In the summer of 1927, the artist Elsa von Freytag-­Loringhoven sends a letter to the patron Peggy Guggenheim, seeking funding. In prophetic euphoria and apocalyptic urgency, she outlines a project: an experimental modelling studio in Paris, where her longstanding work as a figure model is to be presented as an art of its own. A century later, Spirit Plastic takes up this forgotten episode in the history of performance art to restage it as a space of resonance for contemporary dilemmas of artistic labour. Drawing on the Baroness’s late poetry and autofictional writings, the play explores the act of calling oneself an ‘artist’ in an economically, politically and spiritually precarious present. ,Bruch‘- is a collaborative framework for artistic research and production between theatre, dance and visual art. Since 2020, their work has been shown at venues such as Kölnischer Kunstverein, Münchner Kammerspiele, the National Experimental Theatre in Tirana, and Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich.

Back after a prolonged summer hiatus, YETZE Casino Nights returns to Ballhaus Ost with an ethereal and genre-bending blast from Down Under: Naarm/Melbourne-based three-piece Dumbhead are going to perform their first-ever live show in Germany on November 1, 2026. Known to create bass-heavy soundscapes built for late-night movement, Dumbhead’s debut Berlin performance is going to be an immersive and unpredictable Sunday Special… Moving effortlessly between bass-heavy electronica and alt-rock experimentation, trippy downtempo spheres and jazz-tinged excursions, Dumbhead is a trio comprising Maayan Barnatan, Zach Salmon, and singer Billie Raffety. Influenced by Björk, Radiohead, Massive Attack, HTRK, or former tour mates Acopia, they released their debut EP »Stop Motion« in 2023, followed by the group’s self-titled sophomore EP in late 2025.https://dumbhead.bandcamp.com/ Life is a Berlin-based music project by Emma Weber, Finn Kraft and Johannes Farfsing. A blend of folk-rock, jazz and athletic multi-instrumentalism characterizes the trio’s careening arrangements and performances. Life has released their debut album »Everything else« in April 2026, and is working on a followup project to be released soon.https://officiallife.bandcamp.com/ >> YETZE Casino Night #2: Blurry Records Label Night | Maresz presents »TASTE« | ronja (Roomer) | RIP Swirl (DJ) | 16.4.>> YETZE Casino Night #1: A Good Year (Escho / CPH) feat. Late Verlane | 21.3.

Game sessionBefore four Drag Royals play the classic pen-and-paper role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons at Questhaus Ost, there will be an opportunity to embark on your own adventure at the open game night: whether you are a curious beginner or an experienced role player, alone or in a group – everyone is welcome. At the beginning, there will be a short introduction to how pen-and-paper games work, then the games that have been brought along will be presented and a group will be formed for each game. This afternoon’s focus is on queer gaming worlds. If you’d like to bring a game and lead a session, please email info@ballhausost.de in advance.Introduction Pen&Paper: 15:30–16:00Play Pen&Paper: 16:00–19:00 Drag showNight falls over Berlin. For the second time drag creatures gather at Ballhaus Ost to battle monsters of modern history with improv, queerness & love. Guided by the drag-king-game-master our heroes will take on a wild quest to save the world.Last time, our drag-quings-heroes managed to defeat the bureaucracy monsters and hoist the rainbow flag on the roof of the Reichstag, lifting the curse off Berlin, but barely six months have passed before the wind picks up again, colorless trash bags soar into the air, and a new challenge looms for our beloved drag heroes. And they don’t waste any time—they glue on their beards, pull on their mesh tights, and gather up again to come face-to-face with the most dangerous villains, who are suffocating the city in a gray, corrupt fog. Join us in the fight and help show who this city belongs to! Mustachioed drag-king BroKolya and his guestsdrag-kings, -queens and creatures invite you to join the game inpired by of Dungeons & Drag-ons! Come watch the dice roll, the wigs fly, and see how drag-performers re-invent a whole world in real time.Drag show: 20:00–22:30. What is Pen&Paper?In most role-playing games, a game master guides the game: they describe scenes, describe locations, play all non-player characters, and decide how the story unfolds. The game rules provide guidance for this.The players take on the roles of fictional characters and develop the plot. There are also role-playing games with a character sheet that provides information about skills and abilities or fun facts. Many decisions and game moments whose outcome is uncertain are determined by rolling dice. This is also specified in the respective rules.There are countless scenarios in pen and paper games. Whether as a vampire in 1920s London, a thief in the future, with magic, without magic. Anything is possible.The basic rules and game settings are laid down in the so-called rulebooks. How closely you adhere to these basic rules is a group decision. The rule here is: as long as everyone is having fun, anything goes.

Jigaraki is a concert by Berlin-based trio Elèni Mik, Nafsika Gkotzamani, and Hanik Soleimani. As emerging FLINTA+ artists, they create a space where diverse traditions meet experimental performance. Centered on the voice, Jigaraki draws from Balkan, Eastern Mediterranean, Anatolian, Byzantine, Makam, and Dastgah traditions, treating them as living material to fragment and reimagine through contemporary composition, storytelling, and politically engaged performance. Their concept of »fake folk music« invents a folklore that feels familiar yet never existed, using fictional rituals and multilingual lyrics to question authenticity, ownership, and identity. Rejecting both pop aesthetics and strict preservation, they approach musical systems as open vocabularies for transformation and dialogue. Inspired by the Meykhane, they create inclusive, participatory performances that challenge its historically exclusionary nature. Jigaraki asks what contemporary folk can be beyond pop and tradition, offering a new sonic language rooted in both heritage and invention. On Fri. 18. and Sat. 19.9., there will be showings of Hanik Soleimani and Marianna Wicha’s piece »Zai el Lila«.

One doomed woman tells story after story to gain night after night. The thread of the story is the only thing leading her through the labyrinth of her doom. Inside the stories she tells, the most frequently tendered coins to buy someone’s life are again stories.»The Physics of Sorrow«, Georgi Gospodinov (Translation: Angela Rodel) Caught between German bureaucracy – »Your documents don’t allow for an extension of your residence permit. There’s nothing I can do.« – and calls from her alarmed family – »Don’t even think about coming back to Iran!« – Scheherazade has only one weapon: stories. Out of them, she builds a labyrinth into which she gradually lures the clerk at the Immigration Office. Just keep talking, keep talking util the guy gets confused, loses the thread, forgets about the documents. Play for time till the Office closes, get one more appointment — »the last one, really« — gain one more week in Berlin. In »Zai el Lila«, Hanik Soleimani and Marianna Wicha combine the dramaturgy of One Thousand and One Nights with autofiction, original music inspired by Byzantine melodies, and the techniques of contemporary puppetry. A blend as wild as the stories have to be, which one tells to survive. On 20.9., a concert by Jigaraki—Hanik Soleimani’s band featuring Elèni Mik and Nafsika Gkotzamani—will take place in the set of »Zai el Lila«.Link to concert.

»Seven Songs of Yearning for a New World, Sung by a Starship« is a sci-fi musical and the first stage collaboration between ONCE WE WERE ISLANDS and Ruby Louise Rose. This Queer Futurist work combines original songs with poetic text to tell the story of Queer refugees carried through space on a starship powered by desire. Music and songs are composed by Ruby Louise Rose to text and lyrics created by ONCE WE WERE ISLANDS and woven together into a 45-minute event performed live by Aslan, Chris, and Ruby with modulated voice, bass guitar and electronics. For the first Berlin showing, we invite friends old and new from the city and beyond to bring you an eclectic assortment of Queer sci-fi goodies, including short films, readings, music and more with Óscar Barbosa, Lor Burns, elliott cennetoglu, CoCo & Alice Thibes, ethan allison folk, Jean P’ark, and Anna T. The Otherland Bookstore will be selling a selection of Queer sci-fi at the event. To close Ruby Louise Rose will play a Queer/trans-themed laptop music set.Join us for an evening of speculative wonder! ONCE WE WERE ISLANDS have presented Queer speculative fictions at Ballhaus Ost since 2015. They return with co-conspirator Ruby Louise Rose for their first musical collaboration. Old and new friends from Berlin and beyond join them for a night of Queer sci-fi. »Seven Songs of Yearning« | ONCE WE WERE ISLANDS & Ruby Louise Rose»Aren taripa«, short film | Óscar Barbosa»Dreamers of the Wild Beyond« (wt), short film, looped installation | Lor Burns»Soti Sotla«, recorded reading, short film | elliott cennetoglu»Na Czerwonym Globie«, short film | CoCo & Alice Thibes»cauldron«, reading by Rosa de Rosa | ethan allison folk»String Fiction«, short film & live music | Jean P’ark with Neo Hülcker, Petra Hillbricht, Nelson Irsapoullé, Jia Chen, Saskia Dworatzek, Anja Kümmel »Δiotima; or, Δeir*land: A fragmented stori of arkivs, kolektivism, imaginaʃon, & multituds«, recorded extract reading, short film | Anna T.

What do mothers and magic have in common? They’re elusive – or, if you do catch them, it’s when it’s too late. In their new stage production, TIGERS’ KITCHEN explore the absence of their mothers, thereby bringing into sharp focus everything that, in their view, has been lurking in the shadows for far too long. Just like the ‘sawn-in-half virgins’ or the female figures erased from the world’s narratives, their mothers, too, were swallowed up. By patriarchy, by circumstances, and by their own memories. So it is high time to make way for the mothers who shaped their daughters into the women they are today. What begins with quirks and tricks does not stop at death and sadness, and enchants our views on memories and memoirs. And it does so with plenty of magic! TIGERS‘ KITCHEN (Nadja Duesterberg & Svea Kirschmeier) are queer, performance theater makers who create spaces for new narratives to make the invisible visible. Queer feminist art is rooted in an honest and openly vulnerable foundation.

Joanna Bailie: At the same time (2026) Premiere – 15’for video, four performers and electronic soundsEloain Lovis Hübner: World Clock [Weltzeituhr] (2026) Premiere – 20’for six voices/performersArturas Bumšteinas: Melodies & Earmuffs (2023) – 10’for six voicesWalter Zimmermann: Self-Forgetting [Selbstvergessen] (1982) – 20’seven simultaneous solos for speaking and singing instrumentalists It is completely impossible to imagine everything that is happening in the world at the very same moment—even just in Berlin, in one’s own neighborhood. A wide variety of temporalities and paces unfold in parallel within the smallest of spaces. The week is over far too quickly, yet the day just won’t seem to pass. Temporalities collide; we meet in public spaces or on the phone, planned or by chance—sometimes it works out, often it doesn’t. The four compositions this evening reflect the fleeting nature and polyphony of everyday life.The new piece by Eloain Lovis Hübner reflects on the fleeting nature of everyday life. Within a given timeframe, each participant follows an individually prescribed structure and logic of the sequence of events. In addition to the various possibilities of the voice, there is a pool of everyday objects and media, including instruments that the participants are able (or not able) to play. Joanna Bailie’s new composition also refers to the polyphony of everyday life. Using a video of urban scenes and a stereo sound file of electronic sounds, the performers interact through movements in space, gestures, speech, and song. They attempt to embody the events, analyze them, contradict them, and extract a kind of music from them, whether acoustic or visual. In Arturas Bumšteinas’ composition, the attempt to sing folk songs together is thwarted by the isolation of the ears caused by ear muffs, leading to unintended microtonal results. Walter Zimmermann’s »Self-Forgetting« was written for Merce Cunningham’s Dance Company and parts of the text and musical notation may be omitted, »forgotten«. As a simultaneous field of mutual interpenetration, the piece remains permeable yet haunting. The Maulwerker use, among other things, self-made instruments. Guest is cellist Tilman Kanitz. Maulwerker, collective for vocal experiments, integrate elements of performance art, intermedial art and choreography into their music.

TICKETS Drawing on the tools of personal writing, oral storytelling and fiction, Mille and Alissia from the theatre company 88 mètres/seconde invite you to explore family ties – whether by blood and/or by choice. A two and a half hours workshop to write, share and keep secrets; to demystify the act of writing, have fun and create together, following on from their show, »Le Grand Soir«, which explores father-child relationships. The workshop will consist of a writing warm-up, several exercises supported by additional texts and visual aids, as well as several opportunities to share and a final discussion session. There is a limit of 15 participants. If you’re interested but the price is too high for you, feel free to reach out via mail (lelampenfieber@theaterimnu.de). Directed by Mille Zhong and Alissia Pervozvanski-Dangles, the goals of the company 88 mètres/seconde are to create bold, ambitious, lesbian, and decolonial work, blending physical theatre and experimental performance to advocate for radical representation, healing, and political change. During this week, Compagnie 88 mètres/seconde will also perform their show »Le Grand Soir«.Both »Famili(es) – a writing workshop« and »Le Grand Soir« are part of Le Lampenfieber 2026 festival »Are We A Thing?«.

TICKETS In a society that tends to separate the body, the voice, and speech, this workshop brings them back together. The voice cannot fully express itself without the body, and the body cannot truly resonate without speech. In a world where it is often difficult for people from the Global Majority to speak up and make their voices heard, I created this space to: • explore and embody your voice• reconnect with your presence• dare to take up space and affirm yourself This workshop is not reserved for artists. It is open to anyone who wishes to explore their voice, their presence, and their relationship to the world. Priority is given to people from the Global Majority, while remaining open to everyone.During one afternoon, we will explore: 1. Body & Voice: posture, breath, energy, and resonance.2. Rhythm, Gesture & Movement: freeing speech through the body.3. Emotions & Self-Awareness: identifying and moving through internal blocks.4. Practice & Sharing: practical exercises, guided explorations, and supportive feedback. There is a limit of 12 participants. If you’re interested but the price is too high for you, feel free to reach out via mail (lelampenfieber@theaterimnu.de). Massandje Sanogo is a performance artist, writer, and director. Her work lies at the intersection of the body, sound, and image, drawing on bodily memory and improvisation. Drawing on intimate narratives tied to Black and Afro-descendant identities, she creates spaces of resonance between individual experiences and shared narratives. On Wed 30.9. and Sun 4.10., Massandje Sanogo will also show her performance »Rapport sur ma vie antérieure de femme noire«. Both »Oxygènes workshop« and »Rapport sur ma vie antérieure de femme noire« are part of Le Lampenfieber 2026 festival »Are We A Thing?«.