Polar Opposites is a quirky fast-paced theatrical adventure about two polar bears confined to a drifting, melting iceberg. Faced with their own differences, an onslaught of environmental elements and some mild polar-bear-related existential crises, the two are left with a problem as deep as the ocean they float on.
Inspired by (and, in part, adapted from) the 2014 U.S. Senate report on the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program, This Is Torture presents a CIA interrogator on the other side of the table, answering to the voice of an investigative committee. The piece incorporates direct quotes and contextual details from the official senate report to both shed light on a particularly dark and disturbingly recent corner of US-American international activity and to involve the audience in an exploration of guilt, atonement and the unnerving instability of a banal evil. A look at the means, from beginning to the ends.
The title of the performance ironically refers to a typical problem of spoken language – Japanese native speakers very often are not able to clearly differentiate between the pronunciations of ” L” and “R” … That makes “light” (= electricity) and “right”, sound the same.
As a Japanese musician living in Berlin, Manami N. felt the strong need to react to these events in a personal manner but in connection with a number of topics of importance not only for Japanese but for human beings in general and deploying various artistic elements to bring together a multimedia performance with live elements.
What would it be like if for one day, for one hour, for one minute we were to watch things through their eyes and hear what they want to tell us?
In attempting to connect with these stories, dancers will lead us on a second journey.
The official government scientific advisor to the residents in Fukushima says that ‘if you keep smiling, radiation won’t affect you”. Welcome to this mad world. Between Lies started as a dance theater piece in an anti-nuclear demonstration by Sayonara Nukes Berlin at Brandenburger Tor. Between the lies, the body tells another truth.
These misadventures have led her to Berlin. From a multicultural background, new to the idea of EXPAT she migrated to Berlin in search of love, with her double nationality and multiple personalities maintaining a relatively single lifestyle.
Liliana Velásquez is a trained actress dancer and singer, her stories and jokes combine a Broadway pizzazz and the gritty realism of a “retired” sex worker, daughter, sister and just all round international girl next door.
He falls in love with the leading lady of his fairy tale, threatened by his own story creatures, and in the end redeems them and is himself redeemed. Dirty Granny Tales compose this bizarre dark tale, with all parts coming alive on stage. The musicians take on the role of narrator. Puppets and animation projections infuse the characters of the fairy tale with life. Intense lighting embraces and completes the dark aesthetic of the show.
Dirty Granny Tales’ performances consist of the combination of music, puppet theater, animation and dance. They bring to life atmospheric, otherworldly fairy tales using the symbolic languages of all these arts. Musicians with acoustic instruments such as guitar, mandolin, bass, cello, piano, percussion and character voices, tell the stories while dance, puppets and animation mold the dark fairy tales of the Dirty Granny on stage.
so sick communications is a group of four artists with backgrounds in dance, choreography, scenography and music composition who collaborate to produce multimedia performances.
Or a lukewarm consolation to somebody else suggesting that “it didn’t matter”? In her solo piece Next Time, theater artist Minna Partanen explores the nature of wasted opportunities. Partanen is interested in the space that lies between self-doubt, a fear of failure and anything that’s less depressing. The performance plays with reality and fiction, private and shared, laughter and pain. The dark Finnish self-deprecating humor shines through the piece. Performed in English and Finnish.
“At brunch next time, pass on the coffee cake and have an omelet. Maybe next time she’ll be dead.”
This is what will happen: You will come in and sit down. The lights in the room will go out. You will be led through a short guided meditation. The surrealist piece will then be acted out before you, with its themes of union and division, infantile sexuality, addiction, war. There may or may not be much wailing and gnashing of teeth. You will then leave the room, unfulfilled, but with something new to think about. /// How does that sound? Will that be everything? Is that enough? /// You may now kiss the bride.