The musical lecture performance “Left Hands” is dedicated to female artists of the GDR, follows their footsteps and delves into their work, is a documentary, declaration of love, punk concert – with Rosa Beton – and essay all in one.
 

The music theater collective Hauen und Stechen developed its works in cellars and on opera stages. It stands for a poetic, multifaceted and wild theatrical language that marks a political and idiosyncratic position in music theater.

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The performance includes the depiction of nudity and loud pop music.

Ronald M. Schernikau is gay and a communist. He lives in West Germany and desperately wants to move to East Germany. His goal: to study at the Johannes R. Becher Literary Institute and obtain East German citizenship. Poignant, combative, silly, sublime. Gay fantasies mix with political analysis. Classicism meets camp. Glamour meets grief. Schernikau dies of AIDS in 1991. This musical reading aims to introduce you to a queer author who sadly succumbed to AIDS in 1991. Shortly before his death, Schernikau completed the book “Legende” (Legend). The manuscript remained unpublished for a long time. Schernikau’s magnum opus is a bible and a travesty, an epic and a musical, a documentary record of both Germanys in the 1980s that is disturbingly topical – and always a cheerfully profound exploration of the changeability of the world. Tucké Royale and Jens Friebe have worked on Schernikau both separately and together. Kristin Bönicke is Schernikau’s estate administrator and is working on an edition of his letters for Verbrecher Verlag. Elmira Bahrami was involved in the first performance of the program at Theater Basel.

»Der Ocean« is a multisensory dance and music performance for deaf and hearing adults, with and without babies. The performance delves into the complex and ambivalent experiences of parenthood and childhood—a web of contradictions involving care, exhaustion, and tenderness. Inspired by the image of the ocean—a symbol of vastness, change, and security, of an imagined, inexhaustible maternal source, but also as an open, connecting body of water—the piece approaches the themes of parenthood, care, and dependence from different angles. In close connection with voice, choreography, vibrations, taste, and sign language, a multi-layered, collectively experiential composition by Genoël von Lilienstern and La Cage emerges. La Cage was founded in Berlin and Paris in 2015. The company combines musical and sculptural forms in performative formats. On Friday, October 31, 2025, following the performance, there will be an audience discussion with DGS translation on »Der Ozean« in cooperation with Theaterscoutings Berlin. The performance on November 2nd is part of the SCHRUMPF! series and is an adaptation of the play for older children and families.

Who can remember being a baby, who is still close to that age? And who has ever shared their life with a newborn baby? We approach La Cage’s performance installation »The Ocean« from these different perspectives. The piece is aimed at both deaf and hearing audiences and invites visitors directly onto the stage to experience a total composition of sound, light, dance, and vibration. Using haptic elements, we are allowed to feel, hear, and even taste this world. In interaction with the performers, we dive deep into the experiential spaces of newborns—from both the baby’s and the parent’s perspective. After the performance, there will be time for questions and answers with the artistic team. At Schrumpf!, Berlin ensembles present their latest productions—in family format. New art forms are discovered, places explored, movements tried out, sounds listened to—and everyone can join in! Artistic Direction and Moderation of the Series Schrumpf!: Daniella Strasfogel, Production Management for Schrumpf!: Natascha Tertre, Press and PR for Schrumpf!: Nora Gores, Grafic design Schrumpf!: Suse Sebald, Social Media Schrumpf!: Richard Mattmüller, Documentation: Christina Voigt

»ALLE UNSERE GESTERN« tells the story of a family in northern Italy in the 1930s and 1940s whose supportive community is torn apart by fascism and war. While leaflets are secretly burned in the oven and the men are sent to the front, hunger, loss, and fear become part of everyday life. At the center of the story is Anna, the youngest: she loses loved ones, becomes pregnant unintentionally, marries hastily, and leaves her home. In the southern Italian province, she seeks a new place in life—between self-determination, resistance, and the question of what freedom means. Natalia Ginzburg’s language is simple and precise, full of tenderness and humor, and that is precisely where its power lies: it allows us to feel the force of politics in our private lives. At a time when right-wing ideologies are regaining strength, democracies are under pressure, and feminist achievements are being called into question, the production at Ballhaus Ost opens up a sensual and political space in which the past and the present collide. Holle Münster stages works by contemporary and classical authors and, together with the theater collective Prinzip Gonzo, develops genre-defining, participatory game theater formats, where her long-standing collaboration with film and theater actress Anna von Haebler began. Natalia Ginzburg (1916-1991) wrote novels, short stories, plays, and essays, including »All Our Yesterdays« in 1952. The novel was first published in Germany in 2009 and will premiere at Ballhaus Ost.

»In the Vault«, curated by Presentation Club, unlocks an evening of experimental literature and presentation. Inviting writers and artists to share intimate, silly, and early works–»writings you would not usually publish«–think: a live reading of a Notes app, a short story written in primary school, a walkthrough of a past MySpace profile, a love letter, a teenage diary entry, Google Maps reviews… or wherever our memories, dreams and desires may take us.With contributions by: Erin Honeycutt, Monilola Olayemi Ilupeju, Mina Amiri Kalovøy, Soroa Lear, Nadia Marcus, Randon Rosenbohm Talkhaus Ost is part of The Late Night Shows: on the Side-Quest-Stage, following performances on the main stage, five short, performative, musical, and humorous formats invite audiences to stay a bit longer. Artists who usually perform in all kinds of settings — from your landlord’s cellar to the rooftops of Gotham. Coming up next: »Mockhaus Ost: Yael Mor & Jason Harvey« on 15.11.

The history of Berlin tells of plants, animals, fungi, and microorganisms.Berlin is considered a green metropolis full of biodiversity. But the city’s history remains incomplete if it is told exclusively from a human perspective. “City of Living Creatures” rewrites the history of Berlin. From the hydrogen-eating aromate devourer in contaminated groundwater to the marsh nettle from the glacial valley, a polyphonic audio narrative emerges with the voices of plants, animals, fungi, and microorganisms that have shaped and continue to shape the city. Organismendemokratie e.V. and the artist group Club Real invite you to two different bike tours through Berlin. Please bring your own bike. The meeting point is the courtyard of Ballhaus Ost. The artist group Club Real has been developing participatory performance projects since 2000. Installations, political multispecies formats and participatory urban development projects invite visitors to help shape alternative visions of reality. Since 2018 it has been about human relationships with all living beings, and since 2019, the Organisms Democracy exists on a green space at Osloer Straße, as a satellite venue of Ballhaus Ost.

»Stimpathy. To Be Free(k) in Connection« is a post-workshop performance exploring stimming as collective and relational practice. In a relaxed set up you will be invited to experience and participate in a choreography created together with a group of neurodivergent people from Berlin over the last seven months. Stimming (self-stimulatory behavior) is repetitive movements and sounds that neurodivergent people generate to regulate emotions and sensory processes. Despite the neurodiversity discourse growing, stimming is still rarely viewed as meaningful somatic, cultural or relational practice. Often, it is dismissed, corrected, or pathologized. We aim to shift that lens by engaging in neuroqueering – a practice defined by Dr. Nick Walker as opposing and subverting neurocognitive norms and gender norms at the same time. The practice of stimming questions both neurocognitive and gender norms, very vividly exposing their artificiality. Intersection of gender and neurodivergence affects the ways we navigate the city and use its facilities for work, leisure, socializing, shopping, learning, commuting, etc. Through our project we want to make hypervisible what is usually hidden to empower neurodivergent people and normalize stimming behaviors in public spaces. Monika Popiel & Paweł Świerczek are a duo working together and separately in the field of performing arts and around. Since January this year they’ve been developing the project STIMPATHY focused on neurodivergent embodiment and stimming within Fresh A.I.R. Residency at Stiftung Berliner Leben. 

Three authors form a band: NO SCRIBES. In a literary show, they address issues of identity and class, girlhood, and pop feminism. Hardly any other cultural phenomenon shaped the 90s and 00s as much as girl bands: young women, carefully assembled according to different types, marketed as a projection surface for desire, identification, and empowerment. Starting with Destiny’s Child, Tic Tac Toe, and the Spice Girls, NO SCRIBES bring together collective writing, pop culture references, and personal experiences. And they ask the question: What can a cultural practice look like that celebrates polyphony, friction, and perspectives of solidarity as an aesthetic and political principle? An evening that combines homage and criticism, theory and dance floor, reading and show. For everyone who used to come up with their first choreographies in their bedrooms in front of MTV and Viva and is now looking for new forms of collective storytelling. NO SCRIBES will premiere on November 7 and 8, 2025, at the Vagantenbühne theater and will be published simultaneously in print by SUKULTUR Verlag.

Two pseudo-documentary lecture performances that break the mould of lecture and performance formats with plenty of jokes: Yael Mor takes the audience into her long-awaited chance to stage a show in Berlin – a dream that spirals into a nightmare as her reality begins to crack. Jason Harvey invites the audience into his life as a micro-influencer and will make them laugh and think with new provocative images. Mockhaus Ost is part of The Late Night Shows: on the Side-Quest-Stage, following performances on the main stage, five short, performative, musical, and humorous formats invite audiences to stay a bit longer. To see artists who usually perform in all kinds of settings — from your landlord’s cellar to the rooftops of Gotham.Coming up next: »Pophaus Ost: Jon Darc« am 29.11.