Don’t you know
They’re talking about a revolution?
There! You can see it through the trees. A tower, a wall, a path through the leaves. A place out of time.
Everyone is welcome at the Palace — but you have to leave everything behind: memories, your old life, even your name. For your new name, you can choose a colour: Rose, Turquoise, Fuchsia, Sage. There are rooms for sleeping, workshops, an infirmary and gardens. There’s karaoke sung in a brand new language. A lonely dance we dance once a year.
In this new live performance, Queer performance collective ONCE WE WERE ISLANDS attempt to imagine a Queer Utopia: post capitalist, post trauma, post addiction, post sadness, post joy — an After to the mess that came Before.
Don’t you know you better run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run …
»Palace of Ash and Rain« is the fifth chapter of »With Forests in Our Mouths«, a durational constellation artwork made up of multiple interconnected chapters shared across 2024 and 2025 and including performances, films, exhibitions and publications.
Queer performance collective ONCE WE WERE ISLANDS make multidisciplinary performance works, often using the Queer constructed language Damiá as an artistic tool. In 2023, they left Berlin for a new home at the edge of the forest in North Karelia, Finland.
The performance on 16.10. will be followed by an artist talk with Once We Were Islands and Theaterscoutings Berlin.
