The two performers deploy (auto)biographical narrative as well as meticulous research on Queer life realities for their poetic works.

The theater collective copy & waste places itself at the side of the dying and assembles their feverish narratives, great songs and otherworldly images into a many-voiced monologue for one actor. Hannes Schumacher plays and speaks Dostoyevsky and Kleist, Milow and Weil, Hölderlin and Schulze-Erdel and slips into the costumes of great paintings and film scenes.

The theater and performance collective copy & waste has been realizing plays since 2007. After works about the collapse of cities, the end of work and cancellation of nature, it dedicates its current series »Theater of Death« to dying. »bye, bye, bye« is the second part of this series after the theaterfilm »Besides, it’s always been the others who died«.

Following the performance on 4.3. the third part of »Die Suche nach der Ur-Oper« by Das Helmi will take place at the bar.

Three vocalists cook up a culinary experience from the internet healing phenomena Eating Show (Muk-bang) and ASMR, spiced with a global social problem: racially motivated violence against Asians, from the 20th century to current Asian Hate by COVID-19. With a fusion sound cuisine of internet cult, experimental vocal music and Asian world music, the piece shows the unheard perspectives of  Asians and invites the audience to question their own role in the post-migrant society.

N O T E:
The play addresses anti-Asian violence and is therefore recommended for audiences 16 and older

Hang Su is a composer of new music. He works on performative projects and experiments with new forms of musical theater.

Where can a group drift?
In »FIVE« five dancers investigate different arrangements, dynamics and poses within a group. They move between geometric formations, swarm behavior, band poses and chaos, work with movement motifs of packs and packs and repeatedly question the relationship between individual and group. They rock each other up, and are on the lookout for tipping moments in which the group body goes out of shape and tips over into the destructive.

After many duets by Florian Bücking and Raisa Kröger under the label bücking&kröger in recent years, the ensemble piece »FIVE« is an attempt to extend their dance / choreographic practice by working with several dancers and exploring the sculptural possibilities of a group body.

Come and play! Throw all your heritage into the balance.
A 40-something woman wants to have a baby and invites the audience to play the game of life with her. Based on scientific and social developments, it is about the very personal gut feeling and socially profound decisions…

After the performances »Die Natur der Kinder« (2016), »Unser Erbe« (2018) and »Good Advice« (2021), willems&kiderlen continue their artistic research on physical, social and material heritage and passing on. »Das Erbe – Schon cool, was da alles möglich ist!« is based on interviews with people affected by a heavily burdened heritage as well as with experts and scientists.

Horwitz|Shapiro|Wagner investigate, rewrite and transform Jewish and queer rituals and create a sound space for the drag of religion between dance music and contemporary sounds. They situate traditions and histories as artistic practice and write a herstory of their own history with the political responsibility of marginalization as queer, Jewish artists.

Theater maker Heinrich Horwitz and drummer Jonathan Shapiro have been experimenting together since 2018 in changing constellations and genres at the intersections of music, performance, dance and language. After »DREAMS*« (Nürnberg 2022), »Drag & Drum« at Ballhaus Ost is their second collaborative work with performer, opera singer, songwriter and drag queen Shlomi Moto Wagner aka. Mazy Mazeltov.

A post-apocalyptic chamber play about the social center and the brutality of the normal. While everything is falling apart outside, a small piece of the good life still remains in Sector 75B. “Why,” WOMAN and MAN ask each other, “should you give things up in such hard times – especially when you’re trying so hard to be a good person in the process?”

FEELINGS comprises the stage, sound and online works, artistic research, games and feelings that Jil Dreyer and Josef Mehling have been developing with and for each other since 2017. They have previously shown work at the Staatstheater Mainz, FELD Theater Berlin and Gessnerallee Zurich, among others. »Society Intact« is their first work at Ballhaus Ost.

N O T E:
Part of the performance includes loud noises and flickering lights.
Prior to the performance, there is the option of “early boarding.” This means that those who wish can be given more time and, if necessary, assistance in entering the auditorium, finding a seat and sitting down.

Bulimia literally means “bull hunger”, so Anna Kirstine Linke throws themself and their inner bulls into the arena. Between the Pope and Madonna, as bullfighter and bull, Linke asks whether eating disorders* are protests against binary or sexist structures or how these structures produce eating disorders*?

Author, director, performer and bodyworker Anna Kirstine Linke studied Philosophie-Künste-Medien in Hildesheim, directing at the HfMT and the ZHdK & believes in the power of vulnerability. Parallel to »Stierhunger«, Linke asks in »Sex und Kartoffeln« at the Theater Magdeburg how sexualities can be decolonized.

Acoustic installative processes in holey darkness. Enigmatic figures write themselves with an archaic script through dreams whose personnel they once were. A reduced web following lush dream logic.

The Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop sees itself as co-authors of the collaborative productions. In years of collaboration with Georg Nussbaumer, new forms of experimental music theater are explored. A place that has the power to imagine other futures.

N O T E: The performances are not barrier-free, as the audience moves through the different floors of the house on their own initiative after dark. Visitors with visual impairments can register for a guided performance at the box office up to 15 minutes before the performance begins.

Whirlpools of packaging waste circulate in the ocean. Feminine sharks glow. Nimble hands fold oversize origami. Ropes become noodles, intestines, ghost nets. Care-Pas de Deux and Slow-food Porn meet at the wok campfire of a Thai megacity. In a dance performance, the visual cosmos of a glutamate-soaked fast food world is unleashed. From a Eurocentric point of view, hard-to-digest realities of life ritually lead into absurd waters.

Dasniya Sommer seeks connections between digestion, artificiality and culture with Michael Schumacher of the inclusive ensemble Meine Damen und Herren, MMA performer Fungi Fung, eco-feminist dancer Tara Jade Samaya and exception dancer Yui Kawaguchi. Through reflections on hydrofeminism and ‘Bodies of Water’, this creates an oscillating projection surface for a critical engagement with anti-Asian racism.

Haus Sommer is the network label of dancer and choreographer Dasniya Sommer. In changing collaborations with other artists, she explores and expands the formal language of classical ballet under the influence of shibari, body art and contemporary performance art.

Following the performance on 13.5. the fifth part of »Die Suche nach der Ur-Oper« by Das Helmi will take place at the bar.

We die alone. We bury together. A participatory performance that explores the political and theatrical nature of the funeral ritual and deconstructs its settled mechanism. A ritual for which it is impossible to be fully prepared, but during this rehearsal any last wish can be fulfilled.

Natasha Borenko – a Siberian-born fluid theater maker, queer feminist migrant artist, who sees participatory art as a tool to deconstruct the system and rehearse the change. She develops this piece in collaboration with cross-cultural interdisciplinary artists.

In the forest of mythical creatures there is always a fight. No two people ever agree on anything. But it’s not the quarrel that’s the problem, it’s how we deal with it! In tricky situations, mouse courage, squirrel humor and peace techniques are called for. Together with the animals, the audience tries out the toolbox of conflict management.

Sebastian Mauksch & team stage participatory theater for young audiences and explore the art of adolescence. With Ballhaus Ost they created among others »Fennymore oder wie man Dackel im Salzmantel macht« (Invitations to Augenblick Mal! and Wildwechsel 2021) or »Junge Leute« (Nomination Longlist Wildwechsel 2023).

As part of the Performing Arts Festival 2023

Fernanda Farah »what draws are the eyes« (20‘)

– Pause –

Andrea Neumann »ip6« (20‘) 

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Antonia Baehr »Inside the Piano« (20‘) 

Andrea Neumann has been playing the same instrument for 20 years: a self-made piano frame without a keyboard. For »Tossed Sounds« three pieces were written for the composer and musician, by performer Antonia Baehr, dancer Fernanda Farah and Andrea Neumann herself. On one condition: The instrument is absent from the stage. What remains of a musician without her instrument? What traces does it leave behind? What can be heard?

As part of »Introducing…«at Performing Arts Festival 2023

How can an archive come alive? Can an archive become a time hole through which we can climb into new futures? Between a futuristic video world and car tires, Salma Said and Miriam Coretta Schulte explore the subversive video archive “858” of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution and the potential of choreographic mnemonic techniques.

N O T E: The show deals with topic of violence.

Salma Said and Miriam Coretta Schulte are partners in crime, friendship and performance. Since 2018, the duo has been developing an artistic practice that combines situational knowledge of their different backgrounds and contexts, a desire to experiment with activism and political issues. »behind your eyeballs« is their first joint project. »Court Fantasies« follows and will premiere in May 2023.

Bacteria live almost everywhere. In »Holobiontinnen« two performers make contact with the bacteria on their bodies and beyond. A network of performers, audience, microorganisms and machines emerges.

Eva Hintermaier / Simon Kalus are a transdisciplinary team at the intersection of performance, literature and installation. They are interested in human-nature relationships and interweavings of biological with aesthetic phenomena.

N O T E: Audio description is an integral part of all performances.

Accompanying the performances are tactile tours aimed at visually impaired people. They are also open to the public. The tactile tours make it possible to get to know the stage space, the equipment and the performers in advance. The tours are led by Sebastian Schulze and Simon Kalus. The meeting point is always 1.5 hours before the performance in the foyer.

The 24-hour happening traces the highly developed emotional system of dolphins. What would happen if we were able to transform our linear experience of time and space into a 5-dimensional vortex?

18:00 Check In / Worldbuilding
20:00 Universe
21:00 Climax / Collapse of the Universe
23:00 Food / Assimilation 
0:00 GHOSTs
3:00 Trance / INK*
5:00 3rd Pill / Revenges of Nymph
7:00 Frequencies of Dreams
DOORS CLOSED
10:00 Promenade / Repeat repeat until its in your Bones
11:00 Futureself / INK*
13:00 Backwards Burning / INK*
14:00 Trance Crying Ritual / INK*
15:00 Wetness Ritual / Creating the Ocean 
17:00 Bleed out
*For more info and booking options please contact @tattoos.by.pauli // tattoos.by.pauli@gmail.com or decide on the spot

Heinrich Horwitz and the fluid collective consists of Rosa Wernecke, Magdalena Emmerig, Annett Hardegen and various performers. The group has been working together in different constellations since 2016 and is concerned with the idea of constantly transforming the theater space as a utopian practice.

»Big Bangs & Black Holes« is a digital double-bill by Queer performance collective ONCE WE WERE ISLANDS. »Dogs of Love« and »We Come With Nothing«, created initially as stage works, are shown side-by-side for the first time, reimagined for film and animated with poetic imagery.

»Dogs of Love« (60′) investigates the intimate connection between two people. Starting with a real-life love story, two lovers run in opposite directions through time and space, through pasts and futures populated with real and imagined stories of Queer togetherness. Footsteps echo as we dive deep into togetherness, loneliness, crisis, and intimacy. Can we ever really leave someone we have been in love with?
 

To the Film

»We Come With Nothing« (35′) explores the dark side of entanglement. Inspired by the form of Olga Tokarczuk’s ‘constellation novels’ and ghost stories, it conjures a shadow-world of broken connections. What happens when a relationship ends in estrangement? What is this ‘nothing’ we are left with? What do we discover when we stare into this black hole?

To the Film

The films will be available online from June 19 through June 30, 2023.

Since 2012, Queer performance collective ONCE WE WERE ISLANDS — Chris Gylee and Aslan — have worked in the fertile ground between disciplines, combining theatre, film, choreography and research. The two performers deploy (auto)biographical narrative as well as meticulous research on Queer life realities for their poetic works. Most recently at Ballhaus Ost they showed »Karelia. A Queer Forest Fantasy in Two Parts«, and the film adaptation »The Crossing«. The piece »Dogs of Love« was premiered in 2019.

A site-specific AudioDate for one spectator and forest.

Spring Time is Dating Time! But if Parship, Grindr and LoveScout24 are not enough for you: »Dating a Forest« comes to Berlin! In times of climate crisis – just you and the forest, for two in the public space around the Ballhaus Ost. Book your dating slot – now!

Janna Pinsker and Wicki Bernhardt combine the lines of post-dramatic theater, choreography and performance for a young and intergenerational audience in their work. With an absurd-fragmentary and playful-confrontational aesthetic, they negotiate themes such as shame, bodily change, climate crisis or the power of couple relationships.

A T T E N T I O N : some slots are not barrier-free! Please contact us if necessary by mail to info @ ballhausost.de

Two peformers encounter the audience in a live experiment with human and technologized modes of perception. In the hybridity of human senses, emotions, projections and spatial fluidity, they make the area between categorizing gazes their world and discover in it the poetics of glitches – disturbances in the system.

Gloria Höckner is a freelance choreographer and performer. Gloria’s artistic works deal with the relationship of the body to technology and power structures as well as the transformational potential of sound experiences.

The improvisational vocal collective from Hamburg resides for a week at Ballhaus Ost. After two music theater projects, artistic practices and authorships have developed out of the versatile group. The TakeHeart residency at Ballhaus Ost serves to gather this multiplicity under one roof. Voices and hierarchies are once again reshuffled. Which narratives, texts and melodies emerge from the choir itself? How can the multiplicity be made audible? On Sunday, the choir opens its doors for a live listening session open to the public, inviting you to listen to new compositions, narratives and improvisations in a relaxed atmosphere over a cup of tea.

Der extrem gemische Chor is a musical theater ensemble founded in 2017. The ensemble’s composition strives for vocal heterogeneity, encompassing a wide range of ages, professionalities and musical imprints.

The interactive radio play »Beton. Wüste. Zukunft.« invites you to trace your own cognitive dissonance between real climate crisis and fatalistic repression. With dripping sounds, diving meditation and thought experiments, big questions are asked and small steps towards utopia are dared.

Alisa Tretau’s multidisciplinary works revolve around shameful facets of current political issues. The 360° short film »Wüste Zukunft« already revolved around climate justice. Previously she published the anthology ‘Nicht nur Mütter waren schwanger’ (edition assemblage).

Melanie Schmidli and team reanimate the lost sounds of historical “hysterical” women*. In an installative sound world they invite to conversations with experts on the female* voice. Finale: a participatory concert by Kreischende Weiber* including dinner.

For some time now, the actress and director Melanie Schmidli has been dealing with the discourse of hysteria as a means of social exclusion and oppression of women* in her work cycle Divina Hysterika. The multi-layered artistic process takes place in changing formats and collaborations. “Kreischende Weiber*” is the second collaboration with dramaturg Almut Wedekind, freelance artist and scenographer Barbara Lenartz, and actress and assistant Saskia Mommertz in this context. For the first time the team collaborates with the sound artist and noise maker Almut Schwacke.

The dancers listen to the space, inwardly and to each other, and move in response. In the four-hour process, they learn from what they hear to find other ways of moving. A highly sensitive mode of slow attention.

Labor Sonor – the series for experimental music, film and performance – presents the spectrum of current experimental formsbeyond genre-specific determinability – from real-time music to electronics, performance, audiovisual formats, conceptual music, new composed music and experimental pop.

Für das Projekt »Re/Locating Amo« haben sich ghanaische und deutsche Theatermacher:innen zusammengetan, um Anton Wilhelm Amos Leben und Denken theatral zu deuten und für einen transkulturellen Dialog um Themen wie Rückkehr und Zugehörigkeit, Tradition, Identität und Philosophie als Anlass zu nehmen.

Gibt es den gerechten Tyrann:innenmord? Einen vertretbar militanten Widerstand? Einen ethischen Terrorismus? Schauspielerin Karin Enzler (Schweiz), Punkmusikerin Stéphanie Morin (Frankreich) und Choreographin Maque Pereyra (Bolivien) kämpfen sich in drei filmisch-performativen Solos durch die Geschichte bis zur Gegenwart.

Gerhart Hauptmann’s Helene shows effects of increased alcohol consumption in her own milieu and her family, from which she cannot break away until the tragic end. Blomen, Moré and Reiniger question Hauptmann’s text “Before Sunrise” and complement it with their own and imagined experiences.

New session with Linda Fisahn, Christian Fleck & Lis Marie Diehl
June 2, 2022, 6.00 pm
After what feels like a hundred years, three members of the theater group I CAN BE YOUR TRANSLATOR meet again on the Reeperbahn and welcome the newborn baby, uncover the secrets of the father-to-be, and process together how things can and will continue with children and career. Head cinema guaranteed!

Felizitas Stilleke aunt, curator, dramaturg, artist and person, gathers in herself and in seven performative podcast sessions voices of international artists for a collective discourse rededication. Searching for words for not-yet/not-more/maybe/motherhood.

Asian mud-dauber Wasp, a relatively new citizen of Organisms Democracy with migrational background, meets Herring, who is visiting from Helsinki to learn about the governmental procedures of a system of Equal Rights for all Living Beings. Humans are invited to accompany the pair on an urban exploration into the wilds of a democratic ecosystem in Berlin Wedding. While fetching water for the notoriously dry state territory, they discuss the meaningfulness of democratization movements in relation to the internet. A mobile screen with autonomous power source serves as channel of participation and communication with another three urban explorations. These will happen simultaneously in the streets and parks of Zurich, Vienna and Amsterdam.

The artists group Club Real was founded in 2000 and is devising and realising participatory site-specific projects: Installations, one-to-one encounters, political role play scenarios and participatory urban development projects invite visitors to help shape alternative concepts of reality. Since 2018, Club Real has been working on the theme of Organisms Democracy – Equal Political Rights for all Living Beings. In 2019, Organisms Democracy Vienna was invited to Impulse Theater Festival.

»Remote Together – Reality Vaccine« is a format that seeks new digital and hybrid forms of shared theatrical experience while bringing together diverse international artists using new digital tools. For the first edition, Transit Productions Zurich is developing a series of simultaneous performances with theater maker Pankaj Tiwari (Amsterdam), the collective Club Real (Berlin) and visual artists Thomas Hörl & Peter Kozek (Vienna) that can be experienced both locally and digitally.

For the second time, the extremely mixed choir is making a guest appearance in Berlin. This time the group of amateurs and professionals explores ways of coexistence in the »Digitalocene«. How are contemporary technologies changing the way we live together? Can we act responsibly and without false anxieties in an environment of omnipresent, constant media exposure? In the midst of audience members, loudspeaker trees and cable groves an installative concert for human and non-human bodies takes place: a song about the loneliness of humans, about the love of the machines and the complexity of the world.

The extremely mixed choir is a multi-professional, diverse and intergenerational singing collective, which was founded in 2018 for the music theater production »Declaration of Dependence«. The artistic direction team consists of composers Lukas Huber and Leo Hofmann, director Benjamin van Bebber and scenographer Zahava Rodrigo. Together they search for possibilities of an integral interaction of space, music and scene in the compositional and staging process.

It is dark. There is nothing to see. Not a breath of air is stirring. Take a seat, sit back and open your nose and ears! Nothing is particularly beautiful, except perhaps the peace of absence. That is the starting point. In the midst of this darkness, Hysterisches Globusgefühl sets out in search of the beauty of collective experience. Between anarcho-flavours and groping bodies hovers the longing for the beautiful in the beautiful. Everyone desires something and we call this desire beautiful. But the beautiful is an imperative, a norm. And a norm is not beautiful. So should we strive for the beautiful, for truth and the good? Or is it all rubbish and we need to find something else? Smells and sounds mix with text and politics and a whiff of Hysterisches Globusgefühl is in the air.

Hysterisches Globusgefühl is a performance collective from Berlin and Vienna consisting of Elisabeth Lindig, Lea-Sophie Schiel, Arne Schirmel, Milena Seidl, Laura Steinl and Melanie Zipf. Since 2011, the collective has been developing performances that operate at the intersection of art and political action. The works focus on the questions of what politics is or could be, when it happens, and what it means to be political. These questions are addressed from a feminist and queer perspective. The collective also works in solidarity and wholeheartedly against heteronormative patriarchy and develops utopias for an anti-racist, classless, queerfeminist and livable future.

Der neue Film von Studio RPK »Als Susan Sontag im Publikum saß« wird mit vier performativen Previews präsentiert: diskursiv unterbrochen, literarisch ergänzt, musikalisch live vertont und mit verwandten Filmen verschnitten. Das Theater wird zum kollektiven Wohnzimmer des gemeinsamen Watchens und der Film kehrt an seinen Ursprung zurück.
»Als Susan Sontag im Publikum saß« basiert auf einer Performance von Studio RPK im Ballhaus Ost. 50 Jahren war es her, dass die berühmte Panel-Diskussion »A Dialogue on Women’s Liberation« in New Yorks Town Hall stattfand: Auf der Bühne stritten, lachten und perfortmen Norman Mailer, Germaine Greer, Jill Johnston, Jacqueline Ceballos und Diana Trilling. Im Publikum Susan Sontag, Cynthia Ozick und Betty Friedan, die intellektuelle Elite New Yorks. Die Filmemacher Hegedus und Pennebaker ikonisieren das Ereignis später mit ihrem Dokumentarfilm »Town Bloody Hall«. Aus dem Reenactment auf der Theaterbühne entstand mit »Als Susan Sontag im Publikum saß« ein filmischer Kommentar der Geschehnisse von 1971, ein tiefgründiger Schlagabtausch im Jetzt, dem Zeitalter von #MeToo.

Link zum Film: als-susan-sontag.de

Im Rahmen von BAM! – Berliner Festival für aktuelles Musiktheater 2022

Mit feministischer Brille widmen sich Alíenor Dauchez und ihr Team von La Cage hier einer Dekonstruktion von »Don Giovanni«. Die Handlung ist auf ein Filmset der Pornoindustrie verlegt, nicht immer geht es auf der Bühne jugendfrei zu. Scham wird zu einem wichtigen Schlüsselwort: Wer muss sich schämen hier, warum und wofür? Neben der passiven Rolle von Mozarts Frauen, die entweder Verführte, Betrogene, Verspottete oder Missbrauchte sind, kommt deren komplexe Psychologie in den Blick. Unerwartet tritt hierbei die Nebenfigur des Komtur aus dem Schatten und zeigt sich als wichtiges ergänzendes Glied eines von Männern dominierten Systems.
Trotz des extrem reduzierten Ensembles bleibt bei dieser Umkehrung (»renversement«) kaum eine Szene der Oper außer acht, mag sie gestreift werden auch nur im turbulenten Sprechdialog oder im Ausschnitt aus Opernfilmen, die mit dem Stück auch dessen Rezeptionsgeschichte reflektieren. Historische Einspielungen in originaler Besetzung werden unter den Händen Marta Zaparollis elektronisch verlangsamt oder verzerrt, andere Teile der Partitur in den Bereich alter und neuer Instrumente (Barockflöte, Synthesizer) übertragen – das sind Aufforderungen, »Don Giovanni« nicht neu nur zu sehen, sondern auch neu zu hören.

Die Musiktheatercompagnie La Cage wurde 2015 in Berlin und Paris gegründet. Sie bedient sich eines vielseitigen Repertoires, verbindet neue Musik mit Musik anderer Epochen und anderen Genres. In jedem Stück von La Cage wird eine musikalische Idee mit einer bildhauerischen Idee verknüpft. Der Blickwinkel auf den Raum und auf die Körper ist von der Tradition der Bildenden Kunst beeinflusst. Das künstlerische Team, das sich für die jeweiligen Projekte zusammen mit einem Musikensemble bildet, ist interdisziplinär und sucht nach neuen performativen Formen für das Genre Musiktheater.

Ein Paar zieht sich auf einer einsamen Berghütte zurück. Sie fechten, tanzen, singen. Als der Schneefall einsetzt, fangen sie an Ermittler:in zu spielen. Was ist in der Hütte vorgefallen? Sie tun so, als würden sie Zeug:innen befragen und Verdächtigen auflauern. Dieses True Crime Theater verknüpft Selbstfindung mit Spurensuche und Realitätsverlust mit Erkenntnisgewinn. Oder wird hier tatsächlich ein Verbrechen aufgeklärt? »Chalet Utah« nutzt Mittel, die im Lockdown Notwendigkeit waren, aber auch neue Wege eröffneten: Der Laptop als Mitspieler, die Kamera als Verbindungskanal und der Bildschirm als Bühne. Und für Zuschauende im Theatersaal immer auch die Möglichkeit, hinter die Kamera zu schauen.

Schauplatz International wurde 1999 von Anna-Lisa Ellend und Albert Liebl gegründet und hat seitdem über 50 Stücke, Performances, Aktionen, Filme und Hörspiele entwickelt. Im Ballhaus Ost war zuletzt ihre Trilogie (»Idealisten | Fundamentalisten | Egoisten«) sowie »Cap Escape Plaisance Club« zu sehen und als Shutdown Special der Live-Podcast »Le garage de la grande promenade (Part I & II)«, ein erster Entwurf von »Chalet Utah«.

Tremble. Touch. Sense if that rock is a rock or an alien. Harmonize with chemicals. Transform. Vibrate. Breath. Confound the »human« with your smell organs.Aliens embody the threatening – the absolutely different – the foreign, the other, the incomprehensible, the feminine, the wild, the chaotic and the monstrous! Their bodies guard the boundaries of the possible and threaten all order. In »COSMICBODIES« seven alien bodies move from their own inner world into outer space – until outer space and inner space merge.
»COSMICBODIES« is a dance piece for people with and without visual impairments and integrates an artistic audio description. After »Blue Moon« and »Witches«, is it is the third work by Ursina Tossi from »EXCESSIVE SHOWING you can only dismantle the master’s house with the monster’s tools!«, a choreographic series of critical queer-feminist perspectives on the constructions of femininity and monstrous bodies in the context of mythology, history(-ies) and pop culture.

»a woman must have money and a room of her own… hence, enlightened, responsible and sensationalist women have no choice but to overthrow the government… to let hundreds of stories and genders bloom… to embrace masturbation… for Bitches are beautiful… and we have nothing to lose – except our fear.« Manifestos have accompanied feminist movements since the very beginning. Their authors criticize the status quo, imagine new futures, call for the collective solidarity of a »we« and state demands. When Virginia Woolf wrote her manifesto »A Room of One’s Own« in 1929, she could probably not have imagined that almost a hundred years later, people would still be fighting for spaces, access and independence. So many of the feminist manifestos of the last century still read as surprisingly contemporary.In the installation </A “Manifesto” of= {every} One.s Own>, visitors encounter an archive of texts, sounds and images, an ensemble of stage technology and an artificial intelligence with whom they collaborate to assemble the puzzle pieces of past struggles into new contexts. At the same time, the installation explores the encoded space as a place to conceive of collective political action while following the traces of feminist history to engage with possibilities of a utopian future. Swoosh Lieu (Johanna Castell, Katharina Pelosi, Rosa Wernecke) was founded in 2009 at the Institute for Applied Theater Studies and develops performances, installations, radio plays and films. The queerfeminist collective creates temporary spaces and images in real time while addressing their fabrication. </A “Manifesto” of= {every} One.s Own> is their first collaboration with Ballhaus Ost.

Steuerschulden treiben Peisetairos und Euelipides ins Exil zum freien Volk der Vögel. Machthungrig redet Peisetairos den Vögeln ein, einer überlegenen Art anzugehören. Die Manipulation gelingt und als Herrscher über Götter und Menschen organisiert er den neuen Staat Wolkenkuckucksheim, beseitigt unwillige Untertanen und rekrutiert ein sich für ihn und seine Ideen begeisterndes Vogelvolk.
Der 2400 Jahre alte Stoff »Die Vögel« hat nichts von seinem anarchischen Humor und seiner kritischen Aktualität verloren. Possible World lassen nun in ihrer Adaption taube Welt, Taubenkultur und hörende Welt aufeinandertreffen. Was heißt Inklusion in einer Demokratie – und im täglichen Probenprozess? Ein tauber und eine hörende Regisseur:in, zwei taube, zwei hörende Darsteller und ein »child of deaf adults« (Coda) entwickeln für die Bühne inklusive Kommunikationswege in Deutscher Gebärdensprache, Lautsprache und Visual Vernacular. Es wird von Macht und Machtmissbrauch, Grabenkämpfen und vielleicht auch von Lösungen erzählt.

Das inklusive Theaterkollektiv Possible World wurde 2009 gegründet. Ziel ist es, ein inklusives Modell für die Zusammenarbeit von Tauben und Hörenden beständig weiterzuentwickeln und in die Kulturlandschaft einzubringen. In den Jahren 2009-2020 entstanden vier Theaterproduktionen: »Frühling Erwache!« (2009), »ME DEA(F)« (2011), »Die Taube Zeitmaschine – eine Lecture-Performance über die Geschichte der Gehörlosen« (2014) und »Ein Sommernachtstraum« (2018) sowie die Filmproduktion »WIR. I & II« (2013). Alle Produktionen entstanden in Kooperation mit dem Ballhaus Ost. »Vögel« ist die erste Zusammenarbeit von Possible World Regisseurin Michaela Caspar und dem Gebärdensprachpoeten Giuseppe Giuranna.

»The Wolf is crying and weeping in pain
As his love for little red is in vain
She has a crush on the handsome hunter*
And luckily, it’s them who want her
So sorry Wolf, you have to say bye
I guess in this story you have to die«
(old saying)

Der liebeskranke Wolf ertränkt seinen Kummer in Blut, Tränen und Karaokesongs.
Als einer der letzten Vertreter einer Weltordnung, die schon längst dem Untergang geweiht ist, schildert er uns seine Version der Geschichte, die keine Widerrede akzeptiert, bis endlich die anderen Protagonist:innen in Gestalt von Rotkäppchen und der Jäger:in die Bildfläche betreten. Der Wolf ist tot, es lebe der Wolf. Ein neues Zeitalter einläutend, feiern wir mit ihnen den kurzen Moment einer Utopie von Liebe und Solidarität, die jedoch schon bald in neue Formen von Unterdrückung mutieren wird.

Mit dem Rotkäppchen-Stoff im Gepäck, erzählt »WOLF« eine blutrünstige lovestory, die für einen Augenblick eine freiheitliche Vision aufscheinen lässt, bevor die Revolution ihre Kinder im ewigen Kreislauf von Fressen und Gefressenwerden doch wieder verschlingt.
Zusammen mit dem queeren Performer*innenpaar Lucy Wilke und Lotta Ökmen erzählt Sahar Rahimi & Team in eindringlichen Bildern vom allerletzten Aufbäumen alter und dem Erstarken neuer Systeme, von identitätspolitischem Getöse, romantischem Gesülze und falschen Gedärmen.

After a long break, »Dirty Debut« is back at Ballhaus Ost. It is the last time for the time being that Dirty Debüt provides a platform for four emerging performance artists to show their sketchy, unfinished, dirty works on a specific theme or concept. After the performances and as far as hygiene regulations allow, the audience is invited for a drink or dinner with a toast to the artists. »Dirty Debut« #9 will take place at Ballhaus Ost on December 18; the theme is »after life«.

Unlike in dance or acting, there is no university context in Berlin where performance makers can accompany and learn from each other from the very beginning of their careers. Most of them come here only after graduation, and many find it difficult to establish contacts outside their existing circles for years. Björn Pätz and Sandra Umathum therefore launched »Dirty Debut« in 2018 to increase the visibility of emerging performing artists as well as to reflect the spectrum of the performance landscape and to bring them together on one stage. In addition, »Dirty Debut« aims to facilitate an exchange about the presented works that leaves behind the usual logics of judging and criticizing.

Interested artists apply with a project proposal. For each edition of »Dirty Debut«, a jury then selects four submissions whose artistic approach and qualitative standards are considered independent and promising. The invited performance makers receive a small budget for the production, a minimal stage design as well as for materials and transport.

Cool sein wollen wir doch alle – also die meisten zumindest. Freimütig stehen hierfür unsere Körper offen, werden permanent gelesen und bewertet: aha, so sieht dieser Körper also aus, oh, nein, nein, cool ist was anderes, oh, warte mal, dieser Körper da, ja der, ziemlich großer Coolness-Faktor, thumbs up! Aber wer legte eigentlich die Bewertungskriterien fest und wieso sind diese seit Jahren so ziemlich gleich: nämlich kapitalismusorientiert und weiß? Und was ist mit den ganzen Körpern, die richtig schön vielfältig sind und deswegen durch dieses eng geformte Raster fallen: worin liegt ihre Schuld?In »Ich lieb dich nicht, du liest mich nicht – aha« steht ein solcher, nicht in die Norm passender, Körper im Mittelpunkt, wird permanent beobachtet und verurteilt: Elektra, eine junge Performerin, ist gefangen in ihrer Garderobe, wird gezielt daran gehindert, aufzutreten. Wird sie ihren Weg ans Licht finden? Und wer oder was steckt hinter der Sabotage?

Wir sind Hysterisches Globusgefühl: Mitte dreißig, weder richtig jung noch richtig alt und in der Blüte unseres Schaffens. Seit 10 Jahren machen wir Kunst, die um politische Erneuerung ringt. Aber dieses jugendhafte Streben nach dem Neuen ist in die Jahre gekommen. Höchste Zeit für etwas wirklich Innovatives: »Die neue Performance«!
Wir laden euch ein, uns in unser hysterisches Nimmerland zu folgen. Eingehüllt von der Zuckerwatte eurer Kindheit könnt ihr hier der Zeit beim Tropfen zuhören und gemeinsam mit uns altern. Während wir uns der Musik aus unseren schwermütigen Backfischjahren hingeben, frönen wir unserer Sehnsucht nach dem Neuen und feiern den Verfall unserer Körper. Jedes Ende beginnen wir von Vorn und hören nicht mehr auf anzufangen. Als Grandes Dames blicken wir in unseren Memoiren auf eine ereignishafte Zukunft zurück. Seid dabei, wenn wir als ewige Kinder in unseren Jungbrunnen steigen, als alte Frauen* wieder herauskommen und die Zeit zu einer magischen Pause gefrieren lassen.
Für den Eintritt in unser hysterisches Zeitalter ist es jedoch vorgesehen, dass ihr nicht alle gleichzeitig kommt. Nur so kann es gelingen, die Fesseln des ewig Linearen zu lösen. Mit einem gestaffelten Einlass werdet ihr jeweils Zeug:innen eines anderen Ablaufs unseres Theaterabends. Lasst uns auf diese Art gemeinsam unsere Vorstellungen von Zeit und Altern zersetzen. Fordern wir zusammen das politische Potential des Neuen aufs Neue heraus.

Hysterisches Globusgefühl ist eine performistische Vereinigung aus Berlin und Wien. Sie richtet sich mit vollem Herzen und solidarischer Zusammenarbeit gegen das heteronormative Patriarchat und entwickelt Utopien für eine antirassistische, klassenbewusste, queerfeministische und respektvolle Zukunft.
In ihren Arbeiten bewegen sich die Performer:innen an der Schnittstelle zwischen Kunst und politischer Aktion. Formen des Protests und Ästhetik der Subkulturen werden bei Hysterisches Globusgefühl verfremdet, auf ihre Grundformen reduziert und daraus neu entworfen. Antrieb ist die Suche nach alternativen Möglichkeiten, sich angesichts der diffusen politischen Verhältnisse zu positionieren. Die Frage nach bewusstem Handeln, politischer Interaktion und was Politik eigentlich ist oder sein könnte steht dabei im Zentrum ihrer Arbeit. Hysterisches Globusgefühl formierte sich erstmals 2011 und arbeitet seit 2016 am Ballhaus Ost. Zuletzt zeigte sie hier ihre Arbeiten Beim Anblick des Urknalls und Die Vier in der Nähe.

Mehr als 50 Jahre haben die Fans auf die nächste Episode gewartet! Nun ist es soweit! Doch wird das Staffelfinale die während des Wartens gealterten Fans begeistern können? Durch die Augen des melancholischen Pferdes und renitenten Affen schauen wir auf das Geschehen. Pippi macht sich die Welt noch immer, wie sie ihr gefällt. Ihre regelfreien und anarchistischen Prinzipien sind nicht weniger geworden. Und wir beobachten Annika und Thomas, wie sie sich in ihrem Kampf um ein selbstbestimmtes Leben verheddern. Doch alles weist auf Pippi zurück und hier entscheidet sich das Drama um Freiheit, Erwachsenwerden und ein erfülltes Leben. Es ist die letzte Episode der letzten Staffel. Das letzte und kompromisslose Kapitel einer Geschichte von Kindheit und Altwerden und unserem Verhältnis zur Welt. Beim Erzählen helfen dem Helmi Menschen aus aller Welt: eine legendäre Tänzerin aus Japan, einer der stärksten Männer Mexikos, eine achtzigjährige Aktivistin ebenso wie die Kinder aller Hinterhöfe von Berlin. Das Helmi hat die Erzählung um Pippi und ihre Freund:innen seit der ersten Präsentation im November letzten Jahres weiter gesponnen, zusammen mit Pippis echtem Vater, und Astrid Lindgren hat auch geholfen. Multiperspektivische Ansätze, philosophische Ideen und Pippi verdeutlichen uns, dass es nie eine einfache Lösung gibt. Vor Verkrustungen im Leben helfen nur Freundschaften und Humor. Aufgeben gilt nicht, das wusste schon Pippi!

Die Mäusefamilie arbeitet im Sommer hart und hortet Nahrung für den Winter. Frederick jedoch sammelt Sonnenstrahlen, Farben und Wörter. Als dann der lange Winter immer mehr auf die Gemüter der Mäuse drückt, kann Frederick seine Schätze hervorholen und bringt in einem großen Auftritt den Sommer in die kalte Höhle.Leo Lionnis »Frederick« erzählt vom Wert künstlerischer Arbeit in einer arbeitenden Gesellschaft und von der Kraft dieser Arbeit, ein wohltuender, wenn nicht sogar überlebenswichtiger Teil dieser Gesellschaft zu sein. Mit vorschlag:hammer wird der Kinderbuchklassiker zum Bühnenstück, denn Fredericks Schätze sind nichts weniger als die Grundelemente des Theaters: Farben, Licht, Wörter und Töne. Mit Hilfe der Kinder bedient Frederick die Theatermaschine und lässt sie auch selbst zu aktiven und kreativen Zuschauer:innen werden, die spielerisch die Mittel der Bühne kennenlernen und so gemeinsam das Theater entstehen lassen. vorschlag:hammer entwickeln seit 2009 als Kollektiv Theaterproduktionen. Ihr performatives Erzähltheater hat sich in den vergangenen Jahren für unterschiedlichste ästhetische Strategien geöffnet, zu visuell-atmosphärischen oder körperorientierten Arbeiten. Dabei adaptieren sie sowohl frei bereits existierende Stoffe oder entwickeln recherchebasierte Inszenierungen zu immer neuen Themenfeldern. Im Ballhaus Ost zeigten sie zuletzt »Twin Speaks: Telegram Edition«.

Schon zum zweiten Mal in Folge bringen Die Festspiele am Plötzensee vom 23. bis zum 29. Oktober 2021 allerlei Künste im Strandbad Plötzensee zusammen: Am 23.10. feiert das Theaterstück Diesseits von Gut und Böse seine Premiere, dazu gibt es eine Woche lang eine Ausstellung, Performances, Lesungen und Filmvorführungen zu besuchen. Ganz Berlin ist herzlich eingeladen, mit uns das Strandbad zu erweitern, aufzuladen und zu hinterfragen! Programm: »Diesseits von Gut und Böse«TheaterPremiere 23. Oktober 2021Weitere Vorstellungen 25. | 27. | 29. Oktober 2021jeweils 18.00 Uhr »Cala Blanca«AusstellungVernissage 23. Oktober 2021, ab 14.00 UhrAusstellung bis 29. Oktober 2021 Duygu Agal und Charlotte KrafftZwei Lesungen am Lagerfeuer, präsentiert vom Korbinian Verlag27. Oktober 2021, 19.30 Uhr »The Vachine Monologues« (Fan Popo)Filmvorführung25. Oktober 2021, 19.30 Uhr »Alles Rauchen | Smoking Everything«Performance29. Oktober 2021, 17.00 Uhr »Die Klassenfahrt«Performance mit musikalischer Begleitung27. Oktober 2021, 17.00 Uhr29. Oktober 2021, 19.30 Uhr

Wir sind eine ganz gewöhnliche Schulklasse und machen einen Ausflug ins Planetarium: Unsere Schule ist in Lomé, Berlin oder vielleicht auch Taipei, ein klein wenig in der Zukunft. Alle Großstädte ähneln sich. Auch Erwachsene können zur Schule gehen! Wir sind im Unterricht, bis die Schulglocke klingelt. Dann begeben wir uns in den Mittagsverkehr. Wir kommen zur Bushaltestelle, warten kurz, steigen dann ein und fahren bis zur Endstation am Waldrand. Dann steigen wir aus und wandern durch einen Wald zum Planetarium. Wir sind auch selber der Wald! Vom Planetarium aus reisen wir durch das Weltall. Eine freundliche und sehr engagierte Reisebegleiterin erklärt alles Nötige für unsere Reise ins Universum. Wir sind Passagiere und gleichzeitig Objekte im Universum! Wir reisen durch das Sonnensystem, die Milchstraße, die lokale Gruppe, den Virgo Superhaufen, die lokale Superstruktur bis zum Ende des sichtbaren Universums. Zum Schluss machen wir Rast auf einem beliebten Aussichtsplatz und genießen den schönen Blick…
Die gesamte Reise erleben wir tänzerisch. Wir haben verschiedene Hintergründe: Hip Hop, Ballett, Modern Dance, Philosophie, Physik, Performance und Traditional.

P.S. unser momentaner Forschungsstand bis zu Proxima Centauri:
Proxima Centauri ist ein roter Zwerg und zur Zeit der nächstgelegene Stern außerhalb unseres Sonnensystems. Er ist circa 4,2 Lichtjahre entfernt. Eigentlich ist es ein Dreifachsternensystem zusammen mit Alpha Centauri A und Alpha Centauri B. Proxima Centauri b und eventuell Proxima Centauri c, die potentiell erdähnlichen Planeten, umkreisen dieses Dreifachsternensystem in gebundener Rotation. Mit den Raumschiffen, die uns im Moment zur Verfügung stehen, brauchen wir wahrscheinlich 75.000 Jahre, um dorthin zu gelangen. Außerdem dürften sie nur einige Gramm wiegen. Wenn wir eine menschliche Generation mit 25 Jahren ansetzen, dann wird es sicherlich 3.000 Generationen dauern, bis das Raumschiff angekommen ist. Wenn wir errechnen, dass uns Proxima Centauri in 20.000 Jahren eine Zeitlang näher kommt und nur 3,2 Lichtjahre entfernt sein wird, eine Generation mit 30 Jahren angesetzt werden kann und wir in nächster Zeit noch etwas schnellere Raumschiffe bauen können, die auch schwerer sein dürften, dann brauchen wir wohl immer noch 57.142 Jahre und 1.904 Generationen, bis wir auf unserer neuen eventuellen Heimat angekommen sein werden. Das wäre von jetzt zurückgerechnet bis ins Paläolithikum.
Wir können aber auch in unserer Eigenzeit reisen, wenn wir uns an die allgemeine Relativitätstheorie halten und auf unserer Geodäte bleiben. Dann brauchen wir nur 1 Stunde und 20 Minuten und haben sogar das gesamte Universum durchquert. Hierzu orientieren wir uns an einer 2 Millionen Jahre alten Tradition, dem Tanz, und zwar dem Hip Hop Mix mit seinen verschiedenen Ausrichtungen.

Die NEWSTARDANCECOMPANY ist eine Hip Hop Mix Gruppe und besteht aus Tänzer:innen verschiedener Stilrichtungen, die sich zunächst in Lomé und später auch in Berlin regelmäßig treffen, um sich ihre Choreografien und Improvisationen gegenseitig beizubringen. Die NEWSTARDANCECOMPANY wurde von Meier Edem Akakpo und Koffi Mawuena Tchao 2010 in Lomé (Togo) gegründet. Hilère Anoumou Messan ist von Anfang an dabei. 2016 wurde Anne-Kathrin Tismer in Lomé in die Company aufgenommen. 2017 gingen Meier Edem Akakpo und Anne-Kathrin Tismer nach Berlin. Nuria Hoeyng und auch Dominique Wenzel sind in Berlin in die Company aufgenommen worden. Für »Der Ausflug« sind nun noch in Berlin Merav Leibküchler, Joy Maria Bai, Nora Fuchs, Kefei Cao, Charlotte Bohn, Okka-Esther Hungerbühler, Felix Loycke und Fabian Bischof dabei.

Program: Mazen Kerbaj »Learning Arabic« (2021), premiere | composition for 5 musicians (voices, objects, instruments) Ann Noël »YOU« (1982), Version 2021, premiere | vocal composition from 405 graphics of the letter I (i) Federico Barabino »Silencio Visual« (2011), premiere | composition for an open number of voices Annette Schmucki »staben« (2014) | composition for three toy pianos (3 keyboard rows of 13 keys each in the same octave range) and speaking voice(s) Gerhard Stäbler »SPEED« (1997) | composition for two groups of 3 vocalists Laura Mello | Nicolas Wiese »Hesitation Choir« (2021), premiere | composition for dynamic-typographic score, electronics and three-part vocal ensemble In their successful series »maulwerker performing music«, the Maulwerker present – after »Die Rache. Rachen, Mundhöhlen und andere akustische Räume« (2020), »Oberflächen« (2019), »Vokale Räume« (2018) and »Augenlieder. Körperkompositionen« (2017) – now »Typographies. On the musical interpretation of writing. Concrete Poetry & Graphic Notations«. There are two different axes underlying this program conceptually: conceiving language as musical material and, on the other hand, treating writing as graphic notation. The compositions interpreted this evening are notated exclusively through writing, in various graphic arrangements and typefaces, which are translated by the Maulwerker into speech-musical processes. The evening opens spaces between language and music, creating synaesthetic connections of sound and image. The written images and notations are made visible to the audience during the performance through projections, partly animated as live video. In the Artists Talk following the performance on October 14, the composers will talk about their works. The Maulwerker are a vocal ensemble, music performers, music theater makers and a collective of composers. They are specialists in the intersections of music and theater, music and language, in the interpenetration of music and space, of sound and silence. In addition to the classics of New (Vocal) Music and Experimental Music Theater – such as Schnebel, Cage and Fluxus – more recent tendencies form the focus of the work and thus the lively collaboration with contemporary composers, radio play authors, sound artists and directors, including works by the ensemble members themselves.

»KARELIA«, by performance collective ONCE WE WERE ISLANDS, imagines Queer lives beyond the city by exploring how love can thrive in quiet places. In a live stage-work, Gylee and Aslan explore desire, a new life close to the land, and the possibility of staying Queer alone among the trees. Deep in the forest they journey through time to three different worlds. Setting out from their house in the woods in the present day, the performers travel back to the time of the witch trials, and finally fly into a sci-fi future beyond the stars. »Can Queer lives flourish outside the city?« In Karelia, a region of forests straddling the border between Finland and Russia, the artists found a perfect place of inspiration within this territory of romantic legends — as well as the lonely reality of the forest itself. They asked: What are we fleeing from? What are we running to? The live performance, woven from words, begins at a table set for a feast in front of a handmade green-and-blue tapestry. The online film, meanwhile, streamed from the Ballhaus Ost website, compliments the onstage triptych with images of the Karelian forest, the dark rustling of leaves, and the cracking of branches underfoot. The two interwoven parts of KARELIA transform the forest into a third protagonist. »Does the forest render us vulnerable?« ONCE WE WERE ISLANDS work in the fertile ground between disciplines, combining visual art, performance, choreographic methodologies, and research. The two performers, originally from Manchester and London, employ (auto)biographical narrative as well as meticulous research on the realities of Queer lives in their poetic works.

Opera Lab Berlin verwandelt Karlheinz Stockhausens Konzertstück »Stimmung« für sechsstimmigen a cappella Obertongesang – einen Klassiker der jüngeren Musikgeschichte – in Musiktanztheater. Der meditative, harmoniesuchende und an Überirdisches appellierende Obertongesang atmet den Geist der Protestbewegungen der 60er und 70er Jahre. Seine Esoterik entfaltet ein künstlerisches Gegenbild zum kapitalistischen Rationalismus, zur westlichen Lebensweise und zum bürgerlichen Konzertritual. Unter der Leitung der Tänzerin und Choreographin Margaux Marielle-Tréhoüart erweitern die Sänger:innen die Musik mit den Körpern im Raum und hinterfragen das heutige Verhältnis zum Metaphysischen. Im Ballhaus Ost, in der ehemaligen Feierhalle der Freireligiösen Gemeinde Berlin, wird »Stimmung« gleichermaßen zu Gottes Totenmesse wie zum Wiederbelebungsversuchs seiner Überreste.Im März 2022 wandert die Produktion zum am Deutschen Nationaltheater Weimar neu gegründeten Festival »Passion :SPIEL«. Opera Lab Berlin ist ein freies Ensemble für zeitgenössisches Musiktheater und versteht sich als Labor der Stimme, des Körpers, des Instrumentalspiels und der musiktheatralischen Komposition.Margaux Marielle-Tréhoüart, geboren in Paris und aufgewachsen in Grenoble, ist Tänzerin und Choreografin. Seit drei Jahren verbindet sie eine enge Zusammenarbeit mit Opera Lab Berlin und den Regiearbeiten von Michael Höppner.

Ela Özmen is an actress. Franz Kramer a director. She was to play the lead role in his new production »meine Lulu«. Based on dramas by Frank Wedekind, the play is about a young sex worker and her downfall in a man’s world. He wanted to tell the story in a feminist way and explore toxic masculinity from a personal perspective. However, due to allegations of abuse against Kramer, the premiere was cancelled at short notice, with Ela at the center of the controversy. Now she speaks for the first time, publicly, from her perspective about the accusations. She reviews the rehearsals, remnants of stage and costume, as well as photos and film footage from that time. A mockumentary theater evening about abuse, MeToo, power structures, visibilities of sex workers and queerness, the future of theater and queer utopias.

»Das anschauliche Klaffen« beschäftigt sich mit dem Einbruch des Chaos in unseren intimsten Lebensbereichen am Beispiel des Mutter-seins. Der Akt des Aufräumen als Sehnsucht nach Kontrolle aber auch als rituelle Verbindung zum ursprünglichen Chaos und was davon noch in uns übrig ist, bildet die Grundlage dieses Tanzduetts.
Moss Beynon Juckes und Maria Walser, beide Mütter, spielen Familie, strapazieren Hierarchien und springen von einer Generationen zur anderen. Bedroht von einer Allianz des Haushalts aus Möbeln, Spielzeug, Büchern, Kosmetik, Bürokratie, Mutterbildern und Rollenklischees, suchen die beiden ihre eigene Ordnung mal miteinander, mal gegeneinander und erproben so gleichzeitig Strategien, Beziehung und Verantwortung immer wieder neu zu denken.
In der scheinbar geordneten Welt der Bühnenbildnerin Mirella Oestreicher und begleitet von den musikalisch zerlegten Schöpfungsmythen von Vera Pulido, werden die Urmütter, besungen, wie sie den ewigen Kreislauf von Chaos zu Ordnung bewerkstelligen. Sie dienen als Inspiration, wie wir beim spielen der überlieferten Rollenbilder, sowohl uns als auch die präexistenten Formen verändern können.
Für dieses Stück gilt: Was sich schon nicht organisch fügt, soll gefälligst anschaulich Klaffen.

How do places and spaces influence our thoughts, actions and experiences? What do spaces offer, what do they allow, demand or prevent? How do spaces emerge and change through what happens in them and with them? The festival »Labor Sonor : Translating Spaces« explores the power of space in contemporary experimental music and sound art. The motto of the festival is: Listen twice! The audience will have the opportunity to experience sound and music simultaneously or consecutively in changing situations, places and spaces. To this end, the festival presents nine original works by composers and installation artists, which will be presented over three days in extremely different locations. An accompanying symposium explores the development processes of the works premiered at the festival and brings artists and audiences into direct dialogue. Program at Ballhaus Ost:August 27, 20214.00-10.00 pm: »Auditory canals A and B – 2 proposals« – Installation (Sabine Ercklentz)4.00-10.00 pm: »A Small Leak of an Interior Monologue« – Installation (Raed Yassin)6.00-10.00 pm: »Reverse-Side« – for double video projection and 4-channels of sound (Joanna Bailie) August 28, 20213.00-10.00 pm: »Auditory canals A and B – 2 proposals« – Installation (Sabine Ercklentz)3.00-10.00 pm: »A Small Leak of an Interior Monologue« – Installation (Raed Yassin)6.00-10.00 pm: Eric Bauer | Lena Czerniawska | Carina Khorkhordina August 29, 20213.00-10.00 pm: »Auditory canals A and B – 2 proposals« – Installation (Sabine Ercklentz)3.00-10.00 pm: »A Small Leak of an Interior Monologue« – Installation (Raed Yassin)6.00-10.00 pm: »DREAM LIFE« (Frank Bretschneider)

»Social Capsule« ist das Wohlfühlwohnen von morgen. Sicher, sauber, einfühlsam und vor allem mobil! Die WELCOME HOME GROUP öffnet nun ihren Showroom und lädt in ein smartes Tiny House, das in 30-minütigen Einzelterminen zur Probe bewohnt werden kann. In freundlicher Koexistenz mit dem hauseigenen KI und der Augmented Reality-Mitbewohnerin ist mensch in jeder Ecke des Tiny Houses in bester Gesellschaft. Die persönliche Komfortzone wird zu einer Begegnungsstätte, die empathisches Miteinander bietet und anregt, ohne anzustrengen! Eine Berührung der eigenen vier Wände mit Emotionen on demand.»Social Capsule« fragt, welche Leerstellen digitales Miteinander aufweist. Kann das Gefühl von sozialer Distanz – ob als Folge zunehmender Digitalisierung, pandemiebedingt oder durch großstädtliche Vereinzelung – artifiziell substituiert werden oder gibt es ein Begehren, das nur das menschliche Gegenüber ausfüllen kann?Das Monopol Berlin, eine ehemalige Destillerie in Reinickendorf, ist das erste Zuhause des Showrooms der Welcome Home Group. Ganz im Sinne eines mobilen Tiny Houses zieht die »Social Capsule« von der urbanen Peripherie im September in den Holzmarkt, zwischen Cafe und Weinladen an der Mediaspree. Theresa Reiwer ist Medienkünstlerin, Bühnen- und Kostümbildnerin. In ihren Arbeiten kombiniert sie Augmented und Virtual Reality mit physisch begehbaren Räumen und verweist auf popkulturelle wie neoliberale Phänomene. Ihre narrative Rauminstallation »Slow Rooms« beschäftigte sich mit den Themen Künstliche Intelligenz und Kommodifizierung von Freizeit. Sie brachte ihr den Mart Stam Preis 2019 und das Berliner Nachwuchsförderstipendium Elsa Neumann ein. Als Szenenbildnerin für das Kino war sie zwei Mal auf der Berlinale vertreten (»Jibril«, »Glück«), ihre Bühnen- und Videoarbeiten wurden zum Impulse Theater Festival (»The Kids are alright«) und zum PAF (»Wüste Zukunft«) eingeladen.

»The Story of an Hour« is about Louise Mallard, who has just learned of her husband’s sudden death in an apparent train accident. Her sister Josephine attempts to deliver the news delicately since Louise suffers from a weak heart. She bursts into tears and locks herself in her bedroom. There, Louise is unexpectedly overcome with something she’s never felt before.

In the span of exactly sixty minutes, Kate Chopin’s short story unpacks and determines a utopia of self-determined transformation. First published in 1894, »The Story of an Hour« exemplifies this American writer’s work, but is still little known to readers outside of the United States. It will be performed for the first time on the German stage. For Marie Schleef and her team, the short story, in the form of an hour-long silent piece, becomes the basis for examining new narrative and dream spaces void of the spoken word. In this way, the artistic team expands on their experiments with visual and performative storytelling explored in two previous works. Together with the adaptation of the novel »To the Lighthouse« (Volksbühne Berlin, 2018) and »Name Her. Eine Suche nach den Frauen+« (Ballhaus Ost, 2020), a collaborative work by Marie Schleef, Jule Saworski, Anne Tismer, and Laura Andreß that was invited to the 58th Berlin Theatertreffen, »Die Geschichte einer Stunde | The Story of an Hour« completes Marie Schleef’s trilogy dealing with »rooms of emancipation« in which literature and history are investigated in terms of new and forgotten spaces of possibility.

Misty summer morning, Glitch and Copper Key are walking towards the Digital Park. They are friends. It’s 2101. The world has been flooded, and yes, that has challenged architecture ever since. As they pass, the »Safety, Sanity and Security« sign flashes on the door. A vague memory pops up, they remember they don’t remember. Caught in an autocratic virtual world that feeds them with synthetic fries, they wonder how long can they continue to adapt ? Will they succeed to hack the future?

Choregrapher Cécile Bally and Emma Tricard create with the foley artist Niels Bovri a dance performance based on a Science Fiction novel. Written collectively during workshops in Kortrijk, Santiago de Chile, Aix-en Provence and Berlin, »Die Ausschreitung« became a political thriller.

Emma Tricard, currently based in Marseille, graduated from the Master Exerce at the ICI-CCN in Montpellier. Dancer and choreographer, she loves to talk. Since 2015, she develops a choreographic research based on the observation and distortion between »saying« and »doing«. Thrown into an adventurous quest, she invents dances of conjugation, thinks her work in the future and plays humorously with the causal relationships between things, thoughts, movements and natural phenomena.

Cécile Bally is a Berlin-based choreographer with degrees in dance (HZT Berlin) and economics (École Normale Supérieure de Paris-Saclay). Her artistic work creates links between these two milieus and questions, with humor, the place of rationality and magical realism in performance. Cécile Bally anchors her work in the world of science fiction as a social critique and looks at predominant entities of current popular culture provoking dreams and nightmares at the same time.

Kokain ist die zweithäufigste illegale Droge in Europa. Handel und Konsum steigen europaweit stetig. 2021 wurden allein in Deutschland zwischen Januar und März 16 Tonnen Kokain sichergestellt, 2020 waren es insgesamt 10 Tonnen. Wer sich als Europäer:in als Drogenkurier verdingt, kann mit Glück an den unglaublichen Gewinnspannen im Handel mit dem weißen Gold teilhaben. Wer dabei in Bolivien von der Polizei aufgegriffen wird, landet mit hoher Wahrscheinlichkeit in Palmasola, dem größten Gefängnis des Landes. Der Ort nimmt in der zynischen Rankingliste der »härtesten Knäste« der Welt seit Jahren zuverlässig einen Spitzenplatz ein. Der bolivianische Staat stellt keine Zellen, sondern die Insassen müssen sich ihre Unterkünfte mieten, kaufen oder bauen, unter Umständen auch erkämpfen. Die Spannweite reicht von einfachen Pritschen bis zu komfortablen Unterkünften der Wohlhabenden und Bandenführer. Hier sitzen 70 Prozent der Häftlinge ohne Urteil ein. Viele warten seit Jahren vergeblich auf ein Gerichtsverfahren, doch ohne Geld gibt es auch kein Recht. »PALMASOLA« erzählt von den Überlebenstrategien, den Träumen und Albträumen der Häftlinge in der neoliberalen Versuchsanstalt und untersucht die Gesetzmäßigkeiten dieses »Staates im Staat«, die sich durch die Pandemie noch verschärft haben. Seit 1991 erforscht KLARA unterschiedliche Theatersprachen, neue Dramaturgien und die Vermischung von fiktionalen und dokumentarischen Spielweisen. Alle Produktionen sind Stückentwicklungen in einem kollektiven Prozess. In den Arbeiten der letzten Jahre fokussierte KLARA vermehrt gesellschaftliche Fragen zu sozialer Teilhabe und Ökologie. Wichtiger Teil der jüngsten Projekte war oft ein mehrjähriger Rechercheprozess. KLARAs künstlerischer Leiter ist der Regisseur Christoph Frick.