etb English
Theatre
Berlin International Performing Arts Center

The Fest of Fools is a festival that highlights humor as a medium in choreography, cultural practice and social
dialogue. Held over three days, the festival brings together five choreographers who utilize humor as a liberating cultural technique to address and clarify its systemic relevance, particularly during times of crisis.

Through five performances and one workshop, “Humor as a choreographic, aesthetic and political tool in cultural praxis” , the festival investigates humor as both a cultural and social phenomenon. The works presented aim to examine humor’s essential aspects and its cathartic function, exploring its potential to create distance, provoke thoughts and break societal boundaries. The festival seeks to present a variety of artistic expressions, using humor as a tool for critique and a catalyst for transformation.

Wednesday, May 14

8:00 pm Gats Surprise / Scapes of Landscape by Lukáš Karásek (tYhle collective)

Gats Surprise is a short solo trip of an elusive creature named Gats, originating from the world of the performance Scapes of Landscape by tYhle. Gats surprise not only the audience but also themselves in what they turn out to be. They have a large family, but suffer from loneliness. They are interested in Tarkovsky and comic books. They look completely different on the inside than they do on the outside, but no one knows how.

 

8:30pm The Trinity by Raul Vargas Torres

A choreographic cleansing journey, where daily kids-toys, music and actions take a hyperreal shape under the dual horizon of love and death, violence and emancipation, childhood and adulthood, father and mother. Unveiling the paradoxical resistance and violence of accepting to perform a role, in an imposed narrative, in which one is a byproduct or consequence of it. A performance which does not pretend to answer any question. A performance that happens at the friction between: what we imagine is happening and what is actually happening.

 

9:30pm Post-performance discussion

Thursday, May 15

10am Workshop: “Humor as a cultural, aesthetic and political tool in times of crisis” as part of the IETM plenary meeting (off-site, Studio 0/1 Gottlieb-Dunkel-Straße 30/32, 12099 Berlin) – to attend, please register HERE

8pm DEVOURER by Alica Minar & col.

One body, a bunch of black balls, a clear task and countless greed. A dance performance inspired by the principles of the clown fi gure and black hole theory. DEVOURER exists only to have. In a determined eff ort to take everything for its own, it absorbs light, inhales space and materializes time. Its transformation manifests gradually. A body of greed caught in action. How can the „self“ be maximized? Singularity. It’s a hypothetical point. „I am a star, I shine like a supernova…or have I become a black hole?“

9pm Post-performance discussion

Friday, May 16

8pm DauerDeviation (work-in-progress) by Kysy Fischer

The main goal of this work in progress is to develop a choreographic strategy of deviation in which the norms of movement are provoked and expanded. Kysy creates a chain of associations between movements, sounds and images. Thoughts, words and sentences deviate, taking new paths and constructing new meanings.

 

 

 

8:30pm ha ha ha hi!by Felix Baumann | Von B bis Z

In ha ha ha hi!a mediocre comedian attempts to tell a joke with a life-changing impact. However, he lacks the words or the right microphone setting for a real breakthrough. As he grapples with his shortcomings, he embraces absurdity, employing every tool at his disposal to create moments of comic folly.
The solo performance ha ha ha hi! blends dance, circus, physical comedy and object manipulation, and celebrates the art of joking, cheerful silliness, raw humor and the beauty of happy futility. It invites the audience into a world where minimalism meets eccentricity and playfull foolishness becomes profound.

 

9:30pm Post-performance discussion