Where else would you be if you could be in Berlin when the streets are vibrant, days are long, bees fly and dancers embellish some of the most astounding buildings of the city? The answer is resolute, clearly. So that’s why we’ve come up with a guide into this month — the second part, more exactly — which thrives with Tanz im August, an annual month-long festival that hosts choreographers of different rituals, who explore obscure forces, make intimate stories public tales, and dive into emotions, memories and places that words cannot describe.
The festival, which began on Wednesday last week and culminates, as if synchronised, next week on the 26th, the same day museum night takes place — let us clarify, these are two events of different natures and preparation but intersecting audiences — has an agenda that cannot be missed.
For those interested in diving into a more retrospective world, Cherish Menzo / GRIP & Frascati Producties explores dark matter: can we free bodies from rigid categorisations? And at the same time, this question is intertwined with how the universe, much bigger than ourselves, can seize the power to liberate us. The performance conjures a poetic narrative of Afrofuturism and posthumanism, with fabrics and dark liquids, it traces a journey of discovery into the universe of anti-bodies.
Location: HAU2 (Hebbel am Ufer)
Dates: 24.08 – 26.08
Ballet National de Marseille / (LA)HORDE puts on scene the virtual and the viral: performers react to a space that is influenced by social interactions and digital tools. In doing so, they respond to imaginary entities informed by action movies, musicals, social media choreographies and video games.
Location: Haus der Berliner Festspiele
Dates: 23.08, 24.08
For a dive that feels more like a purge, South African choreographer Marlene Monteiro Freitas summons up forces around evil or “mal” in a theatrical piece that stages a tribune of performers, who tune to the different ways evil can cast its spell, be delusional or sentimental. Overall, the piece captures the ambiguity of the concept of “mal” through rituals and experiments seen through contrasting spaces of light, shade, noise and silence.
Location: Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz
Dates: 25.08, 26.08
Greek performer Kat Válastur uses the mythical as a tool to revisit the archaic from a contemporary perspective. Her piece Strong Born is the embodiment of a hybrid spectrum of interactions between the social, archaic memory of her heritage and her personal experiences. Taking inspiration from the Northern Greek archaic ritual ‘anastenaria‘, Válastur channels these forces into dance, transforming sacrifice into resistance. Along with other female performers and a percussionist, the ritual reveals a sonic female force against disposability and into empowerment.
Location: HAU1 (Hebbel am Ufer)
Dates:16.08 – 19.08
Faso Danse Théâtre / Serge Aimé Coulibaly, as its name indicates, takes inspiration from dance, theatre and music found in West African ceremonies, as founder Serge Aimé Coulibaly takes his learnings from his hometown in Burkina Faso into this realm. The ensemble is a simple but all-encompassing work, reflecting on life itself as it switches from the austere and passive “c’est la vie” approach to life to actively exist. As if you wanted to actually participate in this thing we call life. The performance, moreover, celebrates collectivity through rhythm, movement and harmony enacted by the dancers, vocal and percussion.
Location: Radialsystem
Dates: 17.08, 18.08
*Header: “Strong Born” by Kat Válastur via Tanz im August
