Unfortunately audio description for “Tanzende Idioten” is only available in German. We are working on changing that in the future.

Performing Arts Season

Audio description tickets for the event with audio description “Tanzende Idioten” (Dancing Idiots) on 17 January 2026 can be purchased for 20 euros by phone at +493025489100, daily from 11:00 to 17:00, and by email at <a href="mailto:inklusion@berlinerfestspiele.de">inklusion@berlinerfestspiele.de</a>. Unfortunately, this offer is only available in German.&nbsp;

Audio Description in German

Goldie baut ihr Haus um. Ihre Freude dabei ist ebenso ansteckend wie verst&ouml;rend, denn sie ist sterbenskrank. Der Kater Apollo genie&szlig;t ihre Schw&auml;che: Endlich kann er stundenlang auf ihr herumliegen. Bis pl&ouml;tzlich Goldies frisch verliebter Vater mit seiner Geliebten vor der T&uuml;r steht. In „Tanzende Idioten“ spielen Ursina Lardi, Karin Neuh&auml;user, Sebastian Blomberg, André Jung und der Schlagzeuger Willi Kellers &Uuml;berlebende auf dem Weg zur n&auml;chsten Katastrophe. Was sie ausmacht, ist eine aberwitzige Mischung aus Daseinsschmerz und Lebenslust.<a href="${link:{uuid:{26576ab6-cb34-45b1-9799-bb6a2bf4fc1e},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/performing-arts-season/programm/2025/spielplan/tanzende-idioten}}}">Zur Webseite des St&uuml;cks</a>

Zum St&uuml;ck

Erfahren Sie mehr &uuml;ber die Inszenierung, das B&uuml;hnenbild und die Schauspieler*innen.<a href="${link:{uuid:{f84c1e47-5167-4b91-9dd7-3ec02dfefebf},repository:{dam},path:{/bfs-de/Audiodateien/Performing-Arts-Season/2025/pas25_audiodeskriptive_einfuehrung_tanzende_idioten.mp3}}}">Audiodeskription herunterladen</a>

Audiodeskriptive Einf&uuml;hrung

Die Performing Arts Season findet vom 16ten Oktober 2025 bis 25ten Januar 2026 im Haus der Berliner Festspiele und im Gropius Bau statt. F&uuml;r die Veranstaltung mit Audiodeskription k&ouml;nnen Sie ab dem 2ten Juli 2025 um 14 Uhr Audiodeskriptionstickets f&uuml;r 20 Euro telefonisch unter +493025489100, t&auml;glich von 11:00 bis 17:00 Uhr, sowie per E-Mail unter <a href="mailto:inklusion@berlinerfestspiele.de">inklusion@berlinerfestspiele.de</a> erwerben. Wenn Sie als Person mit einer Schwerbehinderung auf eine Begleitperson angewiesen sind, erh&auml;lt diese freien Eintritt. Bitte f&uuml;hren Sie Ihren B-Ausweis als Nachweis mit sich.

Tickets und Preise

Bei Fragen zum Programm oder technischen Problemen wenden Sie sich gerne an den Support: Telefon: +493025489100, t&auml;glich von 11:00 bis 17:00 Uhr E-​Mail: <a href="mailto:inklusion@berlinerfestspiele.de" title="">inklusion@berlinerfestspiele.de</a>Viel Freude beim Theater-H&ouml;ren!

Support und Kontakt

Wegbeschreibungen vom U-Bahnhof Spichernstra&szlig;e (U9, U3) zum Haus der Berliner Festspiele (Haupteingang, Parkettfoyer, Seitenb&uuml;hne) finden Sie auf der Webseite unter <a href="/besuch/barrierefreiheit/barrierefreiheit-haus-der-berliner-festspiele#audio-wegbeschreibungen">Barrierefreiheit Haus der Berliner Festspiele</a>.Die Empf&auml;ngerger&auml;te f&uuml;r den Vorstellungsbesuch k&ouml;nnen Sie ab 18:30&nbsp;Uhr im ersten Abschnitt der Garderobe im linken unteren Foyer abholen.Wir begleiten Sie von dort in den Saal.

Ablauf vor Ort im Haus der Berliner Festspiele

Audiodeskription Tanzende Idioten

Audio Description “Tanzende Idioten”

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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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Performing Arts Season 2025/26

Today’s Events

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Marina Abramović unfolds Balkan&nbsp;Erotic&nbsp;Epic in two parts: the exhibition by the iconic artist will open at the Gropius Bau in April, and in October her new multi-hour stage production will be shown at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele as part of the Performing Arts Season. The work traces Abramović’s ongoing engagement with ritual, eroticism, death and the body as a site of political resistance.

Marina Abramović: Balkan Erotic Epic

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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

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Performing Arts Season 2024: Überblick

Performing Arts Season: Overview

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Gallery 2024/25

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.

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

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Following on 12 and 13 November, Albanian-born Greek-based theatre maker Mario Banushi returns to Haus der Berliner Festspiele after being part of the festival Performing Exiles in 2025. Banushi shows his latest piece, MAMI, as its German premiere. As his personal mythology, this work, a visual poem and a landscape of memories, depicts the source of life and is a tribute to the women who nurtured us.What is more, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker returns to her roots with the new creation GLA55, which will have its world premiere at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele on 19 November, with further performances on 20 and 21 November. The Ictus Ensemble and Bl!ndman revisit early works by the master of minimalism, Philip Glass, while Rosas dancers let a geometric choreography unfold, guiding our consciousness into a trance-like dimension.In December, you can see two bold dance pieces. Belgian-French choreographer Damien Jalet brings Planet [wanderer] on 4 and 5 December, inspired by Japan’s Genesis story, the Kojiki. Alongside the overwhelming organic stage set by the Japanese sculptor, Kohei Nawa, it discusses the boundary between the living and the dead, and the inseparable relationship between the human body, the elements of the cosmic world, and gravity.Canadian leading choreographer, Marie Chouinard, on the other hand, highlights on 9 and 10 December an evening consisting of her early masterpiece and her latest piece: The Rite of Spring, a piece of music that has inspired legendary artists to create groundbreaking choreographies in each epoch, and MAGNIFICAT, which is one of the eight most ancient Christian hymns and is the canticle most frequently recited. What defines both works is that they are subject to her sublime and exquisite choreography.&nbsp;Dumb Type, Japan’s leading multimedia performance collective, presents their latest performance work, 2020, from 15 to 17 January. This has been a phantom work, which they almost completed and planned to premiere in March 2020 as the first work after 18&nbsp;years but was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic; only a recorded version was presented. Berliner Festspiele present the European premiere in January 2027 right after the now live world premiere at ROHM Theatre Kyoto. AI, surveillance society, communication failure, the climate crisis, geopolitics – the performance explores these threats to humanity in the liminal space between technology and the living body.After being a part of the 2025/26 Performing Arts Season and being nominated for the 2024 Theatertreffen, we are pleased to welcome again Franco-Austrian artist, choreographer and director Gisèle Vienne on 21 and 22 January with her new creation CREATION 2026 (WT) and Berliner Festspiele co-production (world premiere at Schauspielhaus Z&uuml;rich). In this first collaboration with the writer Marie NDiaye, Vienne articulates the contemporary concerns and the struggles for a dignified and viable life for all, embodying the long-standing research into power relations and their construction.Through these prominent contemporary expressions of performing arts and while bringing back to mind fundamental meanings of performativity, we might find that the performing arts exist as neither mere entertaining nor healing, but as a device that shapes our profound perception and thinking about the world, and furthermore, generates and changes it. The theatre has been over time and will continue to be an actual space: a place for people to come together. At the same time, the experience of theatre is a phenomenon that cannot be repeated and exists only in the here and now. Let’s share this unique time together and encounter different people and perspectives in the upcoming edition of the Performing Arts Season, which coincides with the Berliner Festspiele’s 75th anniversary year.

Myths that tell of the world’s origins and rituals that connect humans to nature and the earth serve as the very source of identity, allowing humans to anchor themselves in history, confirm their roots in a particular land, and affirm their coexistence with others. Myths often depict battles, not to make humans hostile, but to provoke deep reflection on how tragic and devastating the consequences of war truly are. Some ancient rituals, including those involving sacrifice, may seem brutal by modern standards, but they were not intended to stimulate sadism; rather, they served to affirm the vulnerability and preciousness of life. It is fair to say that a sense of awe for the dignity of life has sustained these traditions.The immediacy that characterises the practice of performing arts is a mechanism for activating a community’s collective imagination and emotion, and its origins can likely be traced back to songs and dances praying for harvests. There, mythical narratives unfolded, ritualistic forms became established as local festivals, and were passed down continuously across generations. In other words, myths and rituals can also be said to be the origins of performing arts. Now, let us ask ourselves anew: Can contemporary performing arts serve not as something that divides us living in the modern world, but as something that connects us? And can they inspire a sense of awe and reverence for life and its dignity? It is by returning to this fundamental meaning of performing arts that this 2026/27 Performing Arts Season has been conceived.<h3>Programme</h3>We open the fourth Performing Arts Season on 14 October with a bold new performance work: the stage version of <a href="${link:{uuid:{c9197019-0240-4d93-9716-a043bce5ed89},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/performing-arts-season/programm/2026/spielplan/balkan-erotic-epic}}}">Balkan Erotic Epic</a> by the seminal iconic performance artist, Marina Abramović, will premiere in Germany. This durational ritual where ancient Balkan myths meet performance art explores until 17 October the eroticism, spirituality and traditions of Abramović’s homeland, brought to life by a cast of more than 30 performers, dancers, musicians and singers. Furthermore, she will host an exhibition of the same name that will already open in April at Gropius Bau.

Performing Arts Season 2026/27

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Working in New York City between the Stonewall uprising of 1969 and the onset of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s, Peter Hujar captured a pivotal cultural moment in piercing black-and-white photographs. In the exhibition Persistence of Vision, Hujar’s photographs are interspersed with contemporary works by New York City-based artist Liz Deschenes, opening up an intergenerational dialogue on photography.&nbsp;

Peter Hujar / Liz Deschenes: Persistence of Vision

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Tickets for ten selected concert highlights of the Musikfest Berlin, which in 2026 will also mark the 75th anniversary of the Berliner Festspiele, are available. The programme includes Gy&ouml;rgy Ligeti’s grotesquely humorous anti-opera Le Grand Macabre and George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess.

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In 2026 the Berliner Festspiele celebrate their 75th anniversary. A selection of events programmed throughout the entire year engage take the anniversary as their theme or mark the occasion with works at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele, the Gropius Bau, the Philharmonie Berlin, on Berlin’s Ringbahn and at other locations in the city.&nbsp;

75 Years of the Berliner Festspiele

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MaerzMusik invites you to concerts, performances, installations and discourse formats at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele and several other venues in Berlin. The programme will be announced on 29 January, with advance ticket sales beginning on the same day.is published; advance ticket sales are on.

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Advance sales are now live: tickets for ten selected concert highlights of the Musikfest Berlin, which in 2026 will also mark the 75th anniversary of the Berliner Festspiele, are now available. The programme includes Gy&ouml;rgy Ligeti’s grotesquely humorous anti-opera Le Grand Macabre and George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess.

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How does the bourgeois longing for revolt take shape, when the faith in progress and reason is unsettled? Berlin-based artist and director Leila Hekmat explores this question in her newly commissioned performance Roses Rising – The Movement. Moving between concert and ballet, the piece transforms the space into a landscape hovering between bunker, rehearsal room and dreamscape and invites the audience to witness a dinner party unravel into a happening.

Leila Hekmat: Roses Rising – The Movement &nbsp;

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On 13 January, the Theatertreffen’s jury of critics announced their selection of the 10 most remarkable productions for the 2026 Theatertreffen at a press conference. Our congratulations go to the nominated production teams and all participants!

Theatertreffen

MaerzMusik invites you to concerts, performances, installations and discourse formats at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele and several other venues in Berlin. The programme is published; advance ticket sales are on.

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Nina Laisné and François Chaignaud with Nadia Larcher

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Programme &amp; Advance ticket sales: 18 June 2026, 14:00

A Panorama of International Dance, Theatre and Performance Productions

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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 2025/26 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 2026 to January 2027. Initial information on the programme will be available at the end of February.

Thanks for 2025/26 and Look Out for 2026/27

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.

Trailer Performing Arts Season 2023/2024, Design: 3pc

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Teaser Performing Arts Season

Trailer Performing Arts Season 2023/2024

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In interviews Eun-Me Ahn, Akram Khan and Ligia Lewis discuss their artistic practice and the creation of their recent works, which were presented during the Performing Arts Season 2025/26. Essays and a lecture also offer insights into the significance of dolls in Gisèle Vienne’s work, as well as into the rehearsal process for Thorsten Lensing’s Dancing Idiots.

In the Media Library

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Performing Arts Season 2026: Previously on PAS

Impressions

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

Key Visual Performing Arts Season 2026

Programme &amp; Advance ticket sales: 18 June, 14:00

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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

Upcoming

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 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 &ndash; strengthening once more the shared threads of our communal experience as well as the validity of the performing arts.

Programm 2025/26

2025/26

The Performing Arts Season 2025/26 took place from 16 October 2025 to 25 January 2026.&nbsp;

Spielplan

Programme Schedule

Unfortunately audio description for &ldquo;Tanzende Idioten&rdquo; is only available in German. We are working on changing that in the future.

<a href="${link:{uuid:{acc994ba-8101-434b-96c0-28e015f89e51},repository:{artists},path:{/bfs-mediathek/L/thorsten-lensing}}}">Thorsten Lensing</a>&nbsp;– Director <a href="${link:{uuid:{c41a1330-0400-4c88-9091-c0252a051731},repository:{artists},path:{/bfs-mediathek/E/benjamin-eggers-domsky}}}">Benjamin Eggers-Domsky</a> – Co-Director Gordian Blumenthal, Ramun Capaul (<a href="${link:{uuid:{ea76da13-4410-4bef-91d8-ac8d5b2a16fa},repository:{artists},path:{/bfs-mediathek/C/capaul-blumethal-architects}}}">Capaul &amp; Blumenthal architects</a>) – Stage <a href="${link:{uuid:{2981016a-21ef-42cb-a8f1-b7111581e5f5},repository:{artists},path:{/bfs-mediathek/G/anette-guther}}}">Anette Guther</a>, <a href="${link:{uuid:{98ef3ff8-321d-43b8-b8d3-6d3fe797baa0},repository:{artists},path:{/bfs-mediathek/H/nuria-heyck}}}">Nuria Heyck</a> – Costumes <a href="${link:{uuid:{b9f52b38-1adb-406c-af84-a8b138afd926},repository:{artists},path:{/bfs-mediathek/K/dan-kolber}}}">Dan Kolber</a>, <a href="${link:{uuid:{d5d2ee24-691f-4dc5-b919-9a2b0d570595},repository:{artists},path:{/bfs-mediathek/M/thierry-mousset}}}">Thierry Mousset</a> – Dramaturgy Anne Inken Bickert – Dramaturgical Support,&nbsp;Assistant Director Eva-Karen Tittmann, Philip Decker – Production Manager Michael Klatt – Technical Director Martina Schulle – Head of Stage Production<h4>Cast</h4>In order of appearance<a href="${link:{uuid:{391608e6-5b76-457a-99b2-f31cc8a685ea},repository:{artists},path:{/bfs-mediathek/B/sebastian-blomberg}}}">Sebastian Blomberg</a> – Cat Apollo&nbsp; <a href="${link:{uuid:{f42b9023-fce9-4467-9bff-a1d99eba2dc3},repository:{artists},path:{/bfs-mediathek/L/ursina-lardi}}}">Ursina Lardi</a> – Goldie&nbsp; <a href="${link:{uuid:{fb0ac0bf-0bc6-4f71-a3c4-e65dc34ea587},repository:{artists},path:{/bfs-mediathek/N/Karin-Neuh-user}}}">Karin Neuhäuser</a> – Vivian Phoenix&nbsp; <a href="${link:{uuid:{eaa94392-c399-4e88-88bd-508c99640230},repository:{artists},path:{/bfs-mediathek/J/andr-jung}}}">André Jung</a> – Tony&nbsp; <a href="${link:{uuid:{1b1c8619-f62e-4550-8f81-36dc42cf5cd0},repository:{artists},path:{/bfs-mediathek/K/Willi-Kellers}}}">Willi Kellers</a> – Construction Worker&nbsp; <a href="${link:{uuid:{c41a1330-0400-4c88-9091-c0252a051731},repository:{artists},path:{/bfs-mediathek/E/benjamin-eggers-domsky}}}">Benjamin Eggers-Domsky</a> – Construction Worker&nbsp; <a href="${link:{uuid:{391608e6-5b76-457a-99b2-f31cc8a685ea},repository:{artists},path:{/bfs-mediathek/B/sebastian-blomberg}}}">Sebastian Blomberg</a> – Neil Armstrong&nbsp; <a href="${link:{uuid:{c41a1330-0400-4c88-9091-c0252a051731},repository:{artists},path:{/bfs-mediathek/E/benjamin-eggers-domsky}}}">Benjamin Eggers-Domsky</a> – Sauna Attendant&nbsp; <a href="${link:{uuid:{1b1c8619-f62e-4550-8f81-36dc42cf5cd0},repository:{artists},path:{/bfs-mediathek/K/Willi-Kellers}}}">Willi Kellers</a> – Drummer&nbsp;

In Thorsten Lensing’s play “Dancing Idiots”, Ursina Lardi, Karin Neuhäuser, Sebastian Blomberg, André Jung and drummer Willi Kellers play characters careening their way from one disaster to the next. What defines them is an absurd blend of brutality and tenderness, anarchy and metaphysical curiosity, existential pain and zest for life.

Goldie is doing what she loves most: remodeling her house. Her joy in the process is as infectious as it is unsettling, because Goldie is terminally ill. She knows she’s dying, but doesn’t want to admit it and insists on planning for a future she no longer has. Her cat Apollo relishes her increasing weakness. Finally, he can sit on her lap for hours on end and snore to his heart’s content. Goldie takes the opportunity to tell him everything you’re not supposed to say to people. Terrible stuff! Suddenly the doorbell rings and Goldie’s father, newly in love, arrives with his girlfriend. The two of them are on their way to the seaside in their camper van and have decided to pay Goldie a surprise visit. The deliriously happy father finds himself at his daughter’s deathbed. He believes that he is at a new beginning, she knows she is at the end. Once again, the whole world floods into Goldie’s room, everything that’s hard to say goodbye to; forests, animals, the sea. The second part of the evening recounts Goldie’s dying. The habitat of Earth is transcended and within seconds the small room becomes outer space.This entire work was inspired by two sentences from a story by Denis Johnson. In them, he describes a man drawing up home renovation plans as he is dying. His cat is lying on top of him, asleep. Based on this passage, Thorsten Lensing wrote the text for “Dancing Idiots”, repeatedly using phrases, fragments and dialogues from other works by Johnson. Of his own work, Johnson once said: “I’d describe my characters the same way I’d describe myself: We are dancing idiots.”Director Thorsten Lensing has been staging independent productions since the mid-1990s, often in co-production with theaters and festivals that include the Schauspielhaus Zürich, Sophiensæle Berlin, Kampnagel Hamburg, Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm Frankfurt, Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus, Theater im Pumpenhaus Münster, Grand Théâtre de la Ville de Luxembourg, Ruhrfestspiele Recklinghausen, Schauspiel Stuttgart, Münchner Kammerspiele, and deSingel Antwerp. He always works with the same core team of outstanding actors. Following his adaptations of Dostoevsky’s “The Brothers Karamazov” (Friedrich Luft Prize 2014) and David Foster Wallace’s “Infinite Jest” (invited to Theatertreffen 2019), the 2024 presentation of Thorsten Lensing’s first self-written play “Verrückt nach Trost” premiered at Salzburger Festspiele in 2022 as part of the 2024/25 Performing Arts Season and launched a long-term co-operation with Berliner Festspiele. This partnership with the Berlin-based director and author, whose work has been successful across Europe, continues with the world premiere of “Dancing Idiots”.

In German, on 16. and 17.1. with English surtitles, on 17.1. with German audio description