Overview of Texts

Constanza Macras and the team of DorkyPark have created a funny beast in “DRAMA” – a smorgasbord of performance styles within an absurd satire, premiering at Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz on 19 January 2023.

The 7th edition of PURPLE – International Dance Festival for Young Audiences includes the world premiere of “In Future I am a Comet” by Yotam Peled at Theater Strahl for spectators age 13 and older.

TANZTAGE BERLIN 2023 >>> Artist Slina da Soledade aka Slim Soledad and her guests premiered their new work on 14 January 2023 at the Sophiensæle. Two texts by Diana Schümann and Elina Pantsyr

TANZTAGE BERLIN 2023 >>> Is there no way out in choreographer/performer Kévin Bonono’s “A Sensation of a Truth”, played over 13 and 14 January 2023 at Sophiensæle?

TANZTAGE BERLIN 2023 >>> In “Matria – Motherland” by Rocío Marano and “To be a fish in a Raki bottle” by Elvan Tekin, two choreographers rotate staunchly around concepts of masculinity, identity, and political engagement. Text: Anna Chwialkowska

TANZTAGE BERLIN 2023 >>> In “Matria – Motherland” by Rocío Marano and “To be a fish in a Raki bottle” by Elvan Tekin at Sophiensæle, two choreographers negotiated geopolitical references in different ways. Text: Vera Knolle

TANZTAGE BERLIN 2023 >>> “Pariyestan: Tails of Sisters, 青蛇+白蛇: 緣起” by Parisa Madani invites the viewers into the world of dreams and fantasies. This “durational collective dream meditation” took place at Sophiensæle from 10 p.m. on 7 January to around 5 a.m. on 8 January 2023 in the frame of Tanztage Berlin.

TANZTAGE BERLIN 2023 >>> Marga Alfeirão and collaborators’ premiere “Lounge”, the second performance on opening night of Tanztage Berlin at Sophiensæle on 5 January 2023, blurs the lines between self and other in an erotic exploration of resting.

TANZTAGE BERLIN 2023 >>> In Xenia Koghilaki’s “Bang Bang Bodies”, the opening performance (5 & 6 January 2023) of Tanztage Berlin at Sophiensæle, a force builds slowly and insistently, pulling the audience into the performers’ orbit.

All reviews can be read here >>> From 5 to 21 January, the 32nd edition of the Tanztage Berlin, organised annually by the Sophiensæle, brings together 10 performances by upcoming Berlin-based artists, accompanied by knowledge-sharing formats. Authors and guest authors from the Tanzbüro Berlin’s online review portal tanzschreiber are reviewing the 10 pieces selected for […]

Parvathi Ramanathan writes a letter to a girl on the tram after watching “Her Noise” by the Company Christoph Winkler which premiered on 29 December 2022 at Radialsystem. 

In “AWAL / BEGINNING” created by choreographer Ruben Reniers and collaborators at the Rumah Budaya Indonesia Berlin, an explosion of performative pedagogy blends traditional and contemporary choreography in a phantasmagoric performance event taking place over three days from 16 to 18 December 2022.

TANZTAGE BERLIN 2023 >>> On 10 & 11 December 2022 at Flutgraben, “Bicho Raro”, a video and performance work by dancer and choreographer Danilo Andrés, examined the strange world of bodybuilding. Another version of the piece will be shown under the same title during the Tanztage Berlin festival in January 2023.

A certain ‘sliding doors’ approach to interpersonal relationships and the realities they create marks Sita Ostheimer Company’s premiere “The Inevitable and You”, playing at DOCK 11 from 8 to 11 December 2022.

Tomi Paasonen’s “Pas de Q”, which takes place from 1-4 December 2022 at Sophiensæle, is a radical performance of community that gives the impression that drag and classical ballet have always been meant for one other.

Actually… what is taxation? “Die Steuer-Erklärung” by hannsjana premiered on 22 November 2022 at Sophiensæle, and took a languid look at the absurdities of the tax system, with curious results.

Cia Vero Cendoya’s “Bogumer (or Children of Lunacharski)” was shown at HAU1 on 17 November 2022, as part of the NO LIMITS – Disability & Performing Arts Festival Berlin. It asks the question: once the boss has been fired (literally), who is left running the show?

What happens when we peer into the violent void? Based on extensive artistic research, Min Yoon‘s “Dancing with Violence” shown at Hošek Contemporary on 12 November 2022 invites us to “evolve the perpetrator and victim archetypes” and glimpse at the atrocities around us.

“No Gambling” a performance by Simone Aughterlony and Julia Häusermann, was shown at HAU2 as part of the NO LIMITS – Disability and Performing Arts Festival Berlin (9-19 November 2022). Through an assemblage of moving installations, the performance explores ideas around hope, desire, and addiction.

In Sergiu Matis’ “UNREST”, shown from 02 – 05 November 2022 as part of the FEMINIST FUTURES FESTIVAL from Tanzfabrik Berlin, ancient myths resonate through a cavernous industrial space, and are taken up as a material to question both the nature and the future of humanity. 

A part of Ballhaus Naunynstraße’s PORTRAIT series, “Pepe Dayaw: a portrait performance”offers the performer’s unique set of skills and performance research as a means to dissect contemporary performative paraphernalia.

Ligia Lewis poses questions about destructing pre-existing plots and reconstructing new ones in “A Plot / A Scandal”, which premiered on 20 October 2022 at HAU Hebbel am Ufer.

Clébio Oliveira and Zula Lemes’ new solo “DARK RED,” playing 20-23 October 2022 at Acker Stadt Palast, exposes the many emotional shades of the post-pandemic body, shaped by loss.

Christina Ciupke and Darko Dragičević’s “Take me somewhere nice” offers a deep spatial contemplation of travel – transforming Uferstudio 5 into a dark portal, filled with conceptual water, for the 13 October 2022 premiere as part of Tanzfabrik Berlin’s Fold – New Works.

Looking for ways out of dense and individualized webs of discrimination, the dance performance “Labyrinth” with choreography by Ricardo de Paula and featuring dancers from the Grupo Oito celebrated its premiere at HAU2 on 14 October 2022.

Choreographer Johanna Ackva presented the restaging of “CLOUDS ON CLEAR SKY,” the result of an ongoing engagement with death and dying, at the interdisciplinary venue Vierte Welt at Kottbusser Tor from 6 to 9 October 2022. This fourth and final part of the solo series was created in collaboration with dancer Akemi Nagao.

PURPLE DANCE FESTIVAL 14-22 JANUARY 2023 >>> What happens when tomorrow becomes yesterday? In “Über Überüberübermorgen” (About the day after the day after the day after tomorrow), a science fiction journey through time that premiered on 6 October 2022 at FELD Theater für junges Publikum, Cécile Bally and Cathy Walsh investigate the future — with […]

Barbara Berti’s “Zone of Acceptance” premiered at Uferstudios from 25 – 28 August 2022. Dance collective Mapped to the Closest Address first showed “Turn off the house lights” at Cordillera Raum für Körper und Utopien on 4 March and 21 May, and a new version from 18 August – 11 September in Japan as part […]

Calling from a cab on the way to the airport, the Los Angles-come-Berlin-based choreographer Adam Linder talks to Liza Weber about his new work “Loyalty” and renovating in the ruins of ballet. Shown at the Tanz Im August festival from the 25 to 26 August 2022, “Loyalty” was performed in three acts just like any […]

“Cyclops”, conceptualized and directed by Zé de Paiva, shows us incomplete abundant fleeting images through his viewfinder. We see images of ourselves and those of de Paiva and co-performer Nasheeka Nedsreal in their avatars as cyborg-ed Cyclops. Images direct and challenge the narrative in this performance that was shown at Ballhaus Naunynstraße.  

Watching the premiere of Florentina Holzinger’s “Ophelia’s Got Talent”, I was reminded of an essay I once wrote that, using Ophelia in Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’ as an example, argued how women were drawn in fainter lines than their male counterparts. Nowhere is this further from the truth than in Holzinger’s show, which takes a fat marker […]

Anajara Amarante’s “Butching Cowboys” played at Sophiensæle as part of the Queering the Crip, Cripping the Queer Festival from 15 – 17 September 2022. Part of the festival’s larger creation of an intersectional queer-crip space, the performance modeled care for everyone in the room.

In “Die Hörposaune”, Werner Hirsch (alias Antonia Baehr) and Jule Flierl drive audiences into a sonic exploration of bodies, objects, and textures. Without saying a single word in a recognisable language, they communicate a scholastic enterprise that is both serious and humorous at the same time. The performance premiered at the 1929-built silent-cinema theatre, Theater im Delphi in Berlin-Weißensee.

On the 11 September 2022, two contemporary dancers and a cellist came together in a collaboration called “Consolation”, which was performed at Dock 11 as part of the international festival for contemporary dance and music, soundance berlin 2022.

Running from 27 August to 1 September 2022 at Berliner Ringtheater, “after aftershock shock” by Jingyun Li and Saori Hala is a multimedia dance performance that explores what it means to shake, but not necessarily be shaken.   

“No. 60”, choreographed by Pichet Klunchun, sensually and systematically moves the edges of Thai Khon dance. By unpacking the traditional form and tapping into instincts from the head, heart, and gut, it democratises it and sets it free for new creative impulses. The work was shown at HAU2 as part of Tanz Im August 2022. 

Shown at Tanz Im August 2022, “Vástádus eana – The answer is land” by Elle Sofe Sara powerfully embellishes on the primacy of community and coexistence with nature through the body, voice, and certainly, through a more sustainable way of being.

Marrugeku’s “Jurrungu Ngan-ga / Straight Talk” played at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele from 5 – 7 August 2022 as part of Tanz im August. Choreographed by Dalisa Pigram with direction and dramaturgy by Rachael Swain, it staged a ‘prison of the mind’ that was a call not to pity people suffering far away, but […]

I sit here with my finger poised on the keyboard, wondering how to begin writing about “H_SPACE_H” by Isabel Lewis and Sissel Tolaas with Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop and Ethan Braun. When words fail to come forth, I bury my face in the denim jeans I had worn the day of this durational performance (30 July 2022) […]

Susanne Kennedy and Markus Selg’s “Einstein on the Beach” (30 June – 3 July 2022 at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele) reworks the minimalist opera classic for a maximalist era, playing with relativity, simultaneity, and how to feel time differently in an endless present.

Set up by Galerie Wedding – Raum für Zeitgenössische Kunst, as part of Movement Research ACROSS, the “Flexible Colour Circle”, an inhabitable outdoor stage, offered a space for performances and encounters over two extended weekends in June. “Dabke Community Dancing” by Medhat Aldaabal and Adel Sabawi, presented by Sasha Waltz & Guests and Berlin Mondiale, was part of the curation […]

On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of opening their Kreuzberg studio, laborgras (Renate Graziadei and Arthur Stäldi) showed “Er… Sie… und andere Geschichten” from 2 – 6 June 2022. In conversation, laborgras shared both a deeper insight into this work and a longer view of their decades as a collective.

People of all genders are equal. Everyone is equal. EQUAL! EEEEEKWALLLL! Isn’t it clear by now? “EQUALITY!”, a duet by Compagnie Lindh & Weingartner is made for young audiences and brings to the stage the age-old discussion on equal-ness among genders. Presented at the opening of PURPLE – 6. Internationales Tanzfestival für junges Publikum at […]

The lush green grass of Berlin’s Körnerpark gives their two bits on the performance “Embodying Landscapes” that took place at the park as part of the Performing Arts Festival Berlin on 25 May 2022.

Hermann Heisig’s “happy sisyphos” is a playful examination of the ancient Sisyphean myth for a young audience in which the seeming pointlessness of repetition collectively dissolves into thin air.

Following two years of pandemic-induced runarounds in the digital sphere, the A.PART Festival is returning to ada Studio and providing a stage for the young Berlin dance scene. On 6/7 and 13/14 May 2022, contemporary choreography by dance students and alumni were performed under the title “ONSTAGEPLEASE!”.

In “Re:INCARNATION”, The QDance Company from Lagos, Nigeria, celebrated their German premiere on 14 May at Potsdamer Tanztage 2022 with a joy so infectious that the audience couldn’t help but giggle, applaud, and, when the dancers returned for an encore, answer their call, “Oggy, oggy, oggy?” with “Oi, oi, oi!”. It was as if the Hans Otto […]

“ROOOM #2” is the second of a four-part series conceived by Mirjam Sögner and could be visited 7 May 2022 at Heizhaus, Uferstudios Berlin. Created by Sögner in collaboration with Fernando Belfiore, “ROOOM #2” was a performance without performers in which, for me, meditations on the weight of experience floated to the surface.

In “M.O.S.T”, an acronym for “My Ongoing Silent Transcendence”, which ran from the 15 to 30 April 2022 at the Pfefferberg Theater Berlin, dance company Chaim Gebber-Open Scene plots a timeline of events that chart, in the company’s own words, “universal and personal transformations.” As the choreography suggests, such transformations are not always linear, but […]

At the Sophiensæle, Saša Asentić, together with Diana Anselmo, Scarlet Yu, and Alexandre Achour, render the score from Le sacre du printemps in the language of movement while simultaneously criticizing the ableist and classist structures that persist in societies.

TANZPLATTFORM 2022 >>> In “Overtongue”, Michelle Moura carries her audience off into the polymorphic world of ventriloquism and dissociates the perceptions of sounds and physicality. The performances from 23 to 27 April at the Sophiensæle will take place as a follow-up to Tanztage Berlin 2022.

“We Are Going to Mars: A Choreographic Concert” by Company Christoph Winkler, playing from 7 to 10 April 2022 at Sophiensæle, is a kaleidoscope of music, movement, and image that locates the final frontier within its audience as well as beyond the reaches of the Earth’s atmosphere.

Team Volume & guests present a re-mix of dreams about freedom and love in “Degrees of Freedom”, which premiered at DOCK 11 from 7 to 10 April 2022.

In an interview with Jana Lüthje, curator of the participatory dance project Moving the Forum at the Humboldt Forum, the question of if, and how, the institution was implementing change proved inevitable and, ultimately, inconclusive. The third of its four chapters called “Inhabiting” ran from 14 Feb to 26 March 2022, with the final chapter, […]

TANZPLATTFORM 2022 >>> In “Telling Stories – a version for three” by Fabrice Mazliah / Work of Act, playing 17 – 19 March at Radialsystem, as part of Tanzplattform 2022, three dancers play with invisible objects that their imaginations, joined with those of the audience, make real.

TANZPLATTFORM 2022 >>> Choy Ka Fai entangles ballroom and Shamanism, bodies and technology in “Yishun is Burning“ (HAU2, 16./17. March 2022). This text was written as part of a two-day tanzschreiber writing workshop during Tanzplattform 2022 and under the direction of Mareike Theile, Johanna Withelm, and Alex Hennig. Inspired by a passion for writing and […]

TANZPLATTFORM 2022 >>> At Radialsystem, Antje Pfundtner in Gesellschaft performed the solo “Sitzen ist eine gute Idee (“Sitting is a good idea”) on 16 and 17 March. These two texts were written as part of a two-day tanzschreiber writing workshop during Tanzplattform 2022 and under the direction of Mareike Theile, Johanna Withelm, and Alex Hennig. Inspired by a […]