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75 Years of the Berliner Festspiele

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75 Years of the Berliner Festspiele

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, on Berlin’s Ringbahn and at other locations in the city. Outstanding international that liberal societies and their cultural institutions face in a new, multipolar world order. artists such as Marina Abramović, Gabriele Stötzer and Akira Takayama will set the agenda both thematically and aesthetically. Entitled Die große Unordnung (The Great Disorder), the four-day focus Reflexes & Reflections will also enquire about the challenges.

75 years of the Berliner Festspiele!
75 years of music, theatre, dance, literature and visual arts in Berlin!
75 years of consistent innovation and daring with magnificent international, intermedia, interdisciplinary and intercultural art!
Congratulations and best wishes for the future,
dear Berliner Festspiele!

Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Federal President

13 to 17 October 2026

Marina Abramović: Balkan Erotic Epic. The Stage Version

In October 2026 the Performing Arts Season presents Balkan Erotic Epic. The Stage Version at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele. Based on her eponymous video work from 2005, Abramović creates a powerful new stage work about female energy, shame, desire and the relationship between the body and history.

To the performance

A person perceived as female wearing a black headscarf stands in front of a black background in the rain. She looks up at the sky and lifts her skirt up to her ribs

Marina Abramović, Scaring the Gods from the series Balkan Erotic Epic, Performance documentation, Factory International, 2025, Manchester, UK

19 June to 6 December 2026

Gabriele Stötzer: Dabei sein und nicht schweigen

For more than five decades, Gabriele Stötzer has been grappling with questions of justice, gender and self-determination. Her own body often plays a central role in her work – not as an object, but as a site of resistance and feminist self-assertion. Dabei sein und nicht schweigen is the artist’s largest institutional solo exhibition to date.

To the exhibition

Gabriele Stötzer, Die Auslöschung eines Blicks – Ich trage meine Wunden heute offen, 1983, courtesy: LOOCK Galerie, Berlin, photo: Heike Stephan

Special edition poster

Gabriele Stötzer, who will be awarded the Goslarer Kaiserring, one of the world’s most prestigious art prizes, in October 2026, has designed a poster that is available in an exclusive special edition at the Berliner Festspiele online shop.

To the poster

Colourful abstract painting featuring two dynamically posed figures facing each other in bright, vivid tones.

Gabriele Stötzer, Brückenbegegnung, Linz 2025

Essay

75 Years Experimenting with Freedom

Another short history of the Berliner Festspiele

On the occasion of its 75th anniversary, Matthias Pees, Director of the Berliner Festspiele, explores the eventful history of the institution in an essay. In 75 Years Experimenting with Freedom, he traces the development of the Berliner Festspiele within the tension between artistic freedom and systemic rivalry: founded in 1951 under the name Berliner Festwochen as a frontline institution of the Cold War (“shop window onto the free West”), they have evolved into a platform for outstanding contemporary art from all over the world.

Black and white image of a spotlight shining left, fog or smoke visible in the beam of light.

75 Years Berliner Festspiele

Festspiele Stories

In our Festspiele Stories series, we highlight some of the many facets of the 75-year history of the Berliner Festspiele. Explore our Media Library for behind-the-scenes insights, as well as new and historical perspectives and personal recollections connected to the history of the Berliner Festspiele.

Empty audience space, view of illuminated stage with people standing in the background.

Berliner Festspiele anniversary reception

Visitors are queueing outside the Gropius Bau.

Marina Abramović: Balkan Erotic Epic. The Exhibition, exhibition opening, Gropius Bau, 2026

In the foreground, tables and chairs are set up like in a pub, with performers seated at them. In the background. a screen showing women collectively beating their chests.

Marina Abramović: Balkan Erotic Epic. The Exhibition, exhibition opening, Gropius Bau, 2026

Nighttime building with video projection of a person and light show on the facade.

Exterra XX / Künstlerinnengruppe Erfurt, Performance, Exterra in the Air XX, Gropius Bau, 2026

Person in front of art installation with two masks and a skeleton figure.

Portrait Gabriele Stötzer with publication, Gabriele Stötzer: Dabei sein und nicht schweigen, exhibition opening, Gropius Bau, 2026

Train on tracks under a pedestrian bridge, graffiti on a sign in the foreground.

What If Berlin: The Ringbahn as a stage for 27 forgotten visions of the future

Group of people wearing headphones standing on a platform next to a column with a warning sign.

What If Berlin: Guided Tour at S Schönhauser Allee

Male-perceived person wearing headphones in a train, Beusselstraße displayed on sign.

Akira Takayama, creator of the What If Berlin project

Several people stand in front of glass sliding doors, a uniformed person speaks to the group.

What If Berlin: Guided Tour at S Greifswalderstraße

Meron Mendel giving the anniversary speech at the opening of Musikfest Berlin

A group of musicians in black clothes stands before an audience. Some hold instruments, conductor on podium.

The Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Nicholas Collon at the opening concert of Musikfest Berlin

A person in tattered clothing and white hair speaks to a person with an orange-black painted body standing at a podium. An orchestra with cellists is in the background.

Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra

Large hall with audience, stage featuring three people, and projection reading 'Reflexe & Reflexionen'.

Reflexes and Reflections

Three people sitting on a stage talking, one holding a microphone. Glass bottles on a table.

Former Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel in Conversation with Saba-Nur Cheema and Meron Mendel

Berliner Festspiele anniversary reception

Marina Abramović: Balkan Erotic Epic. The Exhibition, exhibition opening, Gropius Bau, 2026

Exterra XX / Künstlerinnengruppe Erfurt, Performance, Exterra in the Air XX, Gropius Bau, 2026

Portrait Gabriele Stötzer with publication, Gabriele Stötzer: Dabei sein und nicht schweigen, exhibition opening, Gropius Bau, 2026

What If Berlin: The Ringbahn as a stage for 27 forgotten visions of the future

What If Berlin: Guided Tour at S Schönhauser Allee

Akira Takayama, creator of the What If Berlin project

What If Berlin: Guided Tour at S Greifswalderstraße

Meron Mendel giving the anniversary speech at the opening of Musikfest Berlin

The Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Nicholas Collon at the opening concert of Musikfest Berlin

Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra

Reflexes and Reflections

Former Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel in Conversation with Saba-Nur Cheema and Meron Mendel

Berliner Festspiele anniversary reception

Marina Abramović: Balkan Erotic Epic. The Exhibition, exhibition opening, Gropius Bau, 2026

Exterra XX / Künstlerinnengruppe Erfurt, Performance, Exterra in the Air XX, Gropius Bau, 2026

Portrait Gabriele Stötzer with publication, Gabriele Stötzer: Dabei sein und nicht schweigen, exhibition opening, Gropius Bau, 2026

What If Berlin: The Ringbahn as a stage for 27 forgotten visions of the future

What If Berlin: Guided Tour at S Schönhauser Allee

Akira Takayama, creator of the What If Berlin project

What If Berlin: Guided Tour at S Greifswalderstraße

Meron Mendel giving the anniversary speech at the opening of Musikfest Berlin

The Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Nicholas Collon at the opening concert of Musikfest Berlin

Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra

Reflexes and Reflections

Former Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel in Conversation with Saba-Nur Cheema and Meron Mendel

Previous Programme

In 2026 the Berliner Festspiele celebrate their 75th anniversary. From 27 to 30 August, the manifold anniversary programme will come together to form a multifaceted weekend of celebrations: On Thursday 27 August, Adam Tooze and Nesrine Malik will open Reflexes & Reflections. Under the title The Great Disorder, the 4-day focus will explore the challenges posed by a new, multipolar world order for liberal societies and their cultural institutions. On Friday 28 August, Akira Takayama’s What If Berlin will launch on Berlin’s Ringbahn, presenting forgotten artistic visions of the future at 27 Ringbahn stations until 20 September. On the same evening, the Musikfest Berlin in co-operation with the Berliner Philharmoniker Foundation kicks off at the Berlin Philharmonie with György Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre, accompanied by an opening address by Meron Mendel. On Saturday 29 August, former Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel will be in conversation with Saba-Nur Cheema and Meron Mendel, the curators of Reflexe & Reflexionen, at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele. Later on Saturday evening, the artists’ collective Exterra XX, formerly Künstlerinnengruppe Erfurt, will perform on the roof of the Gropius Bau as part of Gabriele Stötzer’s exhibition Dabei sein und nicht schweigen. Marina Abramović: Balkan Erotic Epic. The Exhibition will also open there for the last time on Sunday. To round off the anniversary weekend former Chilean President Gabriel Boric, AI expert and President of the Signal Foundation Meredith Whittaker and eco-philosopher Corine Pelluchon will come together to venture a look ahead: What Do We Need to Know for the Future?

28 August to 23 September 2026

Musikfest Berlin

Opening with Le Grand Macabre by György Ligeti on 28 August 2026 in co-operation with the Berliner Philharmoniker Foundation, this year’s Musikfest Berlin revolves entirely around the 75th anniversary of the Berliner Festspiele. Ligeti’s only opera is a profoundly dark parable of war and the end of the world, but ultimately humour gains the upper hand and helps to overcome the fear of death. György Ligeti’s music was repeatedly performed at the Berliner Festwochen, and later at the Musikfest Berlin from the 1960s onwards: “My home is actually Berlin, as strange as that may sound. […] The city has become highly interesting through its proximity between West and East”, the composer remarked in 2003.

The exceptional work Tutuguri by the young Wolfgang Rihm, Hans Werner Henze’s Tristan and a concert performance of the opera Porgy and Bess are among the highlights of the programme that marks the anniversary.

To Musikfest Berlin

Large orchestra performing on a brightly lit concert‑hall stage, with an audience seated in the foreground.

Norrköping Symphony Orchestra

28 August to 20 September 2026

What If Berlin

The Ringbahn as a stage for 27 forgotten visions of the future

For the 75th anniversary, Japanese artist Akira Takayama invites the audience of the Berliner Festspiele to take a trip on Berlin’s Ringbahn. On four weekends he will organise “guided tours” of the 27 S-Bahn stations on the Ring, which he proposes to developing by realising a site-specific artistic project at each one. However, the ideas for these projects are not new, but have been found in the drawers of the Berliner Festwochen, the Berliner Festspiele, other Berlin cultural institutions and artists. Unrealised projects from the past will be presented on the Ringbahn by experienced tour guides – and thereby transposed to the present by Takayama, highlighting Berlin’s visible and invisible, old and new borders. At the end he will ask us which of the projects we actually want to see realised in the future – for the next Berlin, our New Berlin.

To What If Berlin

Graphic diagram of the Berlin Ringbahn, featuring numbered circles connected by lines on a purple background. Markings with starting points.

15 April to 30 August 2026

Marina Abramović: Balkan Erotic Epic. The Exhibition

Balkan Erotic Epic. The Exhibition can be seen at the Gropius Bau until 30 August. Based on the folklore of the Balkans – the region in which Abramović grew up – the artist interweaves filmic and sculptural installations with live performances. In these she explores eroticism as a bridge between life and death that connects the self with the cosmos.

To the exhibition

A person perceived as female, wearing a black headscarf, is standing outdoors and is massaging her naked breasts.

Marina Abramović, Women Massaging Breasts I from the series Balkan Erotic Epic, C-Print, 2005, Serbia

27 to 30 August 2026

Reflexes & Reflections

The Great Disorder

The Berliner Festspiele are a cultural institution closely connected with the changing history of Berlin and the partition of Europe. But what marks out the present state of the world? What are the political, social and cultural consequences derived from a global order that is increasingly shaped by wars, imperial power grabs and multipolar lines of conflict? The four-day focus Reflexes & Reflections Die große Unordnung (The Great Disorder) will examine the effects of these developments on liberal democracies and international co-operation.

To Reflexes & Reflections

Audience seated in a theatre facing a stage with a large green screen reading “Berliner Festspiele — Reflexe & Reflexionen.”

About the Berliner Festspiele – History

The Berliner Festwochen and the International Film Festival were held for the first time in West Berlin in 1951. The Berliner Festspiele developed from this to become one of Germany’s leading cultural institutions.

You can find out more about their success story and the diverse international festivals and programmes that grew out of them, such as Musikfest Berlin, the Theatertreffen, Jazzfest Berlin, MaerzMusik, the Treffen junge Szene, the Performing Arts Season and Reflexes & Reflections, about the Gropius Bau and the Berliner Festspiele’s exhibitions, about the Haus der Berliner Festspiele, about the Berlinale and the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in our chronicle.

To the Berliner Festspiele chronicle

Team 75 Years of the Berliner Festspiele

Project Lead / Dramaturgy Moritz Frischkorn
Project Lead / Production Claudia Peters
Technical Director Maria Kusche

Assistant Dramaturgs Lisa Homburger, Jette Büchsenschütz
Technical Assistant Johann Arendt
Student Assistant Sophie Beck

Communications and Press Contact Nancy Henze
Show number
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Festivals & Programmreihen

75 Years of the Berliner Festspiele

Focus Japan

75 Years of the Berliner Festspiele

Marina Abramović: Balkan Erotic Epic. The Stage Version

Gabriele Stötzer: Dabei sein und nicht schweigen

75 Years Experimenting with Freedom

Festspiele Stories

Highlights of the Anniversary

Previous Programme

Musikfest Berlin

What If Berlin

Marina Abramović: Balkan Erotic Epic. The Exhibition

Reflexes & Reflections

About the Berliner Festspiele – History

Team 75 Years of the Berliner Festspiele