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Performing Arts Season

Key Visual Performing Arts Season 2024

A Panorama of International Dance, Theatre and Performance Productions

The full atrium of the Gropius Bau during the opening of the exhibition Ligia Lewis: I’M NOT HERE FORRRRR... The performer is seated on a pedestal in the center of the visitors.

Performance

Wayward Chant

Ligia Lewis

Performing Arts Season 2025/26

“Who am I?” is a question as old as humanity itself, and one that has been repeated – sometimes philosophically, sometimes corporeally – across the world. Despite our complex, constantly changing realities and pluralistic societies, the belief in a consistent self nevertheless still holds a certain credibility and triggers political and social debates. This intangible and often troubling notion of “identity” serves as the starting point for the Performing Arts Season 2025/26.

Cultural pluralism is not a new phenomenon; it has long existed within peoples, nations and communities. Even in prehistoric times, humans moved in search of food, water and shelter. Their migration patterns were influenced by climate, resource availability and interactions, later driven by imperialism and economic ambitions. The resulting cohabitation and collective behaviours, along with the languages, gestures and cultural heritage shared and exchanged, have continually shaped people’s identities as well as nations and communities, not seldom at a devastating cost. While this multidimensional diversity and plurality of identities has always been a part of human history, contemporary global homogenisation now poses significant challenges to traditions, local languages and cultural heritage. This, in turn, leads many regions and countries to witness the resurgence of rigid, stereotypical and essentialist concepts of identity. Against the backdrop of these developments, the Performing Arts Season 2025/26 will bring together works that interrogate binaries and singular, unrelated identities, reflecting the interconnectedness of the world and the self in its totality – what Édouard Glissant termed the “Whole-World” (Tout-monde).

Paraphrasing these conceptions of identity through the lens of the performing arts as an ephemeral phenomenon rooted in negotiation and relationships, this third Performing Arts Season edition presents a selection of dance, theatre and performance works that discard the idea of a majority-minority-society which often ascribes non-European artists to a certain minority status. The pieces created by Eun-Me Ahn, Gisèle Vienne and Étienne Bideau-Rey, William Kentridge, Akram Khan Company, Nina Laisné, François Chaignaud and Nadia Larcher, Thorsten Lensing and Ligia Lewis delve into themes such as the precarity of identity, displacement, creolisation and transnationality, highlighting the power of performance to navigate and articulate our shared yet diverse experiences.

To the programme
Performing Arts Season word mark on a blue background

Trailer, Performing Arts Season 2025/26, Design: 3pc

© Berliner Festspiele / Performing Arts Season

In the Media Library

Akram Khan, Eun-Me Ahn and Ligia Lewis offer insights into their artistic practice and discuss the creation of their latest works, which they are presenting as part of the Performing Arts Season. The interviews, along with accompanying essays that delve deeper into the themes of the invited productions, are continuously published in the Media Library.

To the Media Library
A person in a yellow jumper sits on a row of chairs and looks at another person lying on the floor.

Impressions From the Previous Years

  • Performers on stage with a backdrop in the background during the performance of "This is not a message (Made in Taiwan)"

    Dies ist keine Botschaft (Made in Taiwan), Stefan Kaegi

    © Claudia Ndebele I Dies ist keine Botschaft (Made in Taiwan)

  • Dancers in various positions at a barre

    MOMO, Batsheva Dance Company

    © Ascaf

  • Two actors with sad faces sit on the stage leaning against each other.

    Verrückt nach Trost, Thorsten Lensing

    © SF / Armin Smailovic

  • Performer stands with a basket in the audience rows

    Bark of Millions, Taylor Mac

    © Berliner Festspiele, photo: Fabian Schellhorn

  • Four dancers on a stage criss-crossed by lines and circles. One person is in a one-armed handstand position.

    Il Cimento dell’Armonia e dell’Inventione, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Radouan Mriziga / Rosas, A7LA5

    © Anne Van Aerschot

  • Two dancers in wide dresses and synchronised movement in front of a black and white projection.

    Glacial Decoy (1979), Trisha Brown Dance Company

    © Maria Baranova

  • Actors in a dystopian stage landscape look into an oversized egg.

    Der Garten der Lüste, Philippe Quesne

    © Martin Argyroglo

  • Three dancers in synchronised movement, arms at right angles

    Four New Works, Lucinda Childs

    © Berliner Festspiele, photo: Fabian Schellhorn

  • A projection of Cohen with delicately done make-up; in the front there are orante candelabrums

    Put your heart under your feet…and walk!, Steven Cohen

    © Pierre Planchenault

  • A person of Color with funky glasses and barbecue tongs, next to a vacuum cleaner

    MIKE, Dana Michel

    © Françoise Robert

  • One person in a handstand above another lying on the ground

    INK, Dimitris Papaioannou

    © Julian Mommert

  • In front of a bouldering wall, several performers are in actobatic movements

    Corps extrêmes, Rachid Ouramdane

    © Pascale Cholette

  • In a sweeping movement, one person grabs another around the stomach

    Club Amour, Café Müller, Tanztheater Wuppertal

    © Oliver Look

  • large disco balls and confetti above dancing performers dressed in striking costumes

    Aerocircus – A Play by Thomas Köck, RambaZamba

    © Phillip Zwanzig

  • Performers on stage with a backdrop in the background during the performance of "This is not a message (Made in Taiwan)"

    Dies ist keine Botschaft (Made in Taiwan), Stefan Kaegi

    © Claudia Ndebele I Dies ist keine Botschaft (Made in Taiwan)

  • Dancers in various positions at a barre

    MOMO, Batsheva Dance Company

    © Ascaf

  • Two actors with sad faces sit on the stage leaning against each other.

    Verrückt nach Trost, Thorsten Lensing

    © SF / Armin Smailovic

  • Performer stands with a basket in the audience rows

    Bark of Millions, Taylor Mac

    © Berliner Festspiele, photo: Fabian Schellhorn

  • Four dancers on a stage criss-crossed by lines and circles. One person is in a one-armed handstand position.

    Il Cimento dell’Armonia e dell’Inventione, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Radouan Mriziga / Rosas, A7LA5

    © Anne Van Aerschot

  • Two dancers in wide dresses and synchronised movement in front of a black and white projection.

    Glacial Decoy (1979), Trisha Brown Dance Company

    © Maria Baranova

  • Actors in a dystopian stage landscape look into an oversized egg.

    Der Garten der Lüste, Philippe Quesne

    © Martin Argyroglo

  • Three dancers in synchronised movement, arms at right angles

    Four New Works, Lucinda Childs

    © Berliner Festspiele, photo: Fabian Schellhorn

  • A projection of Cohen with delicately done make-up; in the front there are orante candelabrums

    Put your heart under your feet…and walk!, Steven Cohen

    © Pierre Planchenault

  • A person of Color with funky glasses and barbecue tongs, next to a vacuum cleaner

    MIKE, Dana Michel

    © Françoise Robert

  • One person in a handstand above another lying on the ground

    INK, Dimitris Papaioannou

    © Julian Mommert

  • In front of a bouldering wall, several performers are in actobatic movements

    Corps extrêmes, Rachid Ouramdane

    © Pascale Cholette

  • In a sweeping movement, one person grabs another around the stomach

    Club Amour, Café Müller, Tanztheater Wuppertal

    © Oliver Look

  • large disco balls and confetti above dancing performers dressed in striking costumes

    Aerocircus – A Play by Thomas Köck, RambaZamba

    © Phillip Zwanzig

  • Performers on stage with a backdrop in the background during the performance of "This is not a message (Made in Taiwan)"

    Dies ist keine Botschaft (Made in Taiwan), Stefan Kaegi

    © Claudia Ndebele I Dies ist keine Botschaft (Made in Taiwan)

  • Dancers in various positions at a barre

    MOMO, Batsheva Dance Company

    © Ascaf

  • Two actors with sad faces sit on the stage leaning against each other.

    Verrückt nach Trost, Thorsten Lensing

    © SF / Armin Smailovic

  • Performer stands with a basket in the audience rows

    Bark of Millions, Taylor Mac

    © Berliner Festspiele, photo: Fabian Schellhorn

  • Four dancers on a stage criss-crossed by lines and circles. One person is in a one-armed handstand position.

    Il Cimento dell’Armonia e dell’Inventione, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Radouan Mriziga / Rosas, A7LA5

    © Anne Van Aerschot

  • Two dancers in wide dresses and synchronised movement in front of a black and white projection.

    Glacial Decoy (1979), Trisha Brown Dance Company

    © Maria Baranova

  • Actors in a dystopian stage landscape look into an oversized egg.

    Der Garten der Lüste, Philippe Quesne

    © Martin Argyroglo

  • Three dancers in synchronised movement, arms at right angles

    Four New Works, Lucinda Childs

    © Berliner Festspiele, photo: Fabian Schellhorn

  • A projection of Cohen with delicately done make-up; in the front there are orante candelabrums

    Put your heart under your feet…and walk!, Steven Cohen

    © Pierre Planchenault

  • A person of Color with funky glasses and barbecue tongs, next to a vacuum cleaner

    MIKE, Dana Michel

    © Françoise Robert

  • One person in a handstand above another lying on the ground

    INK, Dimitris Papaioannou

    © Julian Mommert

  • In front of a bouldering wall, several performers are in actobatic movements

    Corps extrêmes, Rachid Ouramdane

    © Pascale Cholette

  • In a sweeping movement, one person grabs another around the stomach

    Club Amour, Café Müller, Tanztheater Wuppertal

    © Oliver Look

  • large disco balls and confetti above dancing performers dressed in striking costumes

    Aerocircus – A Play by Thomas Köck, RambaZamba

    © Phillip Zwanzig

About Performing Arts Season

Since 2023, the Berliner Festspiele’s Performing Arts Season has been presenting a range of outstanding international dance, theatre and performance productions at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele and Gropius Bau during the autumn and winter months. Some of the works shown are co-produced by the Berliner Festspiele or specially produced in Berlin.

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