Taylor Mac & Matt Ray: Queer Concert Performance “Bark of Millions” Launches the Performing Arts Season 2024/25
In its second edition, Berliner Festspiele’s Performing Arts Season will focus on New York’s dance and performance scene. To launch the four-month programme series, Taylor Mac and Matt Ray will present the European premiere of their queer rock opera “Bark of Millions” on 9, 11 and 12 October at Haus der Berliner Festspiele.
During today’s press talk, the artists from New York gave an insight into their joint work on this production; the recording is available in the BerlinerFestspiele’s Media Library. Afterwards, Berliner Festspiele’s Director Matthias Pees and Yusuke Hashimoto, Artistic Director of the series, gave an overview of the further programme featuring outstanding dance and theatre productions.
Taylor Mac, Matt Ray and an ensemble of 18 other international performers will open the Performing Arts Season 2024/25 on 9 October 2024 with the queer rock opera “Bark of Millions” at Haus der Berliner Festspiele. Their four-hour “opera-concert-song-cycle-musical-performance-art-piece-play” (Taylor Mac), which, like the word “queer”, refuses to be boxed in, is a celebration of remembrance and community. Mac and the ensemble sing 55 songs for 55 years of queer history, one song for each year since the first Pride March in New York in 1970. Taylor Mac found inspiration for the lyrics in the spirit of important antecedents and contemporaries of queer history. Contemporary personalities such as Marsha P. Johnson and James Baldwin are juxtaposed with the ancient Sappho or the ancient Egyptian deity Atum. Mac’s long-time artistic partner Matt Ray is responsible for the composition of the songs and the musical direction. “Bark of Millions” was co-directed by Taylor Mac, Niegel Smith and Faye Driscoll, who also created the choreography.
The ensemble sings, plays and dances in colourful and dazzling fantasy costumes by Machine Dazzle and takes the stage with this exceptional format, self-described as a “Parade Trance Extravaganza for the Living Library of the Deviant Theme”. The audience is invited to join this subversive celebration of queer art and history and discover their own queer side. “The hope is that we’ll make you a little more queer than when you entered the theatre,” says Taylor Mac. The focus is on the collective moment and not on a history lesson. “As we sing out our history, it is not just a calling back but an urging forward, together,” explains Matt Ray.
After performances at the Sydney Opera House, the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley, this “rock opera meditation on queerness” will now celebrate its European premiere at Haus der Berliner Festspiele.
“Bark of Millions” was commissioned by Pomegranate Arts and BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music). The work was co-commissioned by Sydney Opera House and the Berliner Festspiele with additional support by the Ron Beller & Jennifer Moses Family Foundation and Hal Philipps. It was created during residencies at Kaatsbaan Cultural Park, MASS MoCA-North Adams (Massachusetts), Irish Arts Center (New York City) and PEAK Performances in the Alexander Kasser Theater, Montclair State University (New Jersey).
“Bark of Millions”
A Parade Trance Extravaganza for the Living Library of the Deviant Theme
Taylor Mac & Matt Ray
European premiere: 9 October 2024, 19:00–23:00
More performances: 11 & 12 October 2024, 19:00–23:00
Press contact and accreditation “Bark of Millions”:
ARTEFAKT Kulturkonzepte
Damaris Schmitz and Elisabeth Friedrich
+49 30 440 10 721, mail@artefakt-berlin.de
artefakt-berlin.de
Further information:
All song titles as well as text excerpts can be found in the FanDeck of “Bark of Millions”, created by Sister Sylvester and with illustrations by Efrîn Nowar.
The programme brochure is available for download here.
SAVE THE DATE:
“Il Cimento dell’Armonia e dell’Inventione”
German premiere on 19 October
For their latest work on the urgency of the impending climate crisis and its possible impact on future generations, choreographers Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Radouan Mriziga consider Antonio Vivaldi’s work “The Four Seasons”. Together with four dancers from the Belgian company Rosas, they looked for a movement language that would guide them back to the core of the composition. The starting point of the choreography a recording of the Baroque classic by Amandine Beyer, virtuoso violinist and long-standing musical partner of Rosas, and her ensemble Gli Incogniti. “Il Cimento dell’Armonia e dell’Inventione”, a co-production with Berliner Festspiele, will be presented as a German premiere at Haus der Berliner Festspiele on 19 and 20 October.
The further programme of the 2024/25 Performing Arts Season will feature theatre productions by Thorsten Lensing, Philippe Quesne and his Vivarium Studio as well as choreographies by Lucinda Childs and her company, Ohad Naharin and the Batsheva Dance Company as well as by Noé Soulier and the Trisha Brown Dance Company. Several of the works were co-produced by Berliner Festspiele and will now celebrate their German premiere. During their stay in Berlin, the Trisha Brown Dance Company will furthermore offer public workshops for interested participants at Tanzfabrik Berlin.
The complete programme has been published on the website of Berliner Festspiele. Tickets can be purchased online at berlinerfestspiele.de and at the box office at Gropius Bau.
Press Accreditation Performing Arts Season:
We will be happy to receive your accreditation requests for the performances in October (except “Bark of Millions”) and November at: pas.akkreditierung@berlinerfestspiele.de.
Press photos are available for download in the press section of the Berliner Festspiele website.