How do bodies fare when they are particularly challenged in sport or on stage? Protagonists from sport, theater and medicine talk about pain, healing and performance requirements, about belonging and exclusion. Who is allowed to participate, who is overlooked? The focus is on questions of care and vulnerability, medical practice and social reality – and on bodies between adaptation, resistance and visibility.
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Category: Productions not listed
Parkour
Anyone can do parkour! Nora’s training sessions awaken the joy of movement and teach parkour & movement in a holistic and fun way. Meeting point: Ballhaus Ost yard
Sportfest Closing Party
After three weeks of Sportfest let’s celebrate! With Magic Dyke* (Daddy Dyke, Boy dis Troy, Irn Bruce, Fountain Fantasy) followed by DJ Gilda. Magic Dyke* is a masc Dyke* stripping group based in Berlin by and for lesbians, queer women, non-binary, trans, intersex and agender people showing masc stripping from non-cis masculinities and give butches, studs, bois, mascs and genderfuckers a stage to feel sexy in a world that tells them they aren’t. Since May 2022, Magic Dyke* creates sensational shows and provides a party that is a safe space for the SLINTA* (sapphic, lesbian, intersex, non-binary, transgender, agender) community in Berlin.
Diversifying sports history
As diverse and varied as sport is, so diverse and multifaceted are its players. However, this is hardly reflected in the historiography of sport. What significance do these omissions have for our present?
Hitting and being hit – a feminist perspective on martial arts. Boxing exercise and lecture.
A typical exercise for boxing beginners will be taught. The aim is to learn to throw punches at a person and to withstand them against oneself. After this experience, there will be input and exchange on the importance of martial arts for the feminist movement.
Corinna Schmechel has been a trainer for classic boxing for around 13 years and has also been in the ring herself for over 10 years. At the same time, she is involved politically and academically with questions of feminist sports practice.
Musical Dance Workout
My name is Mathilda, which means »mighty in battle«, my middle name is Kleo, which means »famous«, and Colada stands for »relaxation«. Quite a combination of who I am and who I am becoming.
I was born in Eastern Europe, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and have been living in Western Europe—Germany and Spain—since 2017. I have a background in dance theater, a yoga and puppetry. I worked as an entertainment manager in Spain for two years, with licenses in Zumba, Aqua Zumba, and Pound. I have been working in the fitness industry in Berlin since 2021, and since my transition as a trans woman, I am able and becoming more aware of with whom I share my energy.
I am so grateful and passionate to be teaching Musical Dance Workout. I believe in transformative energy and see my purpose in teaching my classes inclusively and joyfully with my full heart and soul. I am looking forward to getting to know each of you, to being honest, vulnerable, joyful, aware, and human.
If you like musicals, you’ll love this workout! The Musical Dance Workout is an energetic dance workout where you have the opportunity to feel like a Broadway star for about an hour. MDW is a mix of different dance styles and a group fitness workout choreographed and designed by Mathilda Kleo Colada in 2021. You don’t need any previous experience to take part, all you need are comfortable shoes, water and a desire to join in. Musical Dance Workout combines elements of jazz, ballet, show dance, improvisation and modern dance – a unique workout that will not only make you sweat, but also have a lot of fun!
It’s Showtime! Let’s Musical Dance Together!
Festival sprint
Six Sportfest artists meet on a sporty panel that sets the pace: with whistles, stopwatches and topic changes in a sprint. Here, the balls are passed to each other without competition and sweaty team spirit is developed around the various projects.
Alisa Tretau (moderation) realizes cultural projects at the interface of art, society and political practice. She recently published the website nichtnurmuetter.de.
The undisciplined fighter: Martial arts as a tool for trauma work (Thai Boxing | Muay Thai)
The workshop explores the potential of empowerment through collective physical movement, using martial arts as a starting point to experiment with and transgress into different forms of movement exploration.
The workshop will teach the participants the basics of the discipline Thai Boxing / Muay Thai and play with the performative transgression of the movement patterns. We will also touch on the specific use of martial arts as a tool for trauma work. We aim to foster a feeling of agency through physical practice and nurture the spirit and the abilities to fight the fights that are meaningful at present.
All bodies and fitness levels are welcome, and you don’t need experience in martial arts or be very sporty. If there are particular needs or injuries, please let me know in advance so I can
adapt the exercise if needed. People who struggle with feeling affected and unsafe due to recent political developments and police aggression, and who struggle with feelings of helplessness, passivity, or freeze responses, are particularly encouraged to join.
Janne Kummer (they / them) works as a cross-disciplinary artist on the intersection of performing and digital art, game design, music and critical theory. JK’s work explores the representational politics of bodies in both analogue and digital space, focusing on current developments in area of Artificial Intelligence. JK uses their work as a tool to question existing power structures and develop alternative queer feminist future visions. Their creative process is based on a somatic understanding and recognises the body as a primary source of knowledge. JK’s background as a martial artist forms the basis for their performative movement practice.
FLINTA+ Basketball
Players of all skill levels are welcome! The session is open from the age of 16 and is led by a FLINTA+ coach. Whether you have basketball experience or are new to the game, you are very welcome. The training focuses on individual skills and team play and adapts to the wishes of the participants. There will be a 3×3 tournament at the end.
Come along, try it out and bring your friends! Wear sturdy sports shoes, suitable clothing and make sure that headscarves fit snugly and don’t have pins…
Sinduya Jeevaratnam has been an active player at Seitenwechsel e.V. since January 2023 and is also committed to strengthening and raising the profile of FLINTA+ basketball programs. In addition to her active playing experience, she has acquired both the coaching and D license and works as a basketball coach at adidas Sports Base – including with her own initiative »HoopNow« and in the »HereToHoopq project.
Her passion for basketball and her commitment to an inclusive, empowering and respectful sports culture motivate her to actively take on responsibility on and off the court.
Choir
We warm up our bodies and vocal chords and work on a small arrangement together. In the second part of each training session, we try our hand at improvising together. The training is open to all ages, with or without previous experience. The training sessions do not build on each other, so you can attend just one session.
Santiago Blaum has been working as a composer, performer and theater director in the Berlin independent scene for over 20 years. He has developed his techniques for vocal coaching, polyphonic singing and music improvisation in collaboration with amateurs and professionals from a wide range of backgrounds.
Hobby horsing
The training is for young and old, from beginners to professionals. We start with small agility and coordination exercises. Later there will be small obstacles and we will progress to a big course. If you have your own horse, please bring it with you.
Tom+Marie and have been offering hobby horsing in Berlin for 5 years. Tom has 20 years of experience as a competitive athlete in American Football and Marie is a children’s sports coach.
Ultimate Frisbee
Ultimate Frisbee is a dynamic team sport with a Frisbee disk. The end zone game is fast, fair, without physical contact and works without referees even at official tournaments.
Jana Gmelin and Lonnie Lou Jasper have been playing frisbee for many years and invite you to the public sports field at Jahn-Sportpark to discover the best sport in the world! In the training session, they will show you different throws and the basics of the game – you can join in or just watch without any prior knowledge.
Coiling against the Sun
Double Much is a celebration of joy, culture, and resistance from five Berlin artists. Rhythmic, creative, and trance-like. Wanna jump?
Double Much began in 2020 when five Berlin-based artists came together in public spaces during the pandemic to rediscover connection through movement. Exploring Double Dutch’s roots in Black culture, clubbing, and resistance, this performance offers a playful yet powerful exploration of joy and creativity as tools for survival. The piece invites audiences to experience the rhythm and energy of this art form as it transcends generations and cultural boundaries.
Acrobatics
Children and young people can practise basic motor skills such as cartwheels, somersaults and handstands on a 10 x 2 meter airtrack (an inflatable, springy gymnastics track – similar to a mixture of trampoline and mat). They are accompanied by JayTea as they take their first acrobatic steps such as forward, backward and sideways somersaults – with active support and targeted technique training.
JayTea, Jean-Tayfun Hoffmann, has been passionate about parkour and freerunning for over 15 years. He has been working full-time as an athlete, stuntman and trainer since 2013. During this time, he has been involved in numerous shows, taught over 5,000 students and built up a strong network in the urban sports scene. His goal is to create new perspectives through movement – athletically, personally and socially.
Childrens sports
In the hall, the children and their parents can let off steam and have fun in a self-built indoor playground with lots of opportunities for balancing, climbing and crawling as well as a variety of play equipment. At the beginning, our supervisors lead a game together. Afterwards, the children and parents can move around freely and try things out.
The handball department of SG Rotation Prenzlauer Berg e.V. trains children from the age of one, from crawling and romping around with a ball to handball-specific training. Children, teenagers and adults train together in the neighborhood.
FLINTA+ Self-defence (workshop and research session)
This workshop combines self-defence techniques with reflection on everyday safety strategies. It is led by Birgit Tönnies (Seitenwechsel e.V.), a pioneer of women’s martial arts in Berlin and trainer since 1983, a multiple-time German and European champion in karate and kickboxing. Together with theatre makers Natasha Borenko and Lidiia Golovanova, the group will practice physical techniques and explore everyday situations through guided exercises and discussion. The workshop is part of an artistic research for the participatory performance »Self defence. No offence.« (19.+21.6.).
We invite FLINTA+ people to take part. Whether you are experienced or new to self-defence, we’ll be happy to meet you. We can have up to 20 participants, please register.
* FLINTA+ stands for: Female, Lesbian, Intersex, Non-binary, Trans*, and Agender people.
Sport and culture as public functions
Sport and culture move people – physically, mentally and socially. But how exactly are these areas politically represented, promoted and organized? What role do associations, public administration and civic engagement play? And how are current budget cuts affecting their work?
The panel brings together experts from the fields of sport, culture and politics to discuss structural parallels, synergies and common challenges. The focus: funding logics, the fostering of democracy and strategies for a solidary representation of interests.
Organized in cooperation with BKK – Berliner Kulturkonferenz e. V.
Hurling | Camogie
The traditional Irish sport of hurling is one of the fastest team sports in the world. Using long wooden sticks (hurls), the players pass a small leather ball (the sliothar) to each other and try to score as many goals as possible against the opposing team. The movements are reminiscent of field hockey and lacrosse and require skill, speed and creativity.
Since 2014, people from Ireland, Germany and all over the world have been playing hurling and Gaelic football together in the BerlinGAA club – whether they have been active since childhood or just picked it up. As well as enjoying the sport, the club understands itself as a social community.
As part of the »training session«, the members of BerlinGAA will tell anecdotes from the multifaceted history of the sport and demonstrate the rules and movements. Afterwards, spectators are invited to join in and try their hand at passes with Hurl and Sliothar.
Play Volleyball
A full-size volleyball court in the sports hall for players of all abilities to bounce, hit and smash balls in mixed teams.
Pickleball
Pickleball for All!!!
A sport for everyone, for young and old, for indoors and outdoors, quick to learn, without expensive equipment, without competition or pressure to perform, which is fun for everyone! A bit of tennis, a bit of table tennis, a bit of badminton – voilá, here comes Pickleball!
The rapidly growing pickleball community in Berlin is now spread across seven clubs, of which BTV Olympia Pickleball is the largest.
Dodgeball Tournament
The sport with the dubious name that most people last played in the school gym. Come as teams or individuals, come as a sporty or non-sporty person. Come as children, teenagers and adults. We play a tournament format, but the focus is on having fun.
Foosball
Our festival courtyard becomes a foosball pub! Dare to sit at the table with world champion Sarah Riebschläger or practice in pairs.
Sarah Riebschläger is a player in the German national team, came first in the women’s doubles at the 2021 German Championships, became world champion in 2022 and was ranked 4th in the women’s world rankings in 2023. She started playing table football in pubs in 2012, played for the Berlin club TK Piranyards and in the Bundesliga at Yard Berlin.
Play Table Tennis
Before the queer ping pong showdown this weekend, we’re already setting up the tables. At the Tischntennisclub Geräuschkulisse you can book your table by the hour, train your topspin, practice mixed doubles or just play like in the park (without the wind).
Football Under Cover
Tehran in April 2006: The first official friendly takes place between the Iranian women’s football team and a local Berlin girl’s team, in front of more than 1000 cheering female fans. The entire stadium is electric, charged with a high voltage of girl power. A couple of men hang around in front of the gates, trying to sneak a peek over the fence. They are barred from entering today. It has taken a year’s hard work on the parts of both teams of young women to make this happen. But now, after overcoming numerous obstacles, they are really playing. And these 90 minutes are about more than just a football game. Both the desire for self-determination and equality are being expressed here and it is clear: change is possible.
Play Badminton
The badminton net is stretched in the sports hall. The court is marked out. The shuttlecocks are provided. 60-minute time slots, bookable for everyone.
Sports hall
The sports hall is open. There are mats, there are balls, there is training equipment. An open sports room for everyone to play, work out or hang out.
Right-wing structures in darts – about pub culture and restrictive association politics
Homophobic, sexist and racist banter is commonplace in darts. However, this »culture« doesn’t stop at the regulars’ table in the pub, but permeates the structures of the Berlin darts scene. A discussion about what can be done to make the sport of darts more democratic and diverse. With stories and case studies that are as tragic as they are unbelievable.
The ADV Zebras Berlin e.V. is the first anti-fascist darts club in Berlin. Its members are democratically organized and are committed to open-mindedness and diversity in the sport of darts.
Darts
The ADV Zebras dartistas are holding a beginners’ workshop for all those who want to learn how to throw their darts properly.
The ADV Zebras Berlin e.V. is the first anti-fascist darts club in Berlin. The members are democratically organized and are committed to open-mindedness and diversity in the sport of darts.
Streetball Tournament
Streetball Team Berlin is organizing a tournament in the Sportsaal Ost. The game is played 3 against 3 up to 12 points or 10 minutes. There are no referees and the focus is on fair play. We play for a first place for each tournament. Depending on the participating teams, we divide into categories such as mixed, men’s or youth.
Registration here.
The Streetball Team of the Gesellschaft für Sport- und Jugendsozialarbeit (GSJ) is a mobile project that travels all over Berlin to spread the good news of the orange ball and the spirit of togetherness. The team runs various free basketball/streetball practice sessions for children and young adults, organizes accessible fun tournaments and hosts the Streetball Nights and the Streetball Challenge Berlin. Through sports-oriented youth social work, the team helps young people to organize themselves and promotes values such as fair play and voluntary commitment. The project cooperates with sports clubs, schools, public and independent organizations.
Softer Hards: Queer Functional Training
»Softer Hards« build on functional training with artistic research inquiries into bodybuilding. For this purpose, varying bodyweight exercises from calisthenics and resistance training are combined with theorizing impulses and experimental creative reflexions.
The intention of these full body workouts is the strengthening of bodily power, control and image within their political context – and a cultivation of emancipatory bodily sensations in the process.
Sporting practice, critical engagement, and poetic sensitization intertwine to examine the dialectic links between the sociological, psychological, and physiological dimensions of functional training. The resulting boundary crossings serve as a pragmatic strategy for enacting social change, shaping new forms of knowing about one’s own body and spelling out queer perspectives on fitness cultures.
Tackling Life
The Berlin Bruisers are Germany’s first gay rugby team – and the worst team in terms of play far and wide!
»Tackling Life« is a rousing portrait of a team that sweats and celebrates, laughs and cries, wins and loses together. A movie against stereotypes and about the happiness of having finally found a community after a long search in which you can be who you really want to be.
Watch the trailer here.
Sweat and spandex. Performative excesses in the pool, in the pro wrestling ring and on stage
What do pro wrestling, bodybuilding and artistic swimming have in common? Glittering spandex, overtrained bodies and the accusation that they are »not real« sports. Yet these disciplines are extreme physical feats. The lecture asks: What makes show sports so special? What performativities emerge between kitsch, control, sport and theater? And what body politics flex in the ring, on the stage or in the pool?
Marie Simons works as a director and dramaturge in the independent scene. Simons researches, works and writes from a queer-feminist perspective on gender and body productions in popular culture, especially in show sport.
Sport pedagogical concepts over time
The workshop will work with role plays and historical references to school sport and we will actively engage with it through sport. What political and pedagogical orientations in sports education have there been in Germany in the last 50 years? How have we experienced our own school sports lessons? How would we like physical education to be?
Please bring your gym bag (joke) and training clothes (serious). Note: In contrast to some sports education concepts, no one is forced to do anything and everyone decides for themselves what they want to do.
Tom Weller is a lecturer in sports education, trainer in queer fitness groups, author and filmmaker and studied sport, history and film directing in Cologne. In his projects, he works primarily on queer history and body politics.
The Rise of Sporty Fascism – Body politics in between Pilates, Marathon und Skinny-Tok
Fascist sport ideals are omnipresent on TikTok in the form of white slim bodies and narratives between discipline and self-surveillance. In this live podcast, we analyze the implications of aesthetics between Lululemon leggings and pro-ana lifestyle as part of a currently observable Rise of Fascism.
In »Fashion The Gaze«, Freya Herrmann and Vera Klocke talk once a month about the political implications of contemporary pop cultural phenomena. From neo-fascist tiktok trends to body politics and staging in current films and series: just trying to make sense of the culture and where the world is headed.
Festival opening with Fight Night and party
We inaugurate the sports festival: The curatorial team presents the festival program and we experience the BHO Fight Night: twelve Muay Thai fighters compete against each other. It’s about self-confidence, testing boundaries, the balance between strength and vulnerability – and the desire to fight. The full-contact martial art of Muay Thai combines punches, kicks, elbow and knee techniques: the whole body fights. Strategy, strength, aggression and discipline play just as important a role in training and fighting as rhythm, confidence, playfulness and composure.
Schedule:
19:00 Opening Sportfest
19:30 Fight Night
21:30 Party with DJ Baby
Pissy goes Sportfest
The time has come: Missy Magazine’s legendary Pissy podcast is leaving the studio and heading out into the fresh air – or rather, onto the pitch! We’re celebrating a premiere at the Ballhaus Ost sports festival: Pissy live and in motion.
Host Ulla Heinrich welcomes sports mice Luna Afra Evans and Philicia Kraatz for a deep dive on queer perspectives on sport, fitness and body politics. Together, they take a critical and empowering look at movement practices beyond the mainstream. What does sport mean from a queer and feminist perspective? What role patterns resonate in the aesthetics of gym core – and how can they be subversively reinterpreted?
From abs-legs-bums to powerlifting, from drag workouts to sporting icons of queer pop culture: the discussion will focus on the pleasure of movement, body norms, community spirit and the very personal sore muscles of emancipation. All three interviewees are gym rats from a wide variety of backgrounds – between performance, practice and politics.
Come along, listen, get involved – and celebrate the first live recording of Pissy with us! 🎤💪🏽🏳️🌈
Table Tennis Tournament
DYKE PING – HOMO PONG!At the Sportfest – Tournament Edition of Queer Ping Pong, the table becomes a playing field for exchange, attitude and queer joy. The focus is on a FLINTA*-focused tournament that combines sporting ambition with collective lightness. Under the motto My opponents are an inspiration, dykes, allies and communities will come together for an afternoon full of movement, encounters and beats (13:00 T**lin, 15:00 SXCL). 13:00-17:00 Tournament17:00-19:00 Open Play Register in advance via queerpingpong@gmail.com Queer Ping Pong brings club culture to the plate in daylight – accessible, participatory, low-threshold and fun. With spin or without – come to play, watch, cheer or just be together. Take your rackets with you. There are also rackets available on site – anyone can join in. DJ SXCL is a versatile musician from Reunion Island. Producer and disc jockey since 2017, they have been morphing their style with time to fit their eclectic taste. Going from house to progressive trance, to electro and more recently to old-school techno. T**lin is a queer feminist, human rights activist and passionate sound lover. Queeriental is her label for DJ sets and performances between oriental beats and Middle Eastern sounds, in several languages.
Job opening: Skibidi Sigma Social Media Simp
Ballhaus Ost is looking for a Skibidi Social Media Simp from May 1, 2025. The scope of the position is 5 hours per week on average.
We‘re manifesting a main character who will base our PR & communication team executing the tasks regarding our social media channels (atm mainly Instagram).
Your grind (aka tasks):
– Planning & editing our posting schedule in communication with the PR team
– Proofreading & double checking the visual materials from the graphic team & commenting corrections if needed
– Preparing the captions & text materials for our Instagram
– Organizing and scheduling collaboration posts with artists working at Ballhaus Ost
– Answering comments, tags and story replies
– Being prepared for preparing random memes from time to time if the schedule was empty or you felt like it
– Having interest in content-creation and short/long strategy development
In addition, you can participate in the general development and organization of the theater together with the rest of the team, e.g. with regard to developing our working and communication structures within the team and with artists and productions.
Your flex (aka skills and knowledge):
– Interest in contemporary theater forms, especially in the independent performing arts
– Good command of both German and English (spoken and written)
– Experience with tools like CapCut, Premiere, Canva, Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator
– Self-organization, initiative and flexibility
– Communication and teamwork skills
– Appreciation and sensitivity in dealing with diversity
What you can expect with us:
– A creative, open and artsy working environment
– A small, passionate team committed to Ballhaus Ost and working in solidarity with each other
– An understanding of the compatibility of care work and career
– Flexible working hours and extensive options for home office / remote working
– Provision of all necessary work equipment
– A salary based on the wage agreement for the German federal state public service (TV-L) of around €620 per month
We want to reflect society’s diversity in our team and foster the co-working of people with different biographies, interests and perspectives. We therefore expressly invite people with experience of discrimination to apply.
We give preference to applications from people with severe disabilities or other restrictions if they have the same qualifications. We would be grateful for a small note in the application or at the e-mail address below.
Some parts of Ballhaus Ost can only be reached via stairs. However, we would like to find the best possible solution for the workplace according to individual needs. Please contact us so that we can discuss the possibilities together.
Please send your application including a CV, a brief letter of motivation and – if you’d like– your five most recently saved 5 TikTok or Insta posts/reels until 15.4.2025 by e- mail only to info@ballhausost.de.
Job interviews will take place until 25.4.2025.
Unfortunately, we cannot reimburse any costs incurred during the application process.
Please send your application including a CV, a brief letter of motivation and – if you’d like– your five most recently saved 5 TikTok or Insta posts/reels until 15.4.2025 by e- mail only to info@ballhausost.de.
Job interviews will take place until 25.4.2025.
Unfortunately, we cannot reimburse any costs incurred during the application process.
You can find more information about Ballhaus Ost and our program on our homepage at www.ballhausost.de.
Instagram: ballhausost
Multiple exposures: sensing mixed reality as a performative tool on stage
In a discourse program at the SYMPOSIUM, artistic-digital work by renowned artists such as Lundahl & Seitl and Paula Strunden will be presented in order to address current discourses and questions on art and digitality in addition to artistic-technical experiments.
Program:
11:00 Symposium (presentation and discussion)
14:00 Lunch break
15:30 Presentation of the VIRTUAL BLACKBOX
16:40 – meet & greet
Das große Fressen / Netzwerktreffen
As part of NO LIMITS – Disability & Performing Arts Festival 2024
The Geheime Dramaturgische Gesellschaft invites you to the table. Art and culture professionals from all areas are invited to find a place at the table and start a conversation over dinner.
We want to talk about inclusive art and inclusive work: How can collaborative artistic work succeed? At this table, we can exchange ideas about future projects, visions and wishes, but frustration and anger can also be shared and demands made.
The network meeting invites you to find allies, exchange ideas and, above all, network. We will provide culinary refreshments. Drinks are available at the bar.
Participation is free of charge. Please register by October 31, as places are limited. Registration under: cometogether@no-limits-festival.de
ACCESS
Accessible for people with limited mobility and visually impaired people. Low-stimulus retreat available.
Ballhaus Glamour: NO LIMITS Abschlussparty mit CherrYO!kie
As part of NO LIMITS – Disability & Performing Arts Festival 2024
The hall of mirrors of Ballhaus Ost will transform into a space of sparkling encounters and glittering ecstasy. Beginning at 8:00 pm, the doors will open to let you into cozy salon rounds which will allow you to close out the festival in a chill manner with a drink and conversations. You can reinvent your outfit at the Tisch der Endlosen Möglichkeiten, or Table of Endless Possibilities, or try your luck in the Ecke der zahlreichen Wege, or Corner of Many Paths. Anyone who is looking to take a break can do so by finding some repose in the low-stimulus Oase des Schweigens, or Oasis of Silence.
At 8:30 pm: performance »Harmony Within the Noise«
At 10:00 pm: CherrYO!kie karaoke party
ACCESSIBILITY
The ballroom is open from 8pm for party guests. There will be loud music and darkness/lighting effects during the party. A low-noise retreat is available.
All areas of the party are accessible without steps. A low-barrier toilet is available.
Between 10 pm and 1 am, communication assistants will be available to translate into German Sign Language (DGS)
Illuminated route guidance for visually impaired party guests
We ask all guests to take a voluntary corona rapid test in advance. FFP2 masks are also available.
Early boarding is possible
Demo: Berlin ist #unkürzbar
The measures planned by the Berlin Senate to consolidate the state budget announce drastic budget cuts for the coming years. The cultural sector, but also related areas such as education, social affairs and science, are particularly affected.
We still do not know at this stage to what extent the budget cuts will affect our specific work at Ballhaus Ost. However, we are very concerned about the Senate’s priorities and the policy of social coldness that they reflect. Concerned about the future of Ballhaus Ost and the many people with their diverse life stories with whom we work. Concerned about the future of Berlin.
There are many people involved in the fight against the Berlin Senate’s short-sighted and socially unjust cost-cutting agenda. We have collected particularly important initiatives and statements whose concerns we support and share in the following (constantly updated) link list:
https://www.berlinistkultur.de/
https://diversity-arts-culture.berlin
https://stiftung-kulturelle-weiterbildung-kulturberatung.berlin/
https://www.laft-berlin.de/kulturpolitik/berliner-kulturpolitik-aktuell
https://www.tanzraumberlin.de/kulturpolitik/aktuelles-aus-berlin
https://freieszene.berlin/statement-arbeitsraumprogramm/
https://schaubude.berlin/de/news/statement-ag-puppen-und-figurentheater/
https://nachtkritik.de/images/stories/pdf/OffeneBriefe/Stellungnahme_Jury_HKF_Kulturkuerzungen.pdf
Your sport at »Sportfest«
Discofoot, fistball, hobbyhorsing, lacrosse, parcours, cycle ball, timbersports, underwater rugby … Do you practise a sport outside the mainstream and want to share your passion with others? From 31.5. till 21.6. Ballhaus Ost is organizing the sports and theater festival »Sportfest«. As part of the festival, we want to give people with special sporting talents the opportunity to present their practice to an audience in a 45-minute presentation. The format is not predetermined, but could include show exercises and competitions, training sessions to take part in or watch, photo and video presentations and much more. If you would like to perform at our »Sportfest« alone or together with your team or training group, send us a short application as a video (max. 3 minutes) to info@ballhausost.de or on Instagram @ballhausost by 11.5.2025. Performances within the Open Call program will be compensated with an appearance fee of 300€. We look forward to your submissions!
TINALE
Together with many artists and companions, we are celebrating a big party to say goodbye to Tina Pfurr. She was artistic director for 15 years and made the house what it is today with her heart, mind and perseverance. We would like to bid her farewell with a big party as she moves on to new shores and new challenges and wish her all the best for the future. We look forward to ampl:tude, DJ Duo Trainer&Trainer, DJ Baby and Pony, AdlerVibe, Linda Pöppel and many more. from 19:30 Welcome and programfrom 22:00 Concerts and DJs We would be delighted if you could join us! Admission is free. Registration is not necessary.
Student & Trainee Ticketmarket
Wieder Lust auf Kultur? Dann kommt zum zweiten Studi & Azubi Ticketmarkt der Berliner Theater, Opern und Konzerthäuser im Podewil am Mittwoch, 10. April 2024 von 15 – 19 Uhr.
STAGE-CARE – Wer erzählt uns keine Geschichte und warum?
Care work is part of life. Nevertheless, it receives little appreciation in our society. In the feminist movement, dealing with care work has always played a crucial role. Queer feminism developed the expanded concept of care work, which includes caring for sick partners, friends and parents. For some years now, the discourse has also included the aspect of self-care, which is radical in the cultural sector, as artists have always tended towards self-exploitation.
The event will be streamed live on the Pro Quote Bühne YouTube channel and will be offered both live and online in German sign language.
Rising Beasts
Gathered under the title »Rising Beasts«, the final semester works of the UdK Berlin stage design class deal with the socio-political and aesthetic urgencies of our present day and create multimedia-based spatial productions. The conceptual starting point is the figure of the beast, which makes it possible to explore contemporary issues using artistic means. Hall »Chlorine« – Geoffrey LaRue »Disturbing Glory« – Ins Meyer »Synaptic Dream« – Maria Färber 17:30 »Confessions of the Dames« – Eve Beucher (30′) 19:30 »Denying the dragon« – Hyeonsu Jung (30′) »HOLD THE LINE« – Heejin Kwon Courtyard // Foyer // Toilet // 3rd Floor Jo LandtLarissa CholewaP. Luca WunderlichPau HoltkampYaoer ZengNaima OkoemuYubeen HaMadalena WallensteinDavid SinhaElena PeresvetovaMariano SukoppYeojin NaEunkyung JangThuy Duong NguyenJosepha Lhuillier-SionPaula Katrina KrömekeMartin GonschorekSarah HrstkovaSofia Loose Martinez de Castro http://buehnenbild-udk.xyz/Instagram: @audick_udk_buehnenbildklasse
Praktiken und Zukünfte des Kollektiven
Collective forms of working have always been a feature of the independent performing arts community. In recent times, however, there has been a very clear trend toward collectives in the cultural sector as a whole as well as beyond that can be observed. Concepts such as new work, commons or care work combine the search for non-hierarchical, self-determined, possibly direct democratic, solidary organizational structures with the notion of the collective. Existing structures as well as are currently undergoing corresponding transformation processes, for example, new leadership positions are frequently being filled by dual leadership models or teams.
In this symposium, jointly curated by the special research area Affective Society of the Free University of Berlin and the Berlin Performing Arts Program, we invite you to enter into conversation about specific practices of collectives and about possible futures for this organizational form.
P R O G R A M
11:30 am
Accreditation and Coffee
11:45 am
Opening Greeting and Introduction
With Anja Kerschkewicz (Frauen & Fiktion, the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Art), Theresa Schütz (the Free University of Berlin, Special Research Area Affective Societies) and Sarah Stührenberg (the Berlin Performing Arts Program)
12:00 pm
Workshop A: Note and Laptop Collective. Collective Authorship Between Analog and Digital Work.
With Jule Gorke and Katharina Siemann (hannsjana)
This workshop looks at strategies of collective authorship, research and conceptualization – from the shared assessment of individual knowledge to the attempt to text together all the way to the dramaturgical arrangement of the “slip of paper economy”. In doing so, basic questions about the shaping of collective processes will accompany us: How is responsibility distributed and acted out? How can mutual care be kept in mind – and what causes this objective to fail? How can a shared humor be found? The collective will present methods and invite the participants to try them out together in a practical exercise as well as to critically discuss them.
As the female artist collective hannsjana, Laura Besch, Jule Gorke, Lotte Schüßler, Katharina Siemann and Marie Weich have developed performances, audio tours and video works together since 2011. Their work has been seen at, amongst other venues, Sophiensaele Berlin, Luzerner Theater, Nationaltheater Mannheim as well as at Theater Thikwa Berlin.
www.hannsjana.de (currently offline due to revisions); Instagram @hannsjana
Workshop B: The Future Belongs to the Collective – Where Does That Leave Me?
With Friederike Jaglitz and Simone Burckhardt (Meine Damen und Herren)
The more Meine Damen & Herren worked collectively, the more strongly the desire for individual productions where one person could make decisions alone grew. Will the individual be devoured by the collective? Over the course of practical exercises, the participants will conduct research into collective working methods for artistic processes. Where do “I” end up, if everything is a big compromise? How can different ideas and needs be represented in an artistic process? How can mutual decisions be made if everything isn’t discussed together?
MD&H has transformed itself into a collective. How that work is an important question for the daily work. They continue to learn how they can improve the working and decision-making processes. And they remain open in terms of the question as to where their next working step will lead.
www.meinedamenundherren.net
2:30 pm Break with Coffee and Snacks
3:00 pm
Workshop C: (Un)Productive Hanging Around
With Stephan Stock and Kristofer Gudmundsson (vorschlag:hammer)
The theatrical work of vorschlag:hammer is created in a creative process between hanging around together and leaving space so that ideas come, dealing with the ideas of others, resorting to tried and true techniques and standing in front of the infamous dramaturgical wall of notes. The collective will provide a brief insight into its approach to this work and try to demonstrate using examples how work like this can succeed and where it comes up against its limits.
vorschlag:hammer has developed theater productions since 2009. Its performative narrative theater has opened itself up for new aesthetic strategies, visual-atmospheric works or body-oriented works. In doing so, they adapt material that already exists or develop research-based productions.
https://www.vorschlag-hammer.de
Workshop D: How To Ensemblerat (Ensemble Board) Model
With Lizzy Timmers, Hannah Baumann and Anna K. Seidel (Theaterhaus Jena)
This workshop will provide insight into the ensemble board model as it is currently being practiced at Theaterhaus Jena. The participants will think up a situation inspired by the practical experiences of the theater and, in the “style of Theaterhaus Jena”, that is semi-collectively, work to make a decision in response to this. Lizzy Timmers, Hannah Baumann and Anna K. Seidel dare to try to share what they have learned from their work and further develop it as well as to reflect upon the obstacles that have emerged during the process. In addition, what aspects of this way of working and structure are interesting for other contexts?
Lizzy Timmers is a director and performer as well as the artistic director of Theaterhaus Jena. Hannah Baumann is a theater maker and dramaturg at Theaterhaus Jena. They will facilitate the workshop together with the actor and ensemble member Anna K. Seidel. They do not share an artistic signature like a collective, but do decide upon answers to important artistic questions together.
https://www.theaterhaus-jena.de
5:30 pm Networking Meeting and Dinner
7:30 pm
Panel Discussion: The Potentials of Collective Forms of Leadership for the Future
With Anne Bonfert (Frl. Wunder AG), Mieke Matzke (She She Pop, the University of Hildesheim), Hannah Baumann & Lizzy Timmers (Theaterhaus Jena), Andrea Rohrberg (art therapist, co-founder of the consulting company synexa consult Essen)
Moderated by Theresa Schütz (the Free University of Berlin, Special Research Area Affective Societies)
This panel discussion will elaborate upon the specific opportunities and challenges offered and posed by collective leadership structures: which structural obstacles (for example, with an eye toward pay policies and decision-making processes) do we encounter when existing institutions decide to adopt and implement collective leadership models? How do operating structures, collaborations as well as aesthetics and programming change as a result of this? In what ways can the promise of non-hierarchical, participation-based work be realized, especially upon the leadership level? Will the collective become a corrective for outdated power structures? Are some institutions currently also simply conducting “collective washing”? The panelists invite the audience to reflect together upon the sustainability of collective leadership structures within the cultural sector.
9:00 pm Closing and Informal Exchange
Information on registration and accessibility
Participation in the event is free of charge. Please register by February 19, 2024 at: fachtag@pap-berlin.de.
The event will take place in German spoken language. A whisper translation into English is possible during the workshops upon prior request. If you need a whisper translation please contact Sarah Stührenberg till February 16 at: sarah.stuehrenberg@pap-berlin.de.
We will publish information on accessibility shortly at: https://pap-berlin.de/en/event/practices-and-futures-collectives.
If you have any questions about accessibility or possible barriers, please contact Sarah Stührenberg at sarah.stuehrenberg@pap-berlin.de or 030/ 20 45 979 14 (available by phone Monday and Thursday 11 am to 5 pm).
Sommerfest
At the end of the season, we warmly invite all artists, neighbors and the audience to join us in the beginning of the summer break.
from 16:00 Coffee, children’s program and ice cream
17:00 Guided tour of the house, cemetery park and history
from 18:00 Music and surprises
Free admission and food on a donation basis.
At the clothes swap, beautiful but not worn out favorites or costumes no more in use can find new owners. (Please bring a maximum of 5 items, freshly laundered).
We would be delighted if you could join us! Registration is not necessary.
Bleibt ihr noch zum Essen?
April 2024 will mark the tenth anniversary of this meeting. The meals will therefore take place online in April on nine days at the original time – just ten years later. At the end, all the meals will be served one after the other on a weekend. You’ll be given a shopping list for each meal in advance – so that you can join us at the table for potato salad, König Pilsener, coffee, cake and crank cheese.
And now we ask: “Are you staying for dinner?”
We Come With Nothing
»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?
Dogs of Love
»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?
Amazon Rising
On their route, the Amazons proclaim the New Time in three rituals. A time when we are more than human; empathic, transformative, new beings, monsters, the alien. This ceremonial procession shows the new visibility and self-evidence with which we are all ready for transformation. We are the future and we bring you the revolution.
Quick deepy sweep
As part of the online durational festival »It’s about time«.
We are in front of the image as in front of time, a past time that we observe, that we look at in the present. It seems close to us but it comes from far away, a time that has passed but not yet passed…… A memory in a way.
This image vibrates with questions. It looks at us, observes us too, questioning ourposition, at what moment did we look at it, why, in what context.The image is thus a temporal braiding where the past, the present which lasts,which lasts…. as if time had not passed
When the image appears, the story is „dismantled“ in all directions, deconstructed.It is a way of rethinking the relationship with our past by giving it, through our eyes,a future, a perspective of the future. A way of deconstructing stereotypes firmly fixed in the collective memory.
This project is about deliberately examining the past as an active moment that accompanies, of a mobile and light nature…
Indeed, the idea is to think of the past as an ally that moves forward and never stops transforming itself.
An archaeological work, to desecrate the historical legends, the perennial stereotypes, firmly anchored in the collective heritage.
Talking about discrimination, prejudice or racism means talking about time, but also about images: caricatures, objects, political or propaganda posters, advertising or leaflets, photographs or paintings… Many media have conveyed the representation of the „Other“ as a being stigmatised in his or her difference, be it ethnic, religious,cultural or sexual. They are part of a visual culture that has contributed for centuries to shaping truncated relationships, marked by psychological violence and even extermination.
Nowadays, even the art world seems to have convinced itself that it is not concerned with discrimination, and forgets that public museum collections are full of looted works. Worse, invisibilisation has a mirror effect: the overexposure, almost marketing, of a handful of artists considered „non-white“. A new politically correct exoticism has slowly been established. If one tries to address the issue, most of the time languages are tied up in theatres and art centres refer to the programming they dedicate to „diversity“.
Understanding what is not apparent
A few years ago, the Austrian artist Christian Eisenberger gave me an undated photograph that once belonged to the collections of the Museum für Völkerkunde in Vienna. This black and white image of black women doing their hair, with their breasts exposed, was not taken by just any photographer, but by Heinrich Harrer. Harrer, the mountaineer, the explorer, the hero, whose myth was brutally shattered one day in the spring of 1997, when a young Austrian journalist, Gerald Lehner,came to present him with the contents of a file that had been lying dormant for more than fifty years in the archives of the Third Reich kept in Washington. A pinkfile. „Harrer, Heinrich, born on 6 July 1912. SS, Section 38, Number 73896.“Harrer denied it, got carried away, until the reporter laid an SS application on the table. „Is this your handwriting?“ „Yes.“ We do not know where the photograph was taken. We can only speculate. Most probably during one of his many expeditions, such as the one during which he made the first ascent of the Carstensz pyramid in Western New Guinea, the highest point in Oceania, in 1962… Beyond appearances, what is at stake in this picture is the relationship between Nature and Culture. What probably moves Harrer here are these „wild“, naked, „pure“, „innocent“ beauties, indulging in an aesthetic ritual intended to make them even more beautiful, while in Europe the crises follow one another…
Hair is at the centre of the photograph. Far from the barbarity of the shearing of prisoners, camp inmates, women accused of „horizontal collaboration“ during the Second World War, here the hair is intended to reveal intimacy, seduction and, beyond that, an underlying sexuality.
The question of the off-screen obviously runs through this photograph. What about the off-screen when it comes to memory and transmission? Wouldn’t it be to the field what holes are to memory, gaps to history, unspoken words to speech?
Trying to understand what is not apparent, what is not there, in front of us, what is not presented and tangible, seems to me to be essential before we can imagine being able to project ourselves into the future.
We often hear that, in any case, „history is doomed to repeat itself“? This idea of repetition cancels out any possibility that history, historical events, will bring something new. History would be the continual repetition of the same, as in an eternal restart. One has the impression that history, since it does not bring anything new, somehow escapes man, who undergoes it but does not make it. It is as if history is autonomous and man is not an actor. If we affirm that history repeats itself, we obliterate in a way, we omit the question of freedom in history: man would not be „free“ to act and transform the world since everything would systematically return to the same thing. Yet is man not, by essence and because of his quality as an agent, free, unpredictable, at least partially? Is history not also the result of human actions?
History, rather than being a simple repetition, would then be in part a source of novelty, of surprise, of the unexpected.
Thinking about history?
„Only the present is, the before and after are not; but the concrete present is the result of the past and is full of the future. The true Present is, therefore, eternity“, said Heidegger in Being and Time (1927).
In front of each image, as in front of Heinrich Harrer’s photo, we must know how to reverse our position and ask ourselves how this image looks at us… How it thinks about us, how it touches us. The inversion of the positions between the viewer and the object being viewed allows us to enlarge the field of vision of history.
Fighting against invisibility, naming in order to make it exist, seem to me to be the indispensable conditions for appropriating our thoughts and our existence. Naming our present differently, characterising it differently, produces new points of view from which new questions and answers, new collective subjects asking these questions and affirming these answers can appear.
In »A deep quicky sweep« the idea would be to share selected images and to decipher the different layers of this hatred of the Other in a historical, cultural and thematic perspective. To understand the construction of this discourse over time is to participate in its deconstruction…
A striking visual history.
Elisabeth Bakambamba Tambwe describes her artistic practice as “the art of encounter”. The encounter with the Other is at the heart of her research-creation problematic. Her quest for the Other is part of her sensitive and aesthetic field of knowledge. Her work also allows her to question the way in which art addresses the Other, or even co-produces a work with another. The encounter with the Stranger is at the centre of her practice. Or should we say her practices: Performances, shows or installations play with the multiplication of points of view (Golden Baby), the transformation of spaces (Carré Noir / Congo Na Chanel), the thwarting of stereotypes (La Philosophie Banane), questioning time (Hairy Guns) and bodies (Flesh / Anomalic / Abstraction). For Elisabeth Bakambamba Tambwe, perception is one of the means of crossing spaces without summoning borders. A rule is imposed: do not contemplate but prefer to penetrate the image, question it and thus leave time for it to look at us in order to question the past time.
Fermentage in der dritten Etage
A T T E N T I O N : Unfortunately the event has to be cancelled due to illness!
Fermentation is the transformation of food by microorganisms such as bacteria, molds or yeasts. These microorganisms transform sugars into other substances. They turn white cabbage into sauerkraut, carrots and radishes into pickles, apple juice into vinegar and milk into yogurt. In an – only seemingly – chaotic process, something is transformed and made edible and durable. A magical process. In a cozy evening, vorschlag:hammer and a group of interested people will pickle sauerkraut and other vegetables together in a VHS atmosphere in the Ballhaus Ost. You’ll chop cabbage and vegetables, knead the cabbage, and put it in jars. Maybe there will be some input on sauerkraut. Maybe there are some inputs on lactobacteria or yeasts. Maybe there are inputs on messy processes. In any case, there is eating and drinking together.
And then it takes time. The evening seeps into the memories. The microorganisms do what they do. After six weeks, the time has come and the participants can open their jars. And perhaps the memory of the time spent together will be awakened: What has stuck? Which flavors resonate? Which phrases have taken on a new flavor? What now has a sour aftertaste?
No previous experience required, but welcome.
Theaterfilm-Festival: Party
The Direction djs. To the entire festival program
Theaterfilm-Festival: »Autistische Spiele«
46’, dt./engl. with dt./engl. ST
Through the careful yet distanced observation of his autistic brother, visual artist and director Tobias Yves Zintel tells of the intrusion of the radically different and the non-semanticizable into the protective space of the family. Together with the psychiatrist and author Przemek Zybowski, he analyzes the spectrum that opens up between the poles of “healthy” and “sick”. In the biographical detail, the relationship of a “sick” brother to his family, the social figure of the autist becomes visible as an allegory for the proclamation of the unspeakable in the current public discourse.
Theaterfilm-Festival: »Doom (The Movie)«
40’, no spoken Language
The Movie is Layton Lachman and Samuel Hertz‘s contribution to rhythms, textures and ways of being-with, together. Even as apocalypses bloom around us, they dance non-stop and launch into a doom-metal concert, howling the approach to the end of the world — a collective grieving and celebration in the face of oncoming doom. They invite us to see, feel, and hear the slow changes of an ending world, and yet propose a non-fatalistic way of attending to each other with care, imagining alternatives to the end-of-days scenario.
Theaterfilm-Festival: »Fallsucht«
37’, dt. with engl. ST
DE, 2021
The Film tells of a disease surrounded by the aura of mystery: epilepsy. Sacred, prophetic, sinful, unruly, possessed by demons. A primal human fear, materialized in a disease that threatens peace. It is this uncontrollable that our society seeks again and again to cope with by pushing it away or even disqualifying it as a way of life. In Fallsucht, Lara Scherpinski examines her body as an archive of family and cultural history, as a reservoir of myths and social debates about normality and otherness. She searches for the aesthetic representability of an inner state that oscillates between ecstasy and pain, between visibility and invisibility, and banishes her to a social isolation.
Theaterfilm-Festival: »Oh My Film«
12’, dt. with engl. ST
DE/ES/AR, 2020
The theater collective Henrike Iglesias from Berlin creates and directs a theater performance about feminist and queer pornography and sexualities. Behind the scenes they face the challenges of collective work and the liberation of their own sexualities.
Theaterfilm-Festival: »Der DJ ist mein Vater«
100’ dt./ engl./ bulg. with engl. ST
DE, 2021
An adult daughter searches for her deceased father, searches for stories – and the patriarchy in herself. She stages a dream-like journey with theater, music and film, during which strange and humorous, blurry and distressing moments ask for father traces in the daughter’s existence. In this game of forgetting, holding on and letting go, she encounters questions: about her own female socialized self, about origin, social class, ideas of achievement, beauty, love, sexuality and emotional education. What belongs to her, what to her father, what to both, what to time? And is she really alone?
Theaterfilm-Festival: »Arbeiterinnen / Pracujące kobiety«
73’, dt./pol. with dt./pol. ST
DE/PL, 2021
Six life stories of women in Poland and Germany that turned out differently than hoped: »Arbeiterinnen« tells the story of the experience of social decline related to the loss of work across three generations. For over a year werkgruppe2 conducted interviews with women from working-class families in the industrial regions of Lower Silesia and the Ruhr. The film is a touching and intimate portrait of women in Poland and Germany who are among the socially excluded and poses the urgent question of mutual solidarity.
Theaterfilm-Festival: »How to get rid of a body. A video tutorial series«
50’, no Language/engl.
Using synthetic moss, zebra patterns, green screens and magic tricks, choreographer and performer Léonard Engel relentlessly attempts to leave his own body behind in a series of short films. Taking his cue from YouTube tutorials, animal documentaries or meditation videos, he twists, chops, multiplies limbs and images, oscillating between hidden creature, hunting figure and morphing monster. An alienation through visual tricks doomed to fail, exposing a body that reminds us of its material existence and its own mortality.
Theaterfilm-Festival: »Keshava / Tharayil«
8’, dt./engl./malayalam/kannada/sanskrit/telugu with engl. ST
CH, 2021
In »Keshava/Tharayil« Anjali and Sumitra Keshava and Ralph and Norwin Tharayil face each other as Indian-Swiss sibling couples. In the context of a fictitious dance lesson, the authors attempt to learn forms of the classical Indian dance art Bharatanatyam from the two dancers. By moving, twisting and bending their bodies, a critical dance conversation gradually emerges in which the Keshavas and the Tharayils explore questions of identity, belonging and cultural (re)presentation.
Theaterfilm-Festival: »Brigitte Reimann besteigt den Mont Ventoux«
68’, dt.
DE, 2021
Based on Petrarch’s account of his 14th-century mountain ascent, which has been called the “birth of alpinism,” as well as on the work of Brigitte Reimann, who decisively shaped the genre of arrival literature that had grown up in the GDR, Film invites us to examine the idea of climax, of caesura, of reorientation and new orientation. The unequal pair of writers inscribe themselves in a mountain story between Provençal nature and socialist everyday production, between beginning and end, arrival and farewell.
Theaterfilm-Festival: »Ori Cleanse«
49’, engl./fr./port. with engl. ST
Six Black dancers with diverse biographical and dance backgrounds develop new ways of thinking, being and acting. They determine images and ideas they have of themselves and how they want to be seen by others. The film illuminates the world of thought and the process behind a dance performance by Grupo Oito: “Cleanse/Nu” is a political statement, a performative self-empowerment and cleansing. The title of the film, Orí, is Yoruba and means head – the head as the key to one’s own emancipation and as a connection to the spiritual world.
Theaterfilm-Festival: »Die Zweitbesetzung«
14’, dt.
DE, 2021
Actress Lola Mercedes Wittstamm is playing director Zeno Gries in front of the camera and presents the work that is in progress in that same moment. Through the roles of actress – director, whose power relationship constantly changes, the thematic focal points such as representation and identity, original versus adaptation become apparent. But since Lola‘s task as an actress is to be Zeno Gries, it also remains unclear whether she is not actually the director of this film.
Club Real
As part of the online durational festival »It’s about time«. Club Real übernimmt die Zeitmessung von »It’s about time«. In welcher Einheit messen wir ein unendlich durational Performancefestival? Die Zeitlichkeit des digitalen Festivals bringen die Künstler:innen mit planetaren Arbeitszeiten der Industriegesellschaft zusammen: die Ewigkeitsaufgaben, die der Kohleabbau dem Ruhrgebiet aufgetragen hat, stehen der Flüchtigkeit des Theaters gegenüber und das Erdzeitalter wird mit dem Stundenlohn verrechnet. Club Real entwickelt seit 2000 partizipative, ortsspezifische Projekte. Installationen, Eins-zu-Eins-Begegnungen, politische Rollenspiele und partizipative Stadtentwicklungsprojekte laden die Besucher:innen dazu ein, alternative Realitätsentwürfe mitzugestalten.
Máquina P.O.P.aganda
As part of the online durational festival »It’s about time«. Adbusting gegen die Diskrimierung HIV-infizierter Menschen: In vier zehnstündigen Livestreams nimmt die Künstler:innengruppe GRUPO D3 CHOK3 uns mit zu ihren spektakulären Aktionen in Mexiko Stadt. Mit Propagandatechniken verändern sie die Inhalte von Werbeplakaten in ihrem Sinne und bringen ihre Botschaften in den öffentlichen Raum – und ins Netz. Akt 4: 01. Dezember 2021 Akt 3: 31. Oktober 2021 Akt 2: 3. Oktober 2021 Akt 1: 11. September 2021
The Mother in Me is the Mother in You II
As part of the online durational festival »It’s about time«. Sie ist wieder da! Zum Jahresabschluss findet Felizitas Stilleke zurück zu ihrer Auseinandersetzung rund um das Themenfeld Nicht-/Noch-nicht-/nicht-mehr-/Vielleicht-/Mutterschaft und ihrem freundschaftlichen Spiel mit der Auflösung binärer Normen und Rollenfragen dazu. Auf Einladung des Festivals »It’s about time« nimmt Felizitas sich selbige und vertieft ihr Ausloten performativer Räume für ein thematisches Fass ohne Boden. Denn so schnell ließen sich die Fragen rund um Mutterschaften nicht überschreiben, geschweige denn abschließen! Verstärkung naht! Eigens für das Festival reist ihre Freundin, genannt Smu, aus Bangalore an. Endlich verbringen sie Zeit IRL und teilen im Anschluss oder auch immer mal wieder mittendrin ihre Begegnung, die vor nunmehr 1,5 Jahren als wöchentlicher Zoomaustausch über Nicht-Mutterschaft eine Form und mit den Sister Misfortune Tarotkarten schließlich eine Stimme fand. Nach einer neuen Podcastsession, live aus dem Ballhaus Ost, lädt Smu als optimale Einstimmung für die nahenden Festtage und das kommende Jahr zu persönlichen 1:1 Tarotkartenlegungen der Sister Misfortune ins Ballhaus ein. Welche Göttin weist dir den Weg aus und in ein Leben ohne Mutterschaftsfragen und welche hört deine Ängste diesbezüglich? In (d)einer halbstündigen Session wird sie spürbar, die Sisterhood, die Felizitas und Smu verbindet. Daher bildet die Kraft dieser feministischen Storytelling-Praxis in Form des Tarots ihr großes Finale: als Video-Tutorials zum Selbermachen! Link zum Podcast
An endless rug
As part of the online durational festival »It’s about time«. Der Begriff Tufting (englisch to tuft – mit Büscheln verzieren) oder deutsch Tuften bezeichnet eine Technik zur Herstellung dreidimensionaler textiler Flächen. Es ist das weltweit am häufigsten eingesetzte Verfahren zur Herstellung von Teppichböden.Teppiche sind nicht nur warm an den Füßen, sie erzählen Geschichten, stecken Territorien ab, sind die Gärten des Wohnzimmers und mit manchen kann man sogar fliegen! In den Ländern des Nahen und Mittleren Ostens waren sie lange Zeit der wichtigste Besitz einer Familie. Es gibt Orientteppiche, die nicht größer als ein Papiertaschentuch sind und als Gastgeschenk mitgebracht werden, und Teppiche, die 1000 Quadratmeter groß sind und Paläste schmücken. Der größte, im Iran handgeknüpfte Teppich der Welt ist fast 6000 Quadratmeter groß und besteht aus 45 Tonnen Wolle und Baumwolle.Ein Teppich markiert einen Raum, trennt ihn von seiner Umgebung. Der Teppich macht das, was er umrahmt, zu etwas Einzigartigem und Exklusivem. Teppiche verkörpern mächtige Symbole in verschiedenen Kulturen und waren nicht nur in 1001 Nacht mit Magie verbunden. Barbara Lenartz wird für It’s about time einen (möglichst) unendlich langen Teppich tuften. Vom 25. bis 29. Januar kann der Tuftingprozess jeden Tag von 11 bis 18 Uhr im Stream live mitverfolgt werden.Am 30. Januar um 17.00 Uhr MEZ werden dann die entstandenen Pieces of Rug im Rahmen einer Online-Live-Auktion versteigert. Auf dem Instagram Channel instagram.com/endlessrug/ werden die Pieces tagesaktuell kuratiert und präsentiert. Schriftliche Gebote können dort bis zum 30.01.22 14:00 MEZ eingereicht werden und gelten dann als Startgebot.Der Erlös der Auktion geht zu 100% an die Berliner Kältehilfe.
Gib mir noch Zeit | Keine Zeit | Time of your Life | Was ist Zeit | Auszeit | Siesta
Im Rahmen von IAT – It’s about time
»Ich will mehr Zeit.
Genau, ich will mehr Zeit!
Gib mir mehr Zeit.
Dass man auch mal mehr machen kann.
Sonst würde das Leben ja langweilig werden, wenn es keine Zeit gibt.
Abends geht die Zeit schlafen, morgens steht sie auf.
Genau wie wir, das machen wir auch.
Das machen im Moment ganz viele.
Und was machst du?
Wozu hast du nie Zeit?«
(Station 17)
Im Rahmen von »It’s about time« treffen sich vt corp. (Max Gadow und Hannah Müller) ingesamt sechs Mal mit jeweils einem Gast, um sich dieser Sache anzunähern. Beginnend mit der Frage, die jeder Gast beantwortet haben muss: »Wofür hast du nie Zeit?«
Und dann nehmen sie sie sich, die Zeit. Kurz oder lang, entspannt oder gestresst. Auf jeden Fall eine Auszeit. Bis die Zeit aus ist. Dann hört es auf.
Gib mir noch Zeit | Keine Zeit | Time of your Life | Was ist Zeit | Auszeit | Siesta ist ein Onlineformat, dauert genau so lange, wie es sich eben ergibt und wird live aus dem Ballhaus Ost ausgestrahlt.
17. Dezember 2022
Das Jahr neigt sich dem Ende zu und Xmas lauert vor der Tür.. Der Stress steht uns auf die Stirn geschrieben denn unsere Uhren zeigen alle das gleiche an: KEINE ZEIT, KEINE ZEIT! Also down the rabbit hole it goes: Wofür hatten wir dieses Jahr so gar keine keine Zeit? Was habe ich alles verpasst zu erledigen? Welche Geschenke müssen noch besorgt werden? Was mache ich, wenn ich mit Weihnachten nichts am Hut hab? Und was musst du unbedingt noch tun, damit du so richtig smooth ins Jahr 2023 rutschen kannst? Für all diese Fragen und Sorgen versuchen wir in der vorerst letzten Sendung von »Gib mir noch Zeit | Keine Zeit | Time of your Life | Was ist Zeit | Auszeit | Siesta« Antworten zu finden. Oder eben aber auch nicht !!! Denn zu Gast ist diesmal: die Überraschung! Und dafür nehmen wir uns kurz vor Xmas ausnahmsweise mal so richtig viel Zeit .
16. Juli 2022 | – fällt leider aus-
Elizabeth Prentis aka Lizzie hat nie Zeit um ihre Seele in der Natur baumeln zu lassen und sich mal so richtig zu entspannen. Auch wenn sie die Natur gar nicht so mag, denkt sie man sollte sich das schon mal gönnen. Genauso wie ein leckeres Essen, in Lissabon am Strand zu liegen und zur Maniküre zu gehen. Das mag Lizzie besonders gerne und deswegen nimmt sie sich auch Zeit dafür, obwohl die Zeit ihr eher davon rennt. Trotzdem möchte sie nicht noch mehr davon haben, denn das ist immer mit Stress verbunden. Ist Lizzie nicht gestresst, dann benötigt sie auch nicht mehr Zeit, weil sie diese ja dann bereits genießt. Könnte Lizzie die Uhr zurück drehen, dann würde sie am liebsten als Lerche verkleidet zu den Dinosauriern fliegen. Das fände sie cool. gestreamt aus Lissabon.
22. April 2022 | mit Monika Oschek:
Monika Oschek hat nie Zeit zum Inlineskaten. Vor allem das Bremsen kommt immer zu kurz und die Kissen aus Madeira, die müssen auch endlich bestickt werden. Außerdem fragt sie sich, wer eigentlich erfunden hat, dass die Zeit so lange dauert, wie sie eben dauert.
Sie trägt keine Uhr, dabei hätte sie so gern noch mehr Zeit. Wahrscheinlich damit sie dann Karaoke singen, Werwolf spielen und Choreographien tanzen kann. Denn dafür hat sie auch kaum Zeit.
Für Monika stoppt die Zeit genau dann, wenn sie mit Wodka der Sonne entgegen durch den Wald läuft. Das klingt vielleicht nach Alkoholismus, ist es aber nicht. Wodka ist ihr Hund und für den nimmt sie sich immer Zeit. Und für Wellness. Am liebsten mag Moni die Uhrzeit 14 Uhr, weil da die besten Sendungen auf Vox laufen. Oder 18 Uhr. Da kann sie dann endlich Feierabend machen.
Es beginnt um 18.30 Uhr und dauert so lange wie es eben dauert.
25. Februar 2022 | mit Felizitas Stilleke:
Felizitas Stilleke hat nie Zeit, um über die Jahre gesammeltes auf Ebay zu verkaufen oder sich mit Kapitalanlagen zu beschäftigen. Sie trägt eine Uhr am rechten Handgelenk, hat ganz schön viel Zeit und hätte gerne noch mehr – keine Frage! Keine Zeit zu haben findet sie aber auch gut, weil ihr das so richtig Dampf unterm Kessel macht. Und so wie Dampf stellt sie sich auch die Zeit vor, farblos und strömend – oder so wie Wind. Sie ist definitiv eine Leule, geht also gerne spät ins Bett und steht genauso gerne früh auf. Sie wird 109 Jahre alt werden, aber mit dem Tod braucht man ihr nicht zu kommen. Sie hat Geräte, um die Zeit zu stoppen, weiß aber, dass das der Zeit eigentlich egal ist.
Letztendlich wartet sie jeden Tag bloß darauf, dass die Uhr 23:10 anzeigt – ihre Lieblingsuhrzeit.
12 Months – A Year
As part of It’s about time
»Time is something that scares me … or used to. This piece I made with the two clocks was the scariest thing I have ever done. I wanted to face it. I wanted those two clocks right in front of me, ticking.«
Felix González-Torres, 1991
»12 Months — A Year« is a durational film project by ONCE WE WERE ISLANDS made as part of the online festival »It’s about time«.
Starting in November 2021, Aslan and Gylee will create and release a five-minute film every month for one year. Each monthly chapter will be released on the final day of the month and will add to the previous films, accumulating in real-time. The full 60-minute work will be completed and released on 31st October 2022.
»12 Months — A Year« is inspired by durational artforms including the soap opera, the serialisation of the novel in the 19th century, films that stretch and compress time (»Empire«, »24-Hour Psycho«, »The Clock«, »Boyhood«), and the inevitably diverging clocks of González-Torres’s sculpture »Untitled (Perfect Lovers)«.
Simple questions with formidable answers: We ask who we are now, who we will be a year from now, and what the nature may be of the trajectory between these two points in time.
»This was fiction and yet no one knew where the story was headed because time was its unpredictable collaborator.«
Kate Kellaway, interview with Richard Linklater & Ellar Coltrane, 2014
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.
October
»I started out in search of ordinary things
How much a tree bends in the wind
I started telling the story without knowing the end …«
Bill Callahan, »Jim Cain«, 2009
September
»Sometimes you bend down to tie your shoe, and then you either tie your shoe or you don’t. Every choice begets at least two worlds of possibility. It’s possible, too, that there is no such thing as one clear line or strand of probability, and that we live on a twisted braid, blurring from one to the other without even knowing it, as long as we keep within the limits of a set of variations. Thus the paradox of time travel ceases to exist, for the Past one visits is never one’s own Past, but always somebody else’s; or rather, one’s visit to the Past instantly creates another Present (one in which the visit had already happened) …«
Joanna Russ, »The Female Man«, 1975
August
»The places we are born come back. They disguise themselves as migraines, stomach aches, insomnia. They are the way we sometimes wake falling, fumbling for the bedside lamp, certain everything we’ve built has gone in the night.«
Daisy Johnson, »Everything Under«, 2018
July
»We have no need of other worlds. We need mirrors. We don’t know what to do with other worlds. A single world, our own, suffices us; but we can’t accept it for what it is.«
Stanisław Lem, »Solaris«, 1961
June
»I seem to keep thinking things have already happened. When you asked if I remembered about the party and the ceremony, I thought you meant, did I remember having gone to them. And I did remember. I seem to have fallen out of time …The party and ceremony are tonight. In the future … In a way, I understand. But, you see, I seem to have gone into the future, too. I have a distinct recollection of the party that hasn’t happened yet. I remember the award ceremony perfectly.«
Michael Cunningham, »The Hours«, 1998
May
»‘Love’, this English word: like other English words it has tense. ‘Loved’ or ‘will love’ or ‘have loved’. All these specific tenses mean Love is time-limited thing. Not infinite. It only exist in particular period of time.«
Xiaolu Guo, »A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers«, 2007
April
»When was that? When did I stop getting old? Time passes by me like the wind. Maybe the cord that bound me to time broke when I lost my words.«
Yoko Tawada, »Scattered All Over The Earth«, 2018
March
»I believe in an alchemy of time … I believe we can make time … Does naming time generate time? Rehearsal is a great name for time, solitude another. Clock into darkness. Clock into leave. Falling, a time. What if we all agreed to live a year on moon time shunning the sun … The most crucial and most queer thing I can say is that these thoughts are all about that which is unseen in time. All that exists and goes unnamed, uncounted, disregarded. In a queer life you use and re-use shards of time, search out references, create your own constellation and pull small threads forward. You dig and discover all that was, in its time, against the continuity of its time.«
Every Ocean Hughes FKA Emily Roysdon, »Uncounted«, 2012-2015
February
»You know, I’ve got a funny feeling // I’ve seen this all before. // Why? // Cause I’m a caveman. // Why? // Cause I’ve got eyes in the back of my head. // Why? // It’s the heat. // Standby. // This is the time. // And this is the record of the time.«
Laurie Anderson, »From the Air«, 1982
January
»The threads of time have their knots and tangles, and every so often there is a symmetry, every once in a while something repeats, as if refrains and motifs were controlling them, a troubling thing to notice. Such order tends to overburden the mind, which cannot know how to respond. Chaos has always seemed more familiar and safe, like the disarray in your own drawer«
Olga Tokarczuk, »The Books of Jacob«, 2014
December
»The way one does research into nonexistent history is to tell the story and find out what happened. I believe this isn’t very different from what historians of the so-called real world do. Even if we are present at some historic event, do we comprehend it — can we even remember it — until we can tell it as a story? And for events in times or places outside our own experience, we have nothing to go on but the stories other people tell us. Past events exist, after all, only in memory, which is a form of imagination. The event is real now, but once it’s then, its continuing reality is entirely up to us, dependent on our energy and honesty. If we let it drop from memory, only imagination can restore the least glimmer of it. If we lie about the past, forcing it to tell a story we want it to tell, to mean what we want it to mean, it loses its reality, becomes a fake.«
Ursula K. Le Guin, »Tales from Earthsea«, 2015
November
»Something changed in the world. Not too long ago, it changed, and we know it. We don’t know how to explain it yet, but I think we all can feel it somewhere deep in our gut or in our brain circuits. We feel time differently. No one has quite been able to capture what it happening or say why. Perhaps it’s just that we sense an absence of future, because the present has become too overwhelming, so the future has become unimaginable. And without future, time feels only like an accumulation. An accumulation of months, days, natural disasters, television series, terrorist attacks, divorces, mass migrations, birthdays, photographs, sunrises … We haven’t understood how space and time exist now, how we really experience them.«
Valeria Luiselli, »Lost Children Archive«, 2019
