Ukiyo-e literally means “pictures of the floating world” and refers to the famous art-genre of Japanese woodblock prints. Its origin lies in the 17th century and continues to shape the visual representation of Japan in the Western world. Traditionally, they show beautiful women, Kabuki theatre actors, urban life and landscapes. Together, we translate traditional and modern tales into “pictures of the floating time”.Information and registrationMuseumsinformation BerlinTel&nbsp;&nbsp;+49 30 247 49-888Fax +49 30 247 49-883E-mail <cms_link linktemplate="externalLink_st_domeditor_1" type="genericLink"> <templatecontent> <cms_value name="ref"> <lang id="§" set="1"> <text> museumsinformation@kulturprojekte-berlin.de </text> </lang> </cms_value> <cms_value name="text"> <lang id="§" set="1"> <text> museumsinformation@kulturprojekte-berlin.de </text> </lang> </cms_value> <cms_value name="comment"> <lang id="§" set="0"></lang> </cms_value> <cms_value name="linktemplate"> <lang id="§" set="1"> <sel> <value> externalLink_st_domeditor_1.EmailAdresse </value> </sel> </lang> </cms_value> <cms_value name="mediaref"> <lang id="§" set="0"></lang> </cms_value> <cms_value name="target"> <lang id="§" set="0"></lang> </cms_value> </templatecontent> </cms_link><cms_link linktemplate="externalLink_st_domeditor_1" type="genericLink"> <templatecontent> <cms_value name="ref"> <lang id="§" set="1"> <text> http://www.kulturprojekte-berlin.de </text> </lang> </cms_value> <cms_value name="text"> <lang id="§" set="1"> <text> www.kulturprojekte-berlin.de </text> </lang> </cms_value> <cms_value name="comment"> <lang id="§" set="0"></lang> </cms_value> <cms_value name="linktemplate"> <lang id="§" set="1"> <sel> <value> externalLink_st_domeditor_1.HotLink </value> </sel> </lang> </cms_value> <cms_value name="mediaref"> <lang id="§" set="1"></lang> </cms_value> <cms_value name="target"> <lang id="§" set="0"></lang> </cms_value> </templatecontent> </cms_link>

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Located in the centre of Berlin, the Gropius Bau is a lively place for encounters with art and each other. As an internationally renowned exhibition centre, it offers space for major exhibitions and performances by contemporary artists.

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The Practice – What Moves Artists&nbsp;is a new book series by Gropius Bau, that invites artists to showcase a practice that they pursue, that has influenced them or that has been with them for a long time. In the first volume of the series,&nbsp;On Making Less, the artist Rirkrit Tiravanija compiles various ideas and approaches to this topic.

The Practice – What Moves Artists

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For the second edition of our new event series Sp&auml;tschicht, we’re teaming up with Volksb&uuml;hne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz to present a free live programme featuring a book launch and conversation with Vaginal Davis, a screening by the Berlin-based art collective CHEAP, a DJ set by Bobby Beethoven and concerts by Dylan Kerr and Cortisa Star.

Sp&auml;tschicht x Volksb&uuml;hne

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YOKO ONO: MUSIC OF THE MIND

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Only until 19 January 2025 – we’ll be back for you in March! 🐛

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Performing Exiles is an international and interdisciplinary festival produced by the Berliner Festspiele, that seeks to make diasporic lives in the city of Berlin visible and explore the contemporary meaning of exile. A preview of the programme has already been published. &nbsp;

Performing Exiles

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Tanz im August, presented by HAU Hebbel am Ufer, is a festival of contemporary dance in Berlin. With three productions, it will once again be a guest at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele this year. The pre-sale of some programme highlights has already started.

Tanz im August

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Eight selected concert highlights of Musikfest Berlin 2025 have already been published and are on sale. These include guest performances by the world’s best symphony orchestras and choirs from the Netherlands, France, Belgium and Italy, which are rarely heard in Berlin.

Musikfest Berlin

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The international literature festival berlin, or ilb for short, is considered one of the most important literary festivals in the world. The programme for the 25th&nbsp;ilb will take place from 11 to 20&nbsp;September 2025. The Young Programme will run from 15 to 24&nbsp;September 2025. The main venue is the Haus der Berliner Festspiele, with additional locations for the Young Programme including Theater an der Parkaue and the Gelbe Villa.

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A&nbsp;Play Space for Kids

Playing, laughing, making noise, letting off steam, doing nothing – all in an exhibition venue! With BAUBAU, the artist Kerstin Br&auml;tsch designed an&nbsp;admission-free play space for kids, where more is allowed than forbidden. On the Gropius Bau’s ground floor, colourful wallpapers, structures, objects and open-ended material called “loose parts” configure flexible spaces that are shaped by children’s activities.

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A Short History from 1900 to the Present

What has been the role of play in public space, both historically and in the present? Complementing BAUBAU, our free play space for kids, Gabriela Burkhalter’s&nbsp;Playing in the City&nbsp;presentation traces the history of playgrounds since their emergence in 1900 to today. The free presentation is open to all and can be seen in two rooms next to the play space’s entrance.

Playing in the City

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BAUBAUA&nbsp;Play Space for Kids

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For more than three decades, Rirkrit Tiravanija has been expanding the possibilities of what can happen in an exhibition space. As part of his practice, the artist creates situations that offer space to eat and drink, play and rest. They encourage chance encounters, relationships and their failure – in other words: life.&nbsp;The exhibition&nbsp;DAS GL&Uuml;CK IST NICHT IMMER LUSTIG&nbsp;(Happiness is not always fun)&nbsp;presents more than 80 of the artist’s works created between 1987 and 2024.

Rirkrit Tiravanija:&nbsp;DAS GL&Uuml;CK IST NICHT IMMER LUSTIG

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With Queer Ping Pong, Jimmy Robert’s Class, Team Ping Pong, Planningtorock, Meg10 and Wa22ermann

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Located in the centre of Berlin, the Gropius Bau is a lively place to encounter art and each other. The internationally renowned institution stages large-scale exhibitions and performances by contemporary artists. Its diverse events focus on exchange and discussion, bringing together local and global perspectives.&nbsp;

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We are looking forward to welcoming you back in mid-March with the reopening of our play space, <a href="${link:{uuid:{df42e57d-a14a-4b44-a5e4-9d3e7dcab5a6},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/gropius-bau/programm/baubau}}}">BAUBAU</a> (on 22 March), and two exhibitions, <a href="${link:{uuid:{55d64239-53fe-4b12-8567-a63191c6cae4},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/gropius-bau/programm/2025/ausstellungen/vaginal-davis}}}">Vaginal Davis: Fabelhaftes Produkt</a> (from 21 March) and <a href="${link:{uuid:{9618c701-bd05-432e-b688-5943e1f7fc57},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/gropius-bau/programm/2025/ausstellungen/yoko-ono}}}">YOKO ONO: MUSIC OF THE MIND</a> (from 11 April). For details on opening hours and tickets, please visit our <a href="${link:{uuid:{62c3018b-bb40-46ce-8019-646ec5cd2e4a},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/gropius-bau/besuch/informationen}}}">Information &amp; Tickets</a> page. We look forward to seeing you soon!

See you in March!

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Becoming more accessible – with the help of Artificial Intelligence: the new AI-based app Gropius Bau Prisma allows you to translate exhibition texts into 36 languages, play them as audio, ask questions about the works on display and activate subtitles in various languages during events.

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Marking twenty years since artist, writer and performer Vaginal Davis made Berlin her home, Gropius Bau presents the first comprehensive solo exhibition of her work in Germany. In her expansive oeuvre, punk meets glamour, queer activism meets Black counter-culture and resistance meets desire.&nbsp;Vaginal Davis: Fabelhaftes Produkt&nbsp;features installations, paintings, video and film works, zines, writing, music and performances, offering an overview of Davis’ practice and artistic collaborations.

Vaginal DavisFabelhaftes Produkt

Since the 1950s, Yoko Ono has been ahead of her time, leaving her mark on visual arts, music and activism. To honour her groundbreaking work, Gropius Bau presents the comprehensive solo exhibition&nbsp;YOKO ONO: MUSIC OF THE MIND. Spanning the first floor and the atrium of Gropius Bau, the show brings together over 200 works from seven decades, revealing her radical approach to language, art and participation that continues to speak to the present moment.

YOKO ONOMUSIC OF THE MIND

Current Exhibitions

Marking twenty years since artist, writer and performer Vaginal Davis made Berlin her home, Gropius Bau presents the first comprehensive solo exhibition of her work in Germany. In her oeuvre, punk meets glamour, queer activism meets Black counter-culture and resistance meets desire.&nbsp;Fabelhaftes Produkt&nbsp;offers&nbsp;an overview of Davis’ practice and artistic collaborations.

Playing, laughing, making noise, letting off steam, doing nothing – all in an exhibition venue! With BAUBAU, the artist Kerstin Br&auml;tsch designed an&nbsp;admission-free play space for kids, where more is allowed than forbidden. On Gropius Bau’s ground floor, colourful wallpapers, structures, objects and open-ended material called “loose parts” configure flexible spaces that are shaped by children’s activities.

Currently at Gropius Bau

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<h3>The exhibition</h3>
For the first time in Germany a major retrospective is to be devoted to the world-famous Japanese artist Hokusai (1760–1849). Perhaps his best-known picture is the woodcut: “The Great Wave off Kanagawa” from the series: “Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji” (1823–29). Over 350 loans, which with few exceptions come from Japan, will be on display in the exhibition in Berlin’s Martin-Gropius-Bau. NAGATA Seiji, the leading Japanese authority on Hokusai and his work, will be curating the exhibition, which is to be seen exclusively in Berlin. Works from all periods of the artist’s career – woodcuts and drawings, illustrated books, and paintings – will be shown.
In 2000 Life Magazine ran a survey to find out who were the most significant artists in world history. Hokusai came 17th, ahead of Picasso. The exhibition – which covers the entire span of Hokusai’s creative activity, extending well over 70 years – offers convincing evidence of the genius of this great artist. In the course of his life he used over thirty pseudonyms. Today he is known to the world under just one of these names: Hokusai. His full name was Hokusai Katsushika.
Hokusai was born in Honjo, a district of Edo, in 1760. Today Honjo is part of the Sumida district in Tokyo, as Edo was renamed after the Meiji Restoration of 1868. The municipal authorities in Sumida are planning to devote a new museum to the world-renowned artist who spent most of his life in Edo. Some items of the collection intended for the museum will now be on view for a few weeks in Berlin. Many of the works have never been seen outside Japan.
<h3>Hokusai and Ukiyo-e (pictures of the transient world)</h3>
Hokusai’s father came from Uraga, near Edo. It was off the coast of Uraga that the American Commodore Perry was to appear with his “black ships” in July 1853, four years after Hokusai’s death, in order to put a forcible end to Japan’s isolation policy (sakoku) which had been in existence since 1635. Hokusai was temporarily adopted by his uncle, a mirror-maker at the court of the Shogun. At six he was able to draw. By the age of twelve he was working in one of the many libraries in Edo that lent out printed books. By the time he was eighteen he was already a master of the art of the woodcut. The multi-coloured woodcut had been practised in Japan since the 1740s and achieved a preliminary apogee in the 1790s, a process in which Hokusai played a major part. At that time there were some artists who would use up to 70 colour plates for a single woodcut print. Yet at the age of 22 years Hokusai was more inclined to be a draughtsman than a woodcut artist.
The Japanese paper manufacturers and publishers had wisely agreed on the production of only two paper formats (oban and chuban) – a rationalization measure that permitted high print runs at ever lower prices.
Bijin-ga, or pictures of beautiful women (Yoshiwara, the famous amusement district, was in Honjo-Sumida); pictures of Sumo wrestlers, or sumo-e, whose arenas were located in Honjo-Sumida; pictures of Kabuki actors, whose theatre was also in Honjo-Sumida – all those were ukiyo-e, pictures of the fleeting, transient (entertainment) world, which the woodcut artists produced in large numbers. Flying dealers sold them all over Japan. Most of their customers were middle class. The term ukiyo also means an impermanent world in the Buddhist sense, as Buddha also taught the transience of all things. But they also included illustrations of flowers and plants drawn with scientific precision, illustrations for novels – by about 1780 650 novels a year were being printed – or classical texts, such as the scenes from the life of Prince Genji, were part of the repertoire of a draughtsman and woodcut artist at that time. Hokusai himself produced over 1,000 illustrations for novels in that period.
A certain, albeit minor, European influence manifested itself about 1770 with the appearance on the Japanese market of the zograscope, an “optical diagonal machine” for viewing prints, which had been delighting the European public for some time. The Dutch imported the devices through Nagasaki, with the result that the Japanese artists learned to draw from a central perspective. Most of the scenes chosen by the artists to depict from a central perspective – views of Holland for example – were alien to the Japanese eye. The Japanese tradition of showing perspective was a different one and went back to much older painting traditions. The zograscope images, with their scenes taken from all areas of the then known world, gave the beholder the feeling of being at the centre of the action. It was a kind of global television for the 18th century. Hokusai also designed zograscope images and took an intense interest in the central perspective.
By about 1700 Edo already had 1.2 million inhabitants. It was a rich and freely spending public that Hokusai grew up among: merchants and samurai, daimyo (princes) and courtiers. Books could easily be published in print runs of 13,000 copies. From one wooden plate one could make many hundreds of proofs. Millions of the colour prints were sold. Hokusai was praised far and wide for the versatility of his style. Although he did not invent “Manga”, his woodcut “Hokusai Manga” is a household name even today and always available as a reprint. And yet it is “only” a painting manual that arose as a woodcut print in several volumes from 1814 onwards on the basis of about 4,000 drawings done by Hokusai himself. Looked at today, it seems like a portrayal of life in Japan, providing both a wealth of information and tremendous subtlety of design. It is said that Hokusai painted about 150 pictures, though not all have survived. Some – including a self-portrait – will be on view in Berlin.
Hokusai lived to be almost 90, and his productive period lasted well over 70 years. Even in old age he continued to be active. Towards the end of his life he would rather be seen as a painter than as a woodcut artist or draughtsman. In his epilogue to an 1834 edition of the work “One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji” he wrote: “Ever since I was six years old I have drawn things I saw about me. Since my 50th birthday I have published many works. Yet all the works I did before my 70th birthday were insignificant. It was only when I was 73 that I understood a little of the anatomy of animals and the life of plants. If I make the effort I shall have made further progress by the time I am 80, and at 90 I shall be able to uncover the final secrets. And when I am a hundred years old, the individual strokes and dots will come to life all on their own. May the god of longevity ensure that this conviction of mine does not remain an empty phrase.”
<h3>Hokusai’s reception in Europe</h3>
The response of 19th-century Europe to the work of Hokusai was overwhelming. The Dutch, with whom Hokusai could deal directly despite strict controls, brought colour woodcuts and paintings to Europe in his lifetime.
Hokusai is said to have painted forty pictures for Captain Bloemhoff, who headed the Dutch trading post in Deshima from 1817 to 1822. Franz von Siebold, a German doctor from Würzburg who worked for the Dutch on Deshima from 1823 to 1829, collected works by Hokusai, which are still to be found in several European collections today. As early as 1858 Siebold reproduced one of his works in his encyclopaedic book on Japan “Nippon – Archiv zur Beschreibung Japans ...”. This launched Hokusai’s triumphal progress in Europe and the United States. In 1862 the first exhibition of Japanese art was mounted in Paris. In 1893 Ernest Fenollosa (1853–1908) showed the first Hokusai retrospective in the West, in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. In 1901 over 600 works by Hokusai were displayed in Vienna’s Kunstgewerbemuseum. This was followed in 1913 by a major exhibition in Paris. The first biography to appear in Europe was published in 1880, to be followed in 1896 by a second in Paris, from the pen of Edmond de Goncourt. In the Paris of the day, which was the world capital of art, Hokusai and his fellow Japanese artists were all the rage. A dozen galleries were competing for buyers, representing some four dozen Japanese artists in Europe, including Harunobu, who was a bit older than Hokusai, Utamaro, his contemporary, Hiroshige and Kunisada, both much younger than Hokusai, to name only a few. Many European artists of that period succumbed to the influence of Hokusai’s work and collected his woodcuts: Degas, Gauguin, Yavlensky, Klimt, Marc, Macke, Manet (who painted Zola’s portrait against the background of a Japanese woodcut), Monet (who collected several hundred Japanese woodcuts), Mucha, Pissarro, Toulouse-Lautrec, Whistler, Valloton, van Gogh, and others. Samuel Bing (1838–1905), who had opened a gallery called “L’Art Nouveau” in Paris in 1895, thus giving the new style its name (although as it spread across Europe it assumed other names as well), began as a dealer in Japanese art. Between 1860 and 1920 Japanese art enjoyed a great vogue all over Europe and the United States. Hokusai, however, did not live to see the success of his art in Europe.
<h3>The historical background: The development of the city of Edo since 1600</h3>
Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu, who ruled from 1603 to 1605, succeeded in pacifying Japan after a long civil war in which Europeans participated. He established his seat of government in Edo, now Tokyo, far from the ancient city of Kyoto, where the Japanese emperor resided in relative impotence. One could call the system of rule instigated by the Tokugawa clan a military dictatorship, with the Shogun as field marshal. The Shogun, influenced by a strict interpretation of Confucianism, had instituted a rigid social hierarchy: at the apex was the military caste of samurai swordsmen. Then came the peasants and craftsmen, and at the bottom of the social pyramid were the merchants. The latter, however, were not prevented from getting very rich. This enabled them later, in view of the government’s chronic shortage of cash, to buy the right to bear swords. In 1639 the Portuguese and Spaniards, as representatives of the European Catholic powers, were expelled by Tokugawa Iemitsu from the country they had first reached some 90 years earlier. Japan did not want to share the fate of the Spanish colony known as the “Philippines”. Only the Dutch Protestants, who had been active in Japan since 1600 and had much to report about the European Catholic powers, were allowed to maintain a trading post on the little island of Deshima in Nagasaki harbour, 1,300 kilometres away from Edo. For the Japanese Deshima was a window on Europe. Every four years the head of the Dutch trading post had to make the journey to Edo and report to the Shogun on current developments in Europe, particularly in the scientific field. On a neighbouring island the Japanese had set up a second “window”, where Chinese merchants could settle and engage in commerce. Otherwise Japan was cut off from the world until 1853, and an “eternal peace” prevailed. For over 250 years, up until the Meiji Restoration of 1868, the Tokugawa clan would rule the land with an iron fist.
The fact that Edo became the world’s largest city at that time was due to a precautionary measure taken by the Shogun Iemitsu around 1635. As he mistrusted the country’s princes (daimyo), of whom there were over 200, he forced them to maintain a residence in Edo. The families, especially the womenfolk and eldest sons, were compelled to live in Edo as hostages, even when their daimyo was in his home province. Every two years each daimyo had to travel to Edo, hand over expensive gifts and report to the Shogun. The costs this entailed were so great that some were soon reduced to poverty.
For Edo, however, and its urban development the system of compulsory residence acted as a great economic stimulus. Artists from all over Japan flocked to the capital to decorate the palaces, to illustrate books, to paint. As a result Edo became not only the economic, but also the artistic centre of the country.
The rank of a daimyo was measured by the amount of rice he could harvest in his province. One of the richest is said to have harvested 5 million bushels of rice. Many of the daimyo, in turn, wanted to turn their rice into cash, as paying for everything with sacks of rice was not very convenient. This gave the merchants of Edo their chance. They paid in silver coins for the rice which they stored in large warehouses on the river Sumida, where today’s Sumida district lies. And they grew very rich.
In this dockside area on the river Sumida lived the artist Hokusai, surrounded by rich rice merchants, traders and burghers, who could afford to pay for art, books and poems. In the 1790s, when Hokusai was about thirty, the literacy rate is supposed to have been about 70% for men, and about 50% for women. In 1808 Edo had 600 lending libraries. Books appeared in print runs that were large for the time. Edo was a city full of readers and connoisseurs of illustrated books, colour woodcuts and paintings. In Hokusai’s time Edo, a lively metropolis of over a million people, was a paradise for artists.

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The Berliner Festspiele organise a range of festivals and art exhibitions, concerts, dance and theatre performances, readings, lectures, debates and much more throughout the year. These events are presented at a range of locations across Berlin but are concentrated primarily at their own two venues: the Gropius Bau and the Haus der Berliner Festspiele.

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The international and interdisciplinary festival produced by the Berliner Festspiele

Performing Exiles

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37th&nbsp;International Festival Berlin

Tanz im August

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The international literature festival berlin, or ilb for short, is considered one of the most important literary festivals in the world.

25th international literature festival berlin

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You can listen to some of our events this year digitally in the Berliner Festspiele Media Library after the live concerts.&nbsp;In addition, On Demand offers from past years are available.

Musikfest Berlin in the Media Library

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The international Jazzfest Research Lab&nbsp;welcomes academics and students to take a critical look at the festival’s archive, its programmes, creators, musicians and – last but not least – its myths. In two seminars during the summer semester of 2024, students from the Berlin University of the Arts and the University of Hildesheim have explored the festival’s history from various perspectives. In this film, the participants give a first look at how they dealt with their research subject.

Introducing: Jazzfest Research Lab

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To mark its 60th anniversary, Jazzfest Berlin is celebrating the cultural diversity of the neighbouring district of Moabit in collaboration with around 35 official partners and initiatives and with over 350 participants of all ages.&nbsp;In June 2024, interviews were conducted with 20 partners who presented their perspectives, wishes and ideas for the Jazzfest Community Lab Moabit. You can get a first impression with this film.

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Curated by&nbsp;Meron Mendel and Saba-Nur Cheema&nbsp;

From 13 to 16 June 2024, the interdisciplinary themed days “Reflexes &amp; Reflections” on the Israel-Palestine conflict and its consequences for society in Germany took place at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele. You can now find video and audio recordings of the discourse events in the Berliner Festspiele Media Library!

Reflexes &amp; Reflections. 7 October, the war in Gaza and the debate in Germany

In the Media Library

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The 10 Remarkable Productions 2024

On 26 January, the Theatertreffen’s jury of critics announced their selection of 10 remarkable productions for the 2024 Theatertreffen at a press conference. Our congratulations go to the nominated production teams and all participants! The programme will be published on 5 April.

Theatertreffen 2024

“Radical Playgrounds”, an art parcours at the Gropius Bau, is spending eleven weeks exploring the differences between the concepts of play as competition and free play. Visitors are invited to walk and climb on the various installations and sculptures, to activate them and to shape the project collectively.

Summer School 2025

As part of Performing Exiles there will be a Summer School from 16 to 28&nbsp;June 2025. This will offer workshops, seminars and mentoring. The participants will see the performances and guest productions in the festival programme and visit artistic initiatives and cultural institutions in Berlin that operate across a wide range of disciplines and contexts. A public presentation of the participants’ current work and research at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele will complete the programme.

Open Call

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The massacre, hostage-taking and rocket attacks by Hamas have shaken us deeply. The grue-some attack on Israel on 7&nbsp;October left us stunned and initially lost for words.

The Berliner Festspiele on Current Events in Israel, Gaza and Germany

With this letter of intent, we, the signing cultural organizations, express our intention to welcome, host and stage Ukrainian theatre artists in our venues, to make Ukrainian dramatic work visible to the European community.

Support of the Ukrainian Cultural Scene