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

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

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

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

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

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

In his Ambient Theater series, Daniel Schrader develops relaxed forms of spoken theater. With headphones on their ears and their eyes on the landscape, participants experience the sci-fi radio play “War of the Worlds” by H.G. Wells, park life and live interventions by the Performers.

Free admission on 2.9. as part of the Kultursommerfestival. Registration at: karten@ballhausost.de

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

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

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

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

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

Margarete Huber »Kartographie« (2022, UA)

Rebecca Saunders »O« (2017) 

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

Andrea Neumann »Rencontre 5« (2022, UA)

Boris Filanovsky »Mariupol« (2022, UA)

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

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