Through Ariel Ashbel’s characteristic aesthetic that exposes the mechanics of the theatrical apparatus, Fiddler! A Musical unites the tender beauty and complexities of different storytellings, traditions, and approaches to faith.Continue reading “LEAH KATZ”
Category: Allgemein
Safe With You
A Night’s Game, choreographed and performed by Alleyne Dance, a British company founded by twin sisters Kristina and Sadé Alleyne, was presented on 23 and 24 July 2024 at DOCK 11, as a part of the b12 festival.Continue reading “Safe With You”
One’s last is another’s first
Last Dance | And for the time being by Ian Kaler and Stéphane Peeps Moun (19–21 July 2024, Uferstudio 14) joins two solos that sculpt time through physical movement—text and dance interact as staged material, producing subtle relationships between human and non-human subjects.Continue reading “One’s last is another’s first”
The Centre is Everywhere, the Circumference is Nowhere
LATE, premiering on 22 and 23 June at Studio Storkower Straße 115, directed by Juli Reinartz, takes the figure and format of a ball (dance) as a landscape for coexistence and change, exploring crip time as simultaneous multiplicity for bodies sharing space.Continue reading “The Centre is Everywhere, the Circumference is Nowhere”
Excerpts from an Encyclopedia of the Future
In the multimedia performance Anatomorphoses (20-23 June 24, DOCK 11 EDEN) Penelope Wehrli and herteam have future people and fleeting nebulous entities dance – in the hope of changing our self-awareness and perception of the world.Continue reading “Excerpts from an Encyclopedia of the Future “
Ausatmen
In der Luft, by Tatiana Mejía and Kareth Schaffer, was previewed on 18 June at TANZKOMPLIZEN in Podewil and will premiere on 27 September. This fun, educational, and imaginative dance work brings the attention of audiences six years of age and over to the mixture of many gases and tiny dust particles all around us: air.Continue reading “Ausatmen”
Summer of Discontent
HUNDSTAGE by Enad Marouf premiered at Sophiensæle on 13 June, with further performances from 14 to 16 June. It takes inspiration from the ancient Greek and Roman concept of the ‘dog days’, where the extreme heat of summer was believed to provoke a time of misfortune and unrest.
Continue reading “Summer of Discontent”Revealed
Together with Hatched Ensemble, Mamela Nyamza questions the basic framework of existence and invites viewers to reconsider categorical attributions. The piece is being performed at HAU 1 on 5/6 June.
Continue reading “Revealed”
YES!
The piece Yebo Yes! by dancers from the company Afia is celebrating its premiere in Germany on 24 May 2024 at fabrik Potsdam during Potsdamer Tanztage. It is as moving as it is thought-provoking.
Continue reading “YES!”
Existence as Resistance
In Nawa, Sahar Damoni expresses the pain and the pleasure of living in her body as an undivided experience. Nawa had its German premiere at T-Werk on the 23rd and 24th of May 2024, in the frame of the Potsdamer Tanztage festival.Continue reading “Existence as Resistance”
Those Who Never Take Root. A Performative Archive of the Queer Asian Diaspora
For Floating Roots (9 – 12 May 2024, Tanzfabrik, revival), Inky Lee interviewed 17 1.5 and 2nd generation Asian and queer immigrants. Six of them are together on stage with two Deaf performers.
I am looking at a stage that is never still. There is a constant coming and going. Someone is always running in a circle, with thumping steps. Someone else is moving, slowly creeping, also in a circle, in the opposite direction. Or from one corner to another. Or around another person, without losing sight of them. I look left, then right, then left again. I try to grasp what is happening, what seems like soberly performed movements that appear aimless. Endless light changes immerse everything in blue, then pink, then yellow, blue, pink, yellow, etc.
The restlessness on stage washes over me like a wave. Along with a collage of accounts of migration, discrimination, loneliness and the feeling of neither belonging to the “old” nor the “new homeland”, which are the soundtrack of the piece, the performance makes me feel increasingly fatigued. And yet, this state of exhaustion probably does not even come close to how the gruelling process of years of fighting for asylum or the constant confrontation with sometimes crude and at other times subtle racist statements actually feels. I am spared all that as a white woman in Germany. Tonight, I am invited to witness the stories of those who are not able to take root anywhere and perhaps understand a bit of their rootlessness and restlessness.
![](https://tanzschreiber.de/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/FloatingRoots_Inky-Lee_byCerenSaner_2-1-1024x530.png)
©Ceren Saner
It touches on, for example, how parents send their eight week old child to Shanghai with its grandmother so they can work in Germany. Because there is no time to take care of a child. Or a teenager who stands in front of a mirror kneading its face in the hopes of achieving a smaller nose and larger eyes. Inky Lee’s performers, who are the source of some of these stories, are on stage for the first time and only for this piece. Bound by a neon yellow rope, they move towards one another in shifting constellations. Connections are made, stretched to their limits, and cut off. Groups arise and peter out. For long stretches of the piece, I find it hard to connect what they are doing with what I am hearing. But then there are also those moments during which the precarious constellations of bodies, like a family constellation, correlate with the narratives blaring over the loudspeaker or enter into a productive, inharmonious relationship. Moments which I would have liked to see more of.
Sometimes the voices from the tape falter and burst into tears. One of the two Deaf performers, who are able to express with their faces and expressive gestures that which cannot be put into words, catches my attention. It now becomes clear to me that the archive of experiences of queer people from the Asian diaspora goes far beyond what can be shared today. To that end, Floating Roots is perhaps not a conclusion, but rather the beginning of a process.
English translation by Melissa Maldonado
Floating Roots by Inky Lee was performed at Tanzfabrik Berlin from 9 to 12 May 2024.
She Just Wants to Play
Continue reading “She Just Wants to Play”Yuki-Onna – the Snow Woman by Isabelle Schad and Aya Toraiwa invites everyone five years of age and older to leave the spring sunshine behind and dive into the snowy landscapes of Japanese lore. The dance piece premiered on 28 April 2024 in Tanzhalle Wiesenburg and was then performed at Theater o.N. from 3 – 5 May 2024.
Rise of the Spoons Against the System. OR: Kudos! Here’s How Intersectional Inclusion Can Work in Theater
The stand-up comedy Baby I’m Sick Tonight will make you laugh and cry. Ahead of the premiere (April 25, 2024, Sophiensaele), I spoke with the choreographer Olivia Hyunsin Kim about chronic illness and the shortcomings when it comes to dealing with it.Continue reading “Rise of the Spoons Against the System. OR: Kudos! Here’s How Intersectional Inclusion Can Work in Theater”
Unexpected Encounters
The double bill A/way Home / Saudade de ti premieres on 21 April 2024 at DOCK 11. Two duets by Carlos Aller in collaboration with Cecilia Bartolino explore origins and social interaction.Continue reading “Unexpected Encounters”
For the Record
The Most Beautiful Name of Fear, by Sofia Ó, was performed at Acker Stadt Palast on 12 and 13 April 2024. A gutsy solo, it hinges primarily on the charm of its performer.Continue reading “For the Record”
Are You Lost?
Chaos Kompass, an ensemble-created production featuring 11 performers aged 16 to 27 under the artistic direction of Bahar Meriç, premiered in April 2024 at Theater an der Parkaue, with two additional shows scheduled in June 2024.Continue reading “Are You Lost?”
The Brutalism of the Heart
CARDIAC: The Heart is a Muscle runs from 29 to 31 March 2024 at UFER_STUDIOS Berlin. Katrina E. Bastian challenges the commercialization of love and the fetishization of effort in relation to one’s own body.Continue reading “The Brutalism of the Heart”
“I gave Birth to a Hawk”. Or: On Neverending Labor Pains
Continue reading ““I gave Birth to a Hawk”. Or: On Neverending Labor Pains”With New Report On Giving Birth (6 + 7 March 2024, HAU Hebbel am Ufer (HAU2)), Chinese choreographer and dancer Wen Hui builds on her piece Report On Giving Birth presented 20 years ago. Together with three dancers, she takes stock: what has changed for childbearing bodies since then? What has not?
Simmering Passion Under Control
Shiraz, choreographed by Armin Hokmi, is a work inspired by the Shiraz Arts Festival, which took place yearly between 1967 and 1977 in Iran. The performance premiered at Heizhaus, Tanzfabrik Berlin from 29 February to 2 March 2024.Continue reading “Simmering Passion Under Control”
The Draw of Elsewhere or A Space of Contrasts
The Fold performance series (Tanzfabrik) presents ElseWhere Rhapsody from 29 February to 3 March 2024 at Uferstudios. Performance maker Jen Rosenblit takes the audience on an eclectic exploratory journey of queer desire. A collage somewhere between tender intimacy and sensory overload spectacle emerges through poetry, song, eroticism, line dancing, and utopia.Continue reading “The Draw of Elsewhere or A Space of Contrasts”
Re: Revolution
REMACHINE by Jefta van Dinther, showing at HAU Hebbel am Ufer/HAU1 from 29 February to 3 March 2024, fights to stake a claim for the mystical and the poetic within the grindingly mechanical.Continue reading “Re: Revolution”
tanzschreiber@TPD24
From February 21 to 25, the 16th edition of Tanzplattform Deutschland presented ten particularly noteworthy dance and performance productions from Germany. Accompanying panels and discursive formats highlighted and discussed different perspectives of dance makers from Germany and around the world.Continue reading “tanzschreiber@TPD24”
Accidental pleasures
Kathleen Heil (dance journalist) and Rachel Oidtmann (author / dancer) write alternately in their native languages English and German about the Tanzplattform Deutschland 2024.Continue reading “Accidental pleasures”
missed+connections
Kathleen Heil (dance journalist) and Rachel Oidtmann (author / dancer) write alternately in their native languages English and German about the Tanzplattform Deutschland 2024.Continue reading “missed+connections”
Repair?
Kathleen Heil (dance journalist) and Rachel Oidtmann (author / dancer) write alternately in their native languages English and German about the Tanzplattform Deutschland 2024.Continue reading “Repair?”
Dancing in the dark times
Kathleen Heil (dance journalist) and Rachel Oidtmann (author / dancer) write alternately in their native languages English and German about the Tanzplattform Deutschland 2024.Continue reading “Dancing in the dark times”
Beyond the joy of the evident
Staatsballett Berlin performs three groundbreaking works by William Forsythe, who remounted them with the company’s dancers. The evening offers a lively encounter with ballet as a process to decipher by dancers and audience alike. Premiering at Deutsche Oper on 16 February 2024, it also shows between 19–23 February, 4–14 March, and 1–9 April.
Continue reading “Beyond the joy of the evident”
dO yOu knOw the wOrld Of O?
O (die shOw), choreographed and performed by Jan Kress, Jan Rozman and Julia Keren Turbahn, is a dance performance for both Deaf and hearing audiences from age six and up. It premiered at FELD Theater für junges Publikum on 14 February 2024 with further performances until 18 February.
Continue reading “dO yOu knOw the wOrld Of O?”
Can I come?
BETWEEN SPACES – BETWEEN FACES by choreographer Nikoleta Koutitsa in collaboration with LUNA PARK is showing from 8 to 11 February at UFER_STUDIOS. Unknown spaces are explored and the familiar reinvented.
Continue reading “Can I come? “
Ground Control
Continue reading “Ground Control”Melanie Jame Wolf’s performance More Ballads of Outlaw Feelings on 3 February 2024, as part of her expansive exhibition The Creep at E-WERK Luckenwalde from 21 October 2023 – 10 February 2024, offers a vivid characterisation of the way power patterns become, seemingly, inevitable.
Between two stools
The PURPLE – International Dance Festival for Young Audiences (20th – 28th January) opened on Saturday, 20th January, 2024 with Chotto Desh, a moving solo about the biography of dancer and choreographer Akram Khan.
Continue reading “Between two stools”
Eating Feelings Like Apples
Continue reading “Eating Feelings Like Apples”URUBUS, by and with Aloísio Avaz, Anete Colacioppo, Daniel Brunet, Vinicius Giusti & MXM (Mirella Brandi X Muep Etmo), premiered at Acker Stadt Palast from 19 – 21 January 2024. The performance was a stage adaptation of the book with the same title by Carla Bessa, a Brazilian writer based in Berlin.
blue is something of an ecstatic accident produced by void and fire
Continue reading “blue is something of an ecstatic accident produced by void and fire”This resting, patience by Ewa Dziarnowska, presented from 3-6 pm on 13 and 14 January at Sophiensæle in the frame of Tanztage Berlin 2024, is an emotional passage of bodily tension rising, rupturing, releasing and regenerating through cycles of feeling as dancing.
Utopia or Dystopia?
Project INTUS by choreographer Hoyoung Im plays at UFER_STUDIOS from the 12th to 14th January, 2024 and tells a story of progress, global crises and looking inwards.
Continue reading “Utopia or Dystopia?”
Boy, say something!
In Solo for Boy, which premiered at Dock11 on 11.1.2024, choreographer Sasha Amaya in dialogue with dancer Félix Deepen, works her way through Western representations of male beauty in art, fashion and pop culture.
Continue reading “Boy, say something!”
Something other than your face
Continue reading “Something other than your face”Nasheeka Nedsreal opens the 33rd edition of Tanztage on the 5th January, 2024 with the dance performance NuReal Dust (5th – 20th January, 2024).
The Body-Archive and War
Every Minute Motherland by the Maciej Kuźmiński Company plays on December 19 and 20, 2023 in DOCK 11 and tells of bodies as witnesses of war, trauma and normality.
Continue reading “The Body-Archive and War”
Every Minute Motherland by the Maciej Kuźmiński Company plays on December 19 and 20, 2023 in DOCK 11 and tells of bodies as witnesses of war, trauma and normality.
Continue reading “The Body-Archive and War”
Becoming Joy
Continue reading “Becoming Joy”WERDEN by Magda Korsinsky, which premiered at Ballhaus Naunynstrasse from 15 to 19 December 2023, searches for joy in Black FLINTA* community.
Side by side, against each other, with each other, in each other
Continue reading “Side by side, against each other, with each other, in each other”The Staatsballet Berlin’s evening of ballet, 2 Chapters Love presented two world premieres at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden on December 9, 2023: Stars Like Moths by choreographer Sol León and Sharon Eyal’s eponymous work 2 Chapters Love.
Only Guests on Earth
The interdisciplinary evening Terrestrial Transit asks how we can embrace the earthly and finite transition of being as a way of life. With five performances at DOCK11 until December 9, 2023, the company Cranky Bodies concludes a nomadic project that began in Berlin and led via Brandenburg and the border town of Szczecin to the Baltic Sea.
Continue reading “Only Guests on Earth”
Siblings of the Earth
Continue reading “Siblings of the Earth”HEKATOMBE III by Martha Hincapié Charry, which premiered at Radialsystem on 2 and 3 December 2023, shares valuable wisdom of the Wixarika and the Kággaba Communities.
Loose Trade
Continue reading “Loose Trade”MIKE (2023) by Dana Michel, presented across three afternoons from 1 to 3 December 2023 by the Berliner Festspiele at Martin-Gropius-Bau, creates a sensitive, tolerant and humorous space for contemplations and questions about how bodies are put to work.
Dangerous Bodies
Continue reading “Dangerous Bodies”Dangereuses by choreographer Julia B. Laperrière runs in Ballhaus Ost from 30 November until 3 December 2023 and conjures up the dangerous female entity in all its facets.
Home Match of Monstrosities
Continue reading “Home Match of Monstrosities”The series Fold (Tanzfabrik) ends the year with works concerned with ghosts and demons. In The Multiplicity of the Other shown from the 30.11 until 2.12.2023, Ixchel Mendoza Hernández dwells on the Other as a ghostly presence in one’s own body.
A Many-Headed Tale
Continue reading “A Many-Headed Tale”Soldier M.I.A., by Ming Poon, picks apart the classic legend of Hua Mulan, before attempting to reassemble it for (and with) its modern audience. The work had its premiere on 23 November 2023 at the English Theatre Berlin.
Light may not always possess or produce heat
Continue reading “Light may not always possess or produce heat”“Moving in Concert” by choreographer Mette Ingvartsen premiered in Germany with the opening evening of the Potsdamer Tanztage 2023. The performance that is read here as a formal study of the interaction of light and movement inspires a short choreography handbook.
Street Fabrik
Continue reading “Street Fabrik”After years of supposed development and support, ‘environmental stage’ is still an emerging category. Choreographed by Ini Dill, Street Fabrik was viewed at Haus der Statistik on 28 May 2023.
Part of the Breathing Landscape of the Bog
Continue reading “Part of the Breathing Landscape of the Bog”Mossbelly, which can be seen until 28 May 2023 at HAU2, is the culmination of Angela Schubot’s many years of exploration with moss and the trituration of plant material. A connection with her grandfather, whom she never met, emerged out of this project and prompted her to change her artist name to Angela Vitovec.
Dance Loves Music
Continue reading “Dance Loves Music”Following MOVE OUT LOUD (2021), choreographer Modjgan Hashemian returns to work with the ensemble of Theater Thikwa, which consists of disabled and non-disabled artists: Dance Loves Music Loves Dance is an interactive quiz-dance show that brings Thikwa dancers together with guest dancers. The work premiered on 17 May 17 2023 in Theater Thikwa and can be seen there again at the beginning of July 2023.
Against the Grain
Continue reading “Against the Grain”Against the Grain is a night of short dance works that champions diversity and, as organiser Manuel Meza states in the introduction to the evening, aims to “open doors” for those otherwise excluded from dance because of gender, race, ableism, body characteristics or other exclusionary factor, presented on 20 May 2023 at Theaterforum Kreuzberg.
On the colonizer’s continent
Continue reading “On the colonizer’s continent”In Pumpitopera Transatlantica created and performed by Mexa and showing at HAU2 on 19 and 20 May 2023 as the initial stop of the collective’s first international tour, absences and gaps in understanding are not mistakes. They are the lifeblood of a performance that rewrites the future without losing sight of the material reality of past and present.
The Nutritious Paradigm of Instant Noodle Soup
Continue reading “The Nutritious Paradigm of Instant Noodle Soup”The ensemble piece “Yum Yum” by Haus Sommer, led by choreographer and dancer Dasniya Sommer, playing from 12-14 May 2023 in Ballhaus Ost, confounds the supposedly unrelated while unraveling the possibilities of artificiality.
Dialogues of Visible Frequencies
Continue reading “Dialogues of Visible Frequencies”In “Foreland – Bach and Britten”, a supplementary program to soundance festival berlin, choreographer and dancer Nitsan Margaliot and cellist Isaac Lottman embody two suites from composers Johann Sebastian Bach and Benjamin Britten. The German premiere took place on 23 May 2023 in the St. Matthew Church.
Through the Bodies
Continue reading “Through the Bodies”A.PART Festival 2023 … macht Radau, taking place at ada Studio from 5-7 and 12-14 May, presents works by Berlin’s dance students and alumni. Each weekend introduces works of a different group of artists. Inky attends the opening night, which consists of five performances and a feedback circle.
When the Machine Learns to Dance: From Data to Movement
Continue reading “When the Machine Learns to Dance: From Data to Movement”In “K L O F. cyberographies of folk,” choreographer Irina Demina uses artificial intelligence to develop a new kind of folk dance: an attempt to reflect contemporary digitalized everyday life. The remount runs at DOCK 11 until 7 May 2023.
Reflections of the Omitted
Continue reading “Reflections of the Omitted”Dancer and choreographer Caroline Alves, also known as a member of the dance company Grupo Oito, presents the piece “Transatlantica” from 4 – 6 May 2023 at English Theatre Berlin: an autobiographical dance solo in which she probes the gaps in the colonial historical record via the story of her great-great-grandmother.
Order and Chaos
Continue reading “Order and Chaos”Following a digital version in 2021, the live premiere of “safe&sound” by choreographer Lee Méir took place from 27 until 30 April 2023 in Radialsystem. The piece deals with linear and cyclical forms of time and with rhythm as a social and political instrument.