This year’s Tanznacht Berlin, “Vocal Affairs”, took place from 10 to 14 September 2025. The festival was curated by Mila Pavićević and Felicitas Zeeden and showcased a broad selection of formats and feminist voices.
With formats like sijelo, an invitation to come together, remember, and reimagine, this Tanznacht strives to support DIY and unfunded projects in an effort to counteract budget cuts. I had the opportunity to experience two pieces from this extensive program.
“A Short History of Queer Women”, “Kurdish Women’s Stories”, “Der Körper als Ware (The Body as Commodity)”, “Life isn’t Binary” are a few of the books I read excerpts from in the feminist library of the MONAliesA-Kollektiv. I am delighted by the little library with its comfortable setup and good selection of books.
The first performance/sijelo I see on Friday is “I Didn’t Mean To Turn You On – IDMTYO” by The Incredible, Edible Akynos. She proposes solutions for greater environmental justice within the context of sex work: clothing swaps, sex work principles like collectivity and resource sharing are presented with originality, allure, and humor. In between, a money gun, a striptease, makeup retouching à la Beyoncé, and a screen with image and video content galore. Akynos can entertain, improvise, create chaos, and convey her case for Black sex workers and environmental justice with an original and emphatic voice.
But what does sex work have to do with environmental justice? Above all, the right to safely exist in one’s own body and environment.
The spoken word intertwines with visual content. Reels featuring environmental catastrophes, pictures of Akynos with extension cords for clothing and lightbulbs shining from bodily orifices, pictures of masses of clothing items polluting the environment. Akynos talks about growing up in Jamaica and her travels to West African countries, how the people who live there deal with electricity outages and water shortages. She compares their nonchalance in crisis situations with her personal experience as a New Yorker and the privileges of her fellow (white) compatriots. After that, “let’s look at my clothes! Akynos shows us a custom-tailored outfit by a Nigerian designer, 100 percent cotton and only 40€. I feel like she’s developing her own mini-economy, not independent of global power structures, but with her own rules, more deliberate and connected to the local community.
Madonna’s Material Girl interrupts the event. While photos of billionaires, major corporations and also protests and workers play in the background, Akynos strips.
The performance script is lost, objects are flying everywhere, chaos ensues. This is not far removed from the “reality” of the outside world, which offers neither linear narratives nor simple solutions.
The next dance interlude is captivating with glitter, delicate arm movements, a lot of naked skin, beautiful poses, and seductive glances. The Incredible, Edible Akynos commands the stage and the audience with burlesque, creativity, and originality.
Shortly before the end of the performance, I scurry out to get to the next piece, “Undecidable Question” by the Croatian group CO₂…a couple of artists. The atmosphere is totally different. In a ca. 6x6m box, the audience of about 8 people sits on scattered chairs, some opposite each other, some back to back. There are projections on the walls. Small loudspeakers and microphones are hanging all over. During the first part of the piece, Goran Sergej Pristaš reads poetic excerpts of text. Thoughts, concepts, debates, political movements, construction, and destruction overlap and are distorted by the various microphones. Interrupting One’s own speech Dwell in possibility I‘m asked to sit somewhere else. Another perspective of what’s taking place, a change of position, the proximity to the other people and the changing images on the screen is still poignant. I observe an old building, train tracks, waiting people. Catastrophe in transparency Can we be blinded by transparency? I see the objects on the screen as they are being drawn, constructed, and erased. Who is we? The earth turning Against itself. Progress at the cost of destruction.
During the second part of the performance installation, I learn about the origin of Earth, lyrical, poetic, different. A voice from offstage tells of footprints in the sand, which were left behind in order to be found, followed. The performer, Nikolina Pristaš, stands with her upper body bent over, one arm outstretched in the air with a bent hand. Bent. She pushes empty pages under a chair, finds a pen, and draws her footprints, Abstract. New shapes are created and ripped apart. Moving all around us and above us. A street emerges from the sheets of paper, connecting us to one another. The microphone creates an echo. Everyone present becomes part of a new movement. Who we are is unclear and unimportant.
We create a shared path, our echo resounds on the streets, encouraging others. In the end, the spot for footprints is free and right in front of me. What mark do I want to leave behind?
English translation by Melissa Maldonado
Tanznacht Berlin 2025 took place from 10 to 14 September 2025 under the title ‘Vocal Affairs’.
