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Latent Dreams

Latent Dreams is a performance about the future.

Or more specifically the possible futures for the human race beyond the system of capitalism. The performance grew out of the quote “it’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism”, often cited to Frederic Jameson in his essay Future Cities.

Intrigued by this quote, I began to research possible alternatives to the capitalist system, and came across a “widespread lack of conviction in the possibility of transcending capitalism, and indeed, a difficulty in even imagining such a task”[1]. I wanted to encourage more discussions around alternative systems, and so I created Latent Dreams, about the futures we allow ourselves to envision, as a provocation to envision alternative ones.

Using the frame of Hollywood films, Latent Dreams unravels the inherent capitalist ideologies embodied in popular concepts of the Apocalypse. It involves a solo performer typing a “plot summary” of a disaster film, which is rewritten and rewritten, erased, repeated and deleted throughout the performance. The text is humorous, occasionally poignant, often misspelled and always human.

Latent Dreams aims not to provide a solution, but instead open a dialogue on imagined futures, and alternative systems.

[1] Hahnel, Robert & Wright, Erik Olin, Alternatives to Capitalism: Proposals for a Democratic Economy, p5.

Latent Dreams was conceived as part of the MLitt Theatre Practice at the University of Glasgow. It was first performed at the Gilmorehill Theatre, Glasgow, in September 2016. After presenting the show in its original form in the 2017 Expat Expo | Immigrant Invasion festival, we are proud to present a run of this extended, revised Berlin-specific version.

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Katrine Turner is a performance maker based between Berlin and Glasgow. She creates performance for different social contexts, settings and audiences. In November 2016, she graduated from the University of Glasgow in MLitt Theatre Practice with Distinction, where she was the College of the Arts Bellahouston Scholar 2015/2016.

#Instalove

Is it love? Is it weakness? Hope or desperation? Why do we do it? Again and again.

In this interactive show, one woman finds herself on the brink of love, lust, fear and hope. YOU, the audience, are her dates. YOU decide how her story unfolds.

#Instalove is a joyful, electrifying, and at times stormy celebration of all the reasons we seek love – from the playful to the pathetic, the pragmatic to the passionate. It transposes the quest for love into a live competitive game, in which Catherine competes with herself – her many selves – for the audience’s affections. The audience are her co-players and vote for a winner, so every night is different.

Laugh, sigh, dance, and cry. Expect to make one hot mess. Together, you and Catherine will explore the modern search for timeless romance.

After presenting Catherine’s performance Celebrity Bound first as part of the 2014 Expat Expo | Immigrant Invasion Festival and then in two separate additional runs, we are thrilled to bring back our production of the world premiere of #Instalove freshly from a 20-performances run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe!!

Special thanks to Lovoo for their support! There will be a post-performance event in conjunction with Lovoo on  October 26 exploring the topics of “Love in the Digital Age – Insights by LOVOO and an External Research Project” and Love is Risky vs. Love is Predictable in the Era of Dating Apps”.

There will also be a post-performance discussion in conjunction with Theater Scoutings Berlin on October 27!

Berlin-based US-American performer, writer, director Catherine Duquette specializes in audience-performer relations and improvisation within scripted drama. She creates intimate participatory works that draw on autobiographical materials to share contemporary experiences with active audiences. Curious about expanding notions of performance, Catherine fuses theater, interactive poetry, scripts, and choice-based narrative for video games. She is currently exploring game design as a dramaturgical approach to theater in order to allow audiences more emotional and personal investment in what happens on stage.
Based in Berlin, her work has been supported by MOMENTUM Gallery, Camden People’s Theatre, Battersea Arts Centre, theSpaceUK, TRAFO Center for Contemporary Art in Poland, a Fulbright Fellowship in Spain, the International Festival of the Delphic Games in Greece, the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver, Colorado, and the Subterranean Art House in Berkeley, California.
Artist and agitator Ruth Sergel creates compassionate works that explode out the boundaries of traditional mediums. Inspired by rebels, visionary pedagogues and magicians, Ruth’s work bridges art and technology, memory and wonder to incite individual and social transformation. Ruth’s films, public interventions and interactive installations have been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, Boston Museum of Fine Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, National Museum of Women in the Arts, New-York Historical Society, Gray Art Gallery, Anthology Film Archives and 3LD Art + Technology Center. Her work has been shown internationally including Clermont-Ferrand (France), Shift Festival (Basel) and Théâtre de la Ville, (Paris) as well as broadcast on the Independent Film Channel (IFC) and PBS.
Ruth’s projects have been supported by the Jerome Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts, Experimental Television Center, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and the 21st Century ILGWU Heritage Fund. Ruth was the Resident Researcher in Video at New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) where she received her Master’s degree and a fellow in Public Humanities at Brown University. Additional residencies include Yaddo, Squeaky Wheel, CESTA (Czech Republic), Digital Performance Institute, and Here Arts Center. Her work has been widely covered in the press including the New York Times, NY Daily News, NPR, CNN, and the Huffington Post.

Ich Kann Nicht Atmen

What do you do if you can’t do anything?

Taking its cue from Václav Havel’s seminal 1978 essay The Power of the Powerless, the performance-lecture Ich kann nicht atmen [IKNA] gives an insider’s account – bitter, hilarious and savagely satirical – of what it’s like to live inside the immersive, sensurround scam that various lobbyists, eco-hypocrites and political pygmies have defined as energetische Modernisierung.

The profit-led and undesired changes to one particular apartment building, for which the inhabitants ultimately pay, serves as an example of how the face of an entire capital city is being fundamentally and irrevocably altered for generations to come.

Followed by a post-performance discussion in collaboration with Theater Scoutings Berlin!

#Instalove

Is this love? Is this weakness? Hope or desperation? Why do we do it? Again and again.

Let’s try it together. You and me. Tonight. Tonight will be our story. The story of how we met, how it was magical and easy, how we laughed. Your eyes, your smell, the taste of your skin.

#Instalove is our story. A participatory performance. A real-time attempt at you + me = us. It begins with an impulse, a desire to connect. A dating app sets us in motion. I show you my selves. My many selves. You make a choice. Which of me do you want? Which of you do I want? Who will I become with you? Who will you be with me?

Let’s give it a shot. If it doesn’t work out, if it begins to slow down, if the cracks start appearing – the neglect, the tear, the break – we can try again. I can repeat the past, or I can move forward.

Each night is unique. Each night is our own. #Instalove is our chance at us.

After presenting Catherine’s performance Celebrity Bound first as part of the 2014 Expat Expo | Immigrant Invasion Festival and then in two separate additional runs, we are thrilled to be able to produce the world premiere of #Instalove!

A pre- or post-performance event will be held every night, including speed dating, a talk on genderfluidity and modern love, interactive gaming presented by BerlinGameScene.com and more!

Thursday, July 6: A post-performance discussion about intimacy, identity, relationships and sexuality with Franziska Krüger, Lisa Kirchner and Susanne Scheerer | www.cambyo.co

Friday, July 7: A post-performance discussion with Catherine Duquette and Ruth Sergel, moderated by Daniel Brunet

Saturday, July 8: Speed Dating with Elise Terranova | www.eliseterranova.com

Thursday, July 13: Lorenzo Pilia and BerlinGameScene.com will showcase three games by Franziska Zeiner in our lobby, followed by a post-performance discussion moderated by Elise Terranova

Franziska Zeiner is a game designer and print magazine editor, interested in creating meaningful, user-centered experiences. She is passionate about feminism, quirky games, observing mundane everyday interactions and turning them into digital experiences.

The following games will be available to play from Thursday, July 13 through Saturday, July 15:

• social_me – A surreal, socio-political game that mimics players and their social media habits

• Kiss Me Maybe – A competitive kissing game

• Single Player – A speed dating simulator (made with Major Bueno)

Franziska will also be talking about her work together with Elise Terranova, host of Life and Dev podcast.

Friday, July 14: A post-performance discussion with Lovoo about dating in the 21st century, in collaboration with Theater Scoutings Berlin

Saturday, July 15: A post-performance discussion on human interaction in the digital era and how people meet people nowadays with Alex J. Eccleston of the Bad Bruises and The House of Red Doors

Special thanks to Lovoo for their support!

Berlin-based US-American performer, writer, director Catherine Duquette specializes in audience-performer relations and improvisation within scripted drama. She creates intimate participatory works that draw on autobiographical materials to share contemporary experiences with active audiences. Curious about expanding notions of performance, Catherine fuses theater, interactive poetry, scripts, and choice-based narrative for video games. She is currently exploring game design as a dramaturgical approach to theater in order to allow audiences more emotional and personal investment in what happens on stage.

Based in Berlin, her work has been supported by MOMENTUM Gallery, Camden People’s Theatre, Battersea Arts Centre, theSpaceUK, TRAFO Center for Contemporary Art in Poland, a Fulbright Fellowship in Spain, the International Festival of the Delphic Games in Greece, the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver, Colorado, and the Subterranean Art House in Berkeley, California.

Artist and agitator Ruth Sergel creates compassionate works that explode out the boundaries of traditional mediums. Inspired by rebels, visionary pedagogues and magicians, Ruth’s work bridges art and technology, memory and wonder to incite individual and social transformation. Ruth’s films, public interventions and interactive installations have been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, Boston Museum of Fine Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, National Museum of Women in the Arts, New-York Historical Society, Gray Art Gallery, Anthology Film Archives and 3LD Art + Technology Center. Her work has been shown internationally including Clermont-Ferrand (France), Shift Festival (Basel) and Théâtre de la Ville, (Paris) as well as broadcast on the Independent Film Channel (IFC) and PBS.

Ruth’s projects have been supported by the Jerome Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts, Experimental Television Center, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and the 21st Century ILGWU Heritage Fund. Ruth was the Resident Researcher in Video at New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) where she received her Master’s degree and a fellow in Public Humanities at Brown University. Additional residencies include Yaddo, Squeaky Wheel, CESTA (Czech Republic), Digital Performance Institute, and Here Arts Center. Her work has been widely covered in the press including the New York Times, NY Daily News, NPR, CNN, and the Huffington Post.

When I See You I Think of…Dentist

A search for identity

Life is weird, mine is too. My passport says I’m British. But I was born here. My parents are British. My name is as well. My first language is German. I think it’s easier than English. People in the UK call me “the German”. People in Germany call me “the English girl”. I’m confused. What am I? Where do I belong? And where am I?…..ahh, no I know where I am. Leeds. West Yorkshire. England. But what does it take to be British? To become British?

This theater performance deals with the feeling of belonging somewhere – or not.

2017 EXP(L)O(RE)

A JOURNEY OF DISCOVERY
This format opens the festival and is dedicated to newcomers, shorter performances and work-in-progress. Spend an entire afternoon taking in twelve performances on stage, in dressing rooms and all around the theater. In between the performances, you can enjoy fantastic food, luxurious libations and magnificent music by international, Berlin-based musicians. Performances start at 2pm and we open our doors at 1pm.

 

AHNENAMT/MINISTRY FOR ANCESTORS by Club Real (Austria)

This long-term project about a new aesthetic practice of elective kinship is a scenic installation – a parallel reality which needs to be entered by visitors to come to life. It examines a new cultural practice: the possibility to adopt an ancestor.

 

 

 

 

CARLOS WHISPER by Katie Lee Dunbar (UK)

A one-on-one performance in which individual audience members are whisked off into a sonic wonderland, all centered around a table of seemingly random objects. The connections are only made clear once you put the headphones on.

 

 

 

 

EPILOGUE by Noemi Berkowitz (USA/Poland)

What might life after death look like… and what implications would that have for life before death? In this two-woman play, a girl finds pieces of herself in stories from across the world and across time. A performance about the ways we develop in our journeys forward.

 

 

 

 

HYO (효) by Haenny Park (South Korea)

This piece was inspired by a famous Korean folktale, very often told to the artist by her father as a child. It tells the story of a son who digs up a grave to steal a human leg, which he will use to save his dying mother.

 

 

 

 

I DON’T WEAR SKIRTS BECAUSE I NEVER LEARNED TO CROSS MY LEGS by Angela Millano (Spain)

This performance is a protest against the normalization, legislation and control of our bodies and the need to fulfill standards perceived as natural. It is a rebellion by a vulnerable and violent body that feels beyond the social, professional and personal limitations imposed on it.

 

 

 

 

INTIMATE ARSENAL (A QUARTET) by Claudia Grigg Edo (UK/Catalonia)

Sit down at the table. On the other side of the table is HER. Stay with her as she navigates one of four situations. If you like, you can watch it loop round again in this interactive video projection.

 

 

 

 

LATENT DREAMS by Katrine Turner (Scotland)

This performance is about the Apocalypse. About the rising sea waters, and the invisible plagues. About when Cillian wakes up from his coma, and there’s no one about so he breaks into a vending machine for a can of Coke. About the futures we allow ourselves to envision.

 

 

 

 

MOUTH CONTROL by MILK (USA)

Sometimes it’s easier to be honest when no one is around. We are more open in text messages and status updates than we are in face-to-face interactions with others. In Mouth Control, we ask the audience to test the limitations of distance and vulnerability in real time. We invite you to play a game with us.

 

 

 

 

SKEWED by Shanti Suki Osman (UK)

A solo performance using song, storytelling and sound. Using live and prerecorded voice and field recordings, Shanti
Suki Osman presents 4 songs documenting her exploration of self-fetishization as a means for empowerment.

 

 

 

 

SWEETS FOR A STORY by Bees Knees Sweets (Canada)

An exploration of connecting with strangers and their stories using food as a catalyst. Food is universal. It’s something we all want and need as human beings, and therefore is something that unites us as people. Food can tell our stories, as well as inspire them.

 

 

 

 

THE FOURTH UNITY by Renen Itzhaki (Israel)

A room. A bookshelf. A small group of people. They walk in circles. They are all one. They read a book. Sometimes out loud. Sometimes they stop. Sometimes a memory.

 

 

 

 

THE WHEEL by Connecting Fingers (UK/Italy)

From the script by philosopher Sara Fortuna, inspired by Dogville from Lars von Trier, four dancers explore a circular conceptual space organized in several steps in this work-in-progess showing: sleep/pre-birth/origin, child-like openness to the adult world in its tensions, contradictions, competitions, failures and eventual coming back to the starting point.

Clowns’ Houses

Puppet theater for adults by Merlin Puppet Theatre

One building, five apartments, six characters. The audience watches them live their conventional lives in a dark, claustrophobic setting, with their fears, obsessions and loneliness.

Merlin Puppet Theatre dramatizes and demonizes their obsessions until they finally punish and liberate them in the most violent manner. They do not attempt to do existential analysis through their work. Instead, they examine modern way of living in its current form. The loneliness of modern humanity is displayed through the dark rooms of Clowns’ Houses; prison-like houses, people trapped in their routines and habits, far from their dreams.

L’ART ET LA MANIÈRE and PLANTING MEMORIES

Two dance theater performances

L’art et la manière explores the relationship between everyday movements and artistic actions in an engaging, fun and critical way. Through this this interactive dialogue with the audience, Marie questions her identity as an interpreter, a woman and the role artists have in society.

Planting Memories is a dance duet that explores the concepts of personal space and identity. Drawing inspiration from their own lives, Marie and Paula relate personal memories through text and images. By plunging into a surreal world, this piece guides the audience through a personal journey in which the unfolding of the past enables the present.

Shlomo’s Friends

Every immigrant has to form new relationships.

So did Shlomo Lieberman when he came to Berlin.

In this performance, he invites new friends to present ancient texts related to his name twin, King Solomon. These texts deal with love, desire, decency, morality and posing disturbing questions about the meaning of life.

Friends are asked to choose from these texts, to perform them as they see fit and to offer a new understanding of them. The mission is to create a new emotional landscape on the background of an old one in which people can become friends.

MEME – I See Ah!

About the moment in which ANYthing becomes SOMEthing and again something ELSE.

When do we think as spectators that we understood something (I see. Ah!)? When does this kind of understanding manifests itself in a fixed notion, a clichéd image of the (yet still unknown) Other and its “traditional” performing arts? When does our gaze even claim the seen as general knowledge about the Other (Asia!)? What kind of gap exists between the seen (I see. Ah!) and the claimed (Asia!)?

This stream of questions came up when Hyunsin, initially trained in Western Contemporary Dance and Theater, started to learn Traditional Korean Dance, a dance form which builds a different body on stage than the Western counterpart she was familiar with.