The Performing Arts Season 2024/25 took place from 9 October 2024 to 25 January 2025.

Performing Arts Season

<ul> <li><a href="${link:{uuid:{debdbc15-6c0b-49ea-a9aa-2e1f9bff0c97},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/performing-arts-season/programm/2024/spielplan}}}">Programme Schedule</a></li></ul>

The second season, presented between October 2024 and January 2025, concentrated on memory and heritage in contemporary performing arts, with a focus on New York’s dance and performance scene.For the opening of the 2024/25 Performing Arts Season, Taylor Mac&nbsp;returned to Berlin with the European premiere of <a href="${link:{uuid:{fac45e1e-0d3c-4448-8df3-4f77e4fcc094},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/performing-arts-season/programm/2024/spielplan/bark-of-millions}}}">“Bark of Millions”</a> in October 2024. After the great success of “A 24-Decade History of Popular Music” (European premiere at Berliner Festspiele in 2019), Mac and a team of 22 artists brought a four-hour “Rock Opera Meditation on Queerness” to the Festspielhaus-stage. This epic concert format featured 55 songs with lyrics and direction by Taylor Mac and composed by Matt Ray, one for each year since the first Pride Parade in New York in 1970, inspired by various queer personalities of world history from ancient times to the present day. Machine Dazzle designed the scintillating costumes in the style of “Queer Maximalism”; Faye Driscoll choreographed and co-directed the show with Niegel Smith.Two avant-garde icons of the legendary New York Judson Dance Theater were featured as a central part of this Performing Arts Season: Lucinda Childs and Trisha Brown. Both were first invited to Berlin in the 1970s by Nele Hertling, who received the 2024 Theatre-Award-Berlin of the Stiftung Preu&szlig;ische Seehandlung for her lifetime achievements.In December 2024, a performace by Lucinda Childs, one of the leading figures in American post-modern dance, was presented. <a href="${link:{uuid:{4a665879-618c-45d6-bbfd-7b32d626f174},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/performing-arts-season/programm/2024/spielplan/dance}}}">“Dance”</a> (1979), her famous collaboration with Philip Glass and Sol LeWitt, underlined the minimalist quality of her choreography.&nbsp;<a href="${link:{uuid:{2f3a48b4-2b63-4585-8a5c-d31483d02215},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/performing-arts-season/programm/2024/spielplan/four-new-works}}}">“Four New Works”</a>&nbsp;consisted of four parts, one of which was a solo for Lucinda Childs herself. The programme was an opportunity to follow the history of a body and a dance company.In January 2025, the Performing Arts Season presented an evening of dance by the Trisha Brown Company. In 2023, the company commissioned an outside choreographer to create new works for the first time after their founder’s death in 2017. This programme was a triple bill: two of Trisha Brown’s major works – <a href="${link:{uuid:{8ba47282-95cb-4717-96a5-88f373d92113},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/performing-arts-season/programm/2024/spielplan/glacial-decoy-in-the-fall-working-title}}}">“Glacial Decoy”</a>&nbsp;(1979) and <a href="${link:{uuid:{8ba47282-95cb-4717-96a5-88f373d92113},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/performing-arts-season/programm/2024/spielplan/glacial-decoy-in-the-fall-working-title}}}">“Working Title”</a>&nbsp;(1985) – and the commissioned work <a href="${link:{uuid:{8ba47282-95cb-4717-96a5-88f373d92113},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/performing-arts-season/programm/2024/spielplan/glacial-decoy-in-the-fall-working-title}}}">“In the Fall”</a> (2023) by acclaimed choreographer Noé Soulier. The inclusion of new choreographers was an opportunity to witness how the memories of the body deposited in one dance company are renewed. “In the Fall” was presented in Germany for the first time.Performing arts have an ephemeral existence that disappears as soon as the performance ends. That is precisely why it is possible for them to respond to questions of personal or collective memory, history, and heritage in a particular way. The other productions featured in the 2024/25 Performing Arts Season beared witness to this fact in various ways: two theatre shows from Paris and Berlin – by Philippe Quesne and Thorsten Lensing –, and two dance pieces by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Ohad Naharin as German premieres.For dance piece <a href="${link:{uuid:{5f849882-3c10-46f4-8bca-f6110200efd5},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/performing-arts-season/programm/2024/spielplan/il-cimento-dell-armonia-e-dell-inventione}}}">“Il Cimento dell’Armonia e dell’Inventione”</a> Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Belgium’s most influential choreographer in the field of contemporary dance, was collaborating with the groundbreaking choreographer Radouan Mriziga from Morocco. Together, they were creating for Keersmaeker’s company Rosas a new work to Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons”, a masterpiece of Baroque music. Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s approach of interpreting music geometrically and transforming it into choreography here took the form of an ode to nature. Both choreographers furthermore expressed their concern about the changing and increasingly problematic relationship of humans with their natural environment.16 years after their last visit, the Batsheva Dance Company&nbsp;returned to Haus der Berliner Festspiele in January with a choreography by Ohad Naharin: <a href="${link:{uuid:{96af55c9-6e9b-4df8-a142-8a450d13c525},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/performing-arts-season/programm/2024/spielplan/momo}}}">“MOMO”</a> premiered in Tel Aviv in late 2022 and addressed the incessant conflict between the archaic, archetypical and autonomous earthbound nature of human beings and the modern individual’s striving for self-realisation and social connection. A joint passion of sorrow and beauty unfolded on stage to music by composers like Laurie Anderson and Philip Glass.In November 2024, the Performing Arts Season presented the two theatre productions. Firstly, Thorsten Lensing’s most recent, self-written play <a href="${link:{uuid:{8242d35a-0a3f-4c4b-891b-13d49eb7e550},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/performing-arts-season/programm/2024/spielplan/verrueckt-nach-trost}}}">“Verr&uuml;ckt nach Trost”</a>&nbsp;returned to Berlin, exchanging the venue of Sophiensӕle for the Main Stage of the Festspielhaus. This story of grief, memory and the search for one’s way in life was performed by a cast of four great actors – Sebastian Blomberg, André Jung, Ursina Lardi and Devid Striesow.With Philippe Quesne’s latest work <a href="${link:{uuid:{ed5bb92c-be99-484b-b213-61df2392224a},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/performing-arts-season/programm/2024/spielplan/der-garten-der-lueste}}}">“The Garden of Delights”</a> – inspired by Hieronymous Bosch’s famous eponymous triptych –, his company Vivarium Studio celebrated its 20th anniversary. The piece was a lange-scale, retro-futuristic epic that foreshadows the world to come, somewhere between caricature of animals from the Middle Ages, ecological science fiction, and modern westerns.

Programm 2024/25

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Programme 2024/25

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Reflexe und Reflexionen

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Every autumn and winter, the Berliner Festspiele present a Performing Arts Season that brings a panorama of international dance, theatre and performance productions to the stage of the Festspielhaus and the Gropius Bau.

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Key Visual Performing Arts Season 2025

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Programme published &amp; start of advance booking: 2 July 2025

A Panorama of International Dance, Theatre and Performance Productions

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The second season, presented between October 2024 and January 2025, concentrated on memory and heritage in contemporary performing arts, with a focus on New York’s dance and performance scene.

Performing Arts Season 2024/25

Trailer, Performing Arts Season 2024/25, Design: 3pc

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Performing Arts Season 2024: Überblick

Performing Arts Season: Overview

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Gallery 2024/25

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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 a comprehensive solo exhibition.

YOKO ONO: MUSIC OF THE MIND

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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.

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This year, 53 ensembles from all over Germany applied for the Tanztreffen der Jugend. 8 young ensembles between contemporary and urban dance were chosen by the jury for the final selection. They will show their work at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele in autumn. &nbsp;

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More Berliner Festspiele

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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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Trisha Brown Dance Company &amp; Noé&nbsp;Soulier

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Upcoming Events

We would like to thank all artists, everyone involved and you, our audience, for a great Performing Arts Season 2024/25 full of moving moments! We are already in the midst of preparations for the next Season, which will present a new panorama of international dance, theatre and performance productions at Haus der Berliner Festspiele and the Gropius Bau from October 2025 to January 2026. Initial information on the programme will be available at the end of February.

Thanks for 2024/25 and Look Out for 2025/26

From October 2023, the Berliner Festspiele is to launch an annual Performing Arts Season that will present a panorama of international dance, theatre and performance productions on the stage of the Haus der Berliner Festspiele and the Gropius Bau through the autumn and winter months. Some of the works on display will be co-produced by the Berliner Festspiele or produced in Berlin. The Curator and Programme Director of the Berliner Festspiele’s Performing Arts Season is the dramaturg Yusuke Hashimoto.

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Trailer Performing Arts Season 2023/2024

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Texts and videos on artists and events of the Performing Arts Season, for example the recording of the lecture by choreographer and dancer Lucinda Childs, can be found in the Berliner Festspiele Media Library.

In the Media Library

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.

“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.

Performing Arts Season 2025/26

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.

About Performing Arts Season

The works presented in the Performing Arts Season 2025/26 go beyond simple portrayals of identity, embracing its precarity and fluid, multifaceted and often contradictory nature. Through an exploration of connections and differences, they underscore not what divides us, but what unites us, both individually and collectively – strengthening once more the shared threads of our communal experience as well as the validity of the performing arts.

The Programme

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The Performing Arts Season presents a panorama of international dance, theatre and performance productions on the stage of the Haus der Berliner Festspiele and the Gropius Bau through the autumn and winter months.

Festivals & Programme Series

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.

Berliner Festspiele

The Performing Arts Season 2024/25 took place from 9 October 2024 to 25 January 2025.

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Today’s Events

Exhibitions & Projects

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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

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Major Orchestras and Vocal Ensembles as Guests in Berlin

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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

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Musikfest Berlin 2025 brings together renowned international orchestras and vocal ensembles from the Netherlands, France, Belgium and Italy and the great symphony orchestras of the city of Berlin at Berliner Philharmonie. The full programme is online and tickets are available now.

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In August 2025, the festival Tanz im August will be a guest at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele with three productions. All productions are already on pre-sale.

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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.

25th international literature festival berlin

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The works presented in the Performing Arts Season 2025/26 go beyond simple portrayals of identity, embracing its fragility and fluid, multifaceted and often contradictory nature. Through an exploration of connections and differences, they underscore what unites us, both individually and collectively. The programme schedule will be published on 2 July 2025; advance ticket sales start at 14:00.

Performing Arts Season

Upcoming

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53&nbsp;ensembles from 13&nbsp;federal states have submitted their works for the 12th&nbsp;Tanztreffen der Jugend.&nbsp;The selection has been made.

The works presented in the Performing Arts Season 2025/26 go beyond simple portrayals of identity, embracing its precarity and fluid, multifaceted and often contradictory nature. Through an exploration of connections and differences, they underscore not what divides us, but what unites us, both individually and collectively.&nbsp;The programme is online;&nbsp;advance ticket sales start on 2 July 2025 at 14:00.