Overview of Texts

In “Say My Name, Say My Name”, by Olivia Hyunsin Kim / ddanddarakim and premiering at the Sophiensaele, an immersive world of futuristic designs is created through which Kim attempts to hold a mirror up to the past. 

The event series “What the Body Remembers: Dance Heritage Today” (24th August – 21st September, 2019) hosted by the Akademie der Künste and other partners offers four weeks of performances and lectures, including an exhibition, a campus, and a publication all dedicated to the history and heritage of contemporary dance today.

In Auf meinen Schultern, premiering at Ballhaus Naunynstrasse, Raphael Hillebrand shares the story of how he navigated his brutal exclusion from society through spoken word, dance, sound, and video. 

In this review Beatrix Joyce is talking to David Pallant about the piece “Happy Island” by La Ribot.

Alex Hennig inquires Beatrix Joyce about her impressions of Nora Chipaumire´s intense three-hour performance “PUNK 100% POP *N!GGA” at Sophiensæle.

The tanzschreiber authors Beatrix Joyce and David Pallant analyze the emotional piece “Liebestod” by deufert&plischke in this chat review.

In her new solo “Velvet”, with music by Tian Rotteveel, Claire Vivianne Sobottke shape shifts from woman into animal. Immersed in a set composed of soil, plants and self-playing drums, she uncovers the primal forces of female sexuality.

In this Tanz im August Review David and Alex talk about the simplicity in the complexity in Deborah Hay’s piece “ten” at Radialsystem.

Alex Hennig and David Pallant talk about the unique relationship to time in Kaori Seki’s piece “WO CO” at HAU2.

In their newest chat review the tanzschreiber authors write about the symbolic and political aspects in “White Dog” by Latifa Laâbissi.

In this chat review the tanzschreiber authors David and Beatrix talk about the intense performance “Hard to be Soft” by Oona Doherty.

The wonderful moves the memory more than the ordinary. This sentence, originally the title of the piece “The Wonderful and the Ordinary”, moved choreographer Gunilla Heilborn to create a trilogy on the wonders, and burdens, of memory.

In their first review the tanzschreiber authors Beatrix Joyce and Alexandra Hennig chat about Nicola Gunn´s performance. A report about humour, ducks and throwing stones.

A confrontation with a man cruelly throwing stones at a duck was the catalyst for Nicola Gunn’s solo work “Piece for Person and Ghetto Blaster”. That encounter — and the misunderstandings inherent in it — inspired a piece in which communication, and miscommunication, take centre stage.

I meet deufert&plischke in their shared apartment. Not by chance is there a framed tarantula on the wall: Arachne, mythological figure of weaving and heroine of story-telling. In “Liebestod” love stories are woven into music and dance. 

Nora Chipaumire returns to Tanz im August with her latest work, “#PUNK 100% POP *N!GGA”. Provocative, joyful, and challenging, this three-part live performance album is demanding for performers and audience alike.

The Staatsballett Berlin dances John Cranko’s “Romeo and Juliet”, a layer cake of virtuosic duos, festive dances, and group chaos.

Entering K77 Studio for the “AMALGAM SoloFest”, as part of PAF festival, is like stepping into a whirlwind. Bodies are scattered across the space, some sitting, others standing, some group together facing in the same direction, others split off independently to tend to organisational matters. With no clear stage area, the audience has no choice other […]

Radialsystem recalls Ginevra Panzetti and Enrico Ticconi’s “HARKLEKING” to Berlin as part of their series New Empathies.

Zwoisy Mears-Clarke presents a moving and thoughtfully crafted work “Worn & Felt” at the Sophiensaele’s Hochzeitsaal.

Choreographer Yasmeen Godder and collaborative partner Tomer Damsky return to the Potsdamer Tanztage with their work of political and sonic force, “Demonstrate Restraint”.

From brooms, buckets, and boxes to chairs that snap like scissors of their own accord, Clément Layes creates choreographies with everyday objects. The on-stage element of his latest research, “The Emergency Artist” (2018), is set against the backdrop of a large, wooden angle, bent at ninety degrees. Half-way through the piece, the structure is turned […]

“Das TriadischeBallett” is a Bauhaus classic. Oskar Schlemmer’s sculptural costumes and mechanical choreography – based on the influential school’s modernist principles of uniting colour and form – are set to a squealing, post-war composition by Hans-Joachim Hespos. The Potsdamer Tanztage celebrated one hundred years of Bauhaus with a tribute to this seminal piece, enlivened by […]

Tim Etchells has ventured into almost every art form under the sun. As director of theatre collective Forced Entertainment, he has made more than 50 performance works over the past 30 years. Alongside performance, his works have included writing projects, neon sculptures, drawings, photography, video and sound works, and a novel. I was interested to […]

“Dad & Son #2 (Ribbon Dance)”, by Frédéric Gies is a dance for two male bodies, performed at DOCK 11 by Samuel Draper and Frédéric Gies, to techno producer Fiedel’s relentless beats.

“Tropical Escape” sees Csaba Molnár and Márcio K. Canabarro explore the politics of utopia, and the power of silliness.

Zé de Paiva’s “CYCLOPS” casts the camera as the eponymous beast, but is this one-eyed machine a monster or a god?

After her South-African township piece  “Chatsworth” and her choreography for Yorgos Lanthimos’ Oscar winning “The Favourite”, with “Der Palast” Constanza Macras will stage her first premiere at Volksbühne under the interim director Klaus Dörr. But her engagement with the much debated theatre started years ago… Astrid Kaminski asks the famous Berlin-based, Buenos Aires-born choreographer about […]

In the Berlin Freie Szene, multidisciplinary approaches are the new normal. It is not uncommon for dancers to train in-depth in more than one art form and bring their acquired skill-sets to the stage. Sometimes, the switch from one to the other discipline even happens within the same performance. Manon Parent is both dancer and […]

“HYPERBODIES”, by bücking&kröger, places its focus on movement, with enigmatic results.

Alexandra Bachzetsis’s “Escape Act” examines the role the body plays within the artifice of modern day visual media, recreating the most toxic of late-night YouTube binges.

Sorour Darabi’s “Savušun” and Teresa Vittucci’s “Hate Me, Tender” form a double bill to open the Queer Darlings festival at Sophiensæle, delivering timely truths laced with offbeat humour.  

Sandwiched between ascending tribunes, the stage is open and white. Large, wooden slabs are lying flat on the ground like abandoned kids’ bicycles, ready to be picked up and ridden at will. One performer, female, dressed in dark, everyday clothes, flips a chair upright and takes a seat. Three other performers are scattered across the […]

NAH DRAN, ada Studio’s long-running performance series, is a space for experimentation. The format features multiple works in progress and, in a true spirit of openness, encourages emerging artists to take the plunge and bring their ideas to the stage.

Watching Sergiu Matis and his dancers move is a bit like being hit by a double-decker bus – many  times, in just a matter of seconds. Bodies crash to the floor or glide through the air, expanding in full flow orpin-pointing the focus, razor-sharp, on a single finger. Each gesture is a statement and each […]

Dialogues around race and racism are necessarily fraught with tensions. “Unrestricted Contact” raises many difficult questions, including: ‘How do we escape the white imagination?’ – this work from Grupo Oito and choreographer Ricardo de Paula has some suggestions. 

Every January, the Berlin dance audience flocks to the Sophiensaele for Tanztage, the annual inauguration event. The ten-day festival, which has existed for over twenty five years now, kicks off the new dance year by focussing on emerging choreographers making work in Berlin.

Anjal Chande / The Soham Dance Project present “This is how I feel today”, a Bharatanatyam-rooted work charting the individual experience within its societal context.

The peacock knows how to impress. It struts along, unabashed, displaying its long, languorous feathers that sprout from its fluffy behind. Its spectators have no choice but to marvel at its divine beauty. Nature has endowed this bird with the power of seduction, strong enough to dazzle not only future mating partners but also us […]

Opening Tanztage Berlin 2019, Mirjam Gurtner’s “Skinned” places improvisation within a strictly delineated frame to create a contradictory, challenging work which belies any cohesive interpretation. Combining intuition and artifice, “Skinned” sets itself a difficult task, yet a generosity at its core entices us along for the journey.

By Sasha Amaya, Alex Hennig, Christine Matschke & Johanna Withelm The tanzschreiberinnen quartet met up for a joint glimpse back. In addition to individual dance performances, they keep coming back to writing itself. What follows is the confessions, strategies, highlights, and annoyances of the four authors.  

With “Water Will (in Melody)”, Ligia Lewis presents a different kind of pre-Christmas fairytale in HAU2. Her grim, grotesque movement theater takes the audience on a ride to a dystopian future world where women reside as freaky artifacts of a bygone era. We don’t really want that.

Christoph Winkler’s new artistic triptych “Boldly: The Julius Eastman Dance Project” animates the previously lost works of the striking American composer.

Three improvisations between musicians and dancers at the monthly Common Ground series provide different approaches to instant composition.

With “The Emergency Artist”, Clément Layes provides space for the openness of meaning in language and action. In times of increasing political isolation, it can be interpreted as a kind of artistic protest.

Kat Válastur’s new work brings together sculpture, performance, and video to give perspective on our human experience.

The new work “A Millimeter in Light Years” by Potsdam’s own Laura Heinecke combines big questions, fog machines, and ensemble work at fabrik Potsdam.

The “Permanente Beunruhigung (Permanent Disturbance)” Festival opens on Friday evening with “Your Devices”. With it, Ballhaus Naunynstraße celebrates 10 years of post-migration theater, aesthetics, and cultural diversity, and the courage to show perspectives beyond the mainstream discourse.

With “Cassures Sublimées”, Morvarid K, Yuko Kaseki,and Sherwood Chen present a transdisciplinary hybrid of Butoh, photography,performance installation, and contemporary dance at Acker Stadt Palast.

Choreographer Milla Koistinen, lighting designer Ladislav Zajac, and composer Paul Valikoski create a subtle and powerful response to the paintings of Canadian abstractionist Agnes Martin in “On a Clear Day” at Berlin’s Uferstudios.

In “Happyology – Tears of Joy” Dragana Bulut provides the audience with (unsolicited) training in self-optimization poses

Israeli choreographer Hofesh Shechter is something of an international superstar in the world of contemporary dance. One whose pieces have been successfully touring the world for years. He is now a guest at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele with his piece “Grand Finale”.

RambaZamba Theater and choreographers Sara Lu and Rubén Nsue create a colourful, trance-like picture of the painter’s life in “Heroes – Mythos Basquiat, just for one day.”

Victoria McConnell, Joshua Tennent, and Alexander Windner Lieberman take their improvising trio to Escheschloraque’s no-rules stage.

Luxembourgish choreographer Jill Crovisier delves into the images, impulses, and connections of our imaginative mind in her work ”The Hidden Garden.”

During this year’s anniversary edition of Tanz im August there was also space for young choreographers and emerging dance talents. With “Paradise Now (1968-2018)” young Belgian choreographer Michiel Vandevelde does an exemplary job of entrenching the vision of a new, politically ambitious dancer theater for a present day young audience.

Within the framework of Tanz im August, French choreographer Noé Soulier attempts to explore the relationship between movement and thought with “The Waves” while Spanish choreographer duo Mal Pelo creates simultaneously delicate and powerful body poetry with “The Fifth Winter”.