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Theatre
Berlin International Performing Arts Center

A JOURNEY OF DISCOVERY
This format and is dedicated to newcomers, shorter performances and work-in-progress. This year, we are offering four performances over two evenings.

I AM EVERYBODY, I AM EVERY BODY | Performance (8:00 pm)

Written, Directed and Performed by Marque-Lin (USA) | Sound, Video and Stage Design by B_No_Source [live] (Germany) | Choreography by Ly Nguyen (Germany/Vietnam) | Costume Design by Jessika Strauck (USA/Germany/Paraguay)

I Am Everybody, I Am Every Body is an experimental performance and audio-visual piece that traces a fractured semiautobiography of MARQUE-Lin as a daughter of Vietnamese refugees. Using extractions from her life as footage and material, B_No_Source [live] will modulate and rearrange MARQUE-Lin’s voice live on stage, transforming her into <s*he> – a nation- less AI-produced female entity that has decided to finally investigate the systems and networks that have created her in search of her point of origin and subsequently her purpose in living an existence of such ambiguity and suffering.

Questions of nationhood, inter-generational inheritance, historical and personal trauma skip and glitch as <s*he> questions the pervasive sense of unrest and constant malfunctions happening in her body. Something is calling her from the edge of her self-understanding. From within the black box—a space where unknown codes and hidden layers categorize and determine – her identity emerges. Where does <s*he> begin? Which systems are complicit in the creation of immigrational identity? How much of our digital networks represent our own hidden prejudices? Is there an escape? PRESS START.

DDS! Discipline, Dominance, Submission | Interdisciplinary Performance (9:00 pm)

Direction and Dramaturgy by Derya Durmaz (Turkey/Germany) | Audiovisual Direction by Özlem Sariyildiz (Turkey/Germany) Performered by Derya Durmaz & Michael(a) Daoud (Syria/Germany) | Assistant Direction by Bora Yediel (Turkey/Germany) | Graphic Artwork by Turgut Kocaman (Turkey/Germany)

Pain and pleasure. Giving in and giving up. Playing and roleplaying. Do you play your part? Did you write your part? Or were you given your part? Was it consensual? Or were you conned? Was it at least sensual? Is it time to come to your senses? Maybe then you can finally make sense of it all…

DDS! Discipline, Dominance, Submission is an interdisciplinary performance project that takes a close and intimate look at how much of an understanding we really have of our (chosen or given) gender roles and the parts we play.

A JOURNEY OF DISCOVERY
This format and is dedicated to newcomers, shorter performances and work-in-progress. This year, we are offering four performances over two evenings.

MILKTOOTH | Performance (8:00 pm)

Created and Performed by Promona Sengupta (India)

In the not-so-distant future, when interplanetary travel, collaboration and governance is the established order of the day, a young woman on Earth, turning 30, decides to fill the emotional void in her single life by taking part in the intergalactic adoption scheme and becoming a single mom. The catch – her newborn adoptee is a gigantic extraterrestrial child who Earth-dwellers would simply refuse to accept. As they grow old together, mother and child find tenuous ways of communicating, loving, caring and intimacy that take the world by shock and raise violent alarm bells everywhere from the Kita to the playground, until a terrified neighbor calls the authorities.

This is the story of a young single mom trying to save her special-needs-child from being taken away by the intergalactic child services, all the while attempting to love someone who does not fit into the human definition of “lovable”.

THE HORROR WOMAN A.K.A. TOO DARK … TOO SWEET … TOO DEAD? | Dance Film (9:00 pm)

Choreographed and Performed by GᾹZ collective a.k.a. Noga Abramovitch (Israel), Helen Burghardt (Germany) and Zoe Goldstein (United Kingdom)
Sitting in a darkened movie theater, hunched up, limbs knotted, hands over faces, three friends wonder how it is that they happen to be seeing yet another horror movie together. It’s that fine, intriguing line between fear-horror-pleasure. This shared visceral experience also raises questions: what’s up with women in horror films? All those beautified helpless victims and sirens with dark powers. Who created them and through whose eyes are we watching? How do we connect, and to what, when these female archetypes bleed across the screen? An unlikely and frightening adventure ensues.

The Horror Woman a.k.a too dark … too sweet … too dead? is a dance horror piece, exploring feminine archetypes and expressions of femininity in horror, the female gaze in horror as well as the translation and transitions between cinematic and stage languages.

The Horror Woman a.k.a. too dark … too sweet … too dead? was developed with support from ADA Studios and Theaterhaus Berlin Mitte.

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 seven different performances. 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.

POSEUR | Performance (2pm)

Directed by Frederika Tsai (Taiwan/ Germany), Written and Performed by Lena Chen (USA/Germany), Music by Alex Weber (Germany), Illustration and Animation by Lucas Paixão (Brazil), Video Design by Effie Wu (Taiwan/Germany), Photography by Edward Isais (USA)

Do you like to watch or be watched? She enjoys the feeling of your gaze upon her. Elle Peril is a con artist. Elle Peril is an identity crisis. Elle Peril is the truest lie she ever told.

When a girl from the United States falls victim to a heinous crime, she impulsively moves to Berlin and invents a fictional life to cope with the traumatic consequences.

Inspired by the autobiographic experiences of performance artist and poet Lena Chen, Poseur explores the power andthe peril of living as a woman in the public gaze.

Supported by the Taipei Representative Office in the Federal Republic of Germany and The Tsai Foundation, Boston

THE INTERVENTION OF LONELINESS | Interactive Performance (2:45pm)

Concept and Performance by Ming Poon (Singapore/The Netherlands), Photography by Olivia Kwok (Singapore)

We have entered the age of loneliness. Social media, modern work ethics and urban lifestyles all contribute to a system that exposes us to loneliness on a regular basis and on a global scale.

This interactive performance invites the audience to create a space for loneliness to take place. Can we transform loneliness from a place of suffering to become a source of strength?

TEXT ROULETTE | Interactive Performance (3:30 pm)

Created and Performed by Finn O’Branagáin (Australia), Operator Bronwyn Miller (Australia), Design by Clare Testoni (Australia), Composed by Tom Hogan (Australia), Sound Design by Nathan Jamieson (Australia), Dramaturgy by Alexa Taylor (Australia), Photography by David Cox (Australia)

It’s hard to know what to say sometimes. Is there a message you need to send?

Maybe you need to tell your crush you can’t stop thinking about them, tell your roommate their sexy role-playing is way too loud, or tell your mom you hate her new tattoo.

If you can’t find the words, play Text Roulette and let Finn O’Branagáin draft them for you – then choose to send, save, delete or ask for a
sign. Sign up to participate or watch it unfold from the safety of the audience.

Sign up form: tinyurl.com/textroulette

BANANA PRIDE™ | Theater (4:15 pm)

Directed and Performed by Kysy Fischer (Brazil), Dramaturgy and Performed by Paola Pilnik (Brazil), Performed by Teija Vaittinen (Finland), Performed by Rafuska Marks (Brazil), Devised by ABA NAIA and Paola Pilnik, Scenography by Inga Aleknaviciute (Lithuania), Lighting Design by Thais Nepomuceno (Brazil), Photography by Mari Vass (Brazil)

Banana Pride™ is a party. It’s an exaggeration. It’s an exaggerated party. It’s a farce with hints of music, dance, clichés, and stereotypes. It’s a soap opera. It’s a cabaret night. It’s a glamorous tragedy. It’s a job interview. It’s a provocation. It’s a political act, a feminist act, a celebration, a carnival night. Banana Pride™ is a manifesto.

SOLAR THRESHOLD| Dance Performance (5pm)

Concept and Performance by Maque Pereyra (Bolivia), Costume Design by Paola Bascón (Bolivia) and Maque Pereyra, Sound Design by Mars Dietz (USA), Dramaturgical Support by Verena Melgarejo (Germany/Bolivia), Lighting Design by Hanna Kritten Tangsoo (Estonia/Germany), Drawing by Lucia Ramirez (Bolivia), Photography by Gisela Zárate (Colombia)

Solar Threshold fosters the idea of pleasure, sensuality and spirituality as tools for decolonizing bodies. The vibrations of the voice create a temple of sounds and movement that merges the notions of pleasure, sensuality and spirituality. Ritual chanting is interwoven with reggaeton to generate liminal spaces where new bodies/entities/identities appear.

SALVATION (GLITTER DOESN’T CARE I’M A BOY) | Music Theater (5:45 pm)

Created and Performed by Shlomi Moto Wagner (Israel), Photography by David Beecroft (Germany)

This science fiction drag ritual is an experimental invocation for a constant distribution of desires based on visions and fantasies Shlomi Moto Wagner has experienced since he was three years old. It explores transformations, mutations and re-manifestations of the idea of being, the sensuality of being a body, the politics of having a body and the poetics of sharing a bodily experience. All bodies are welcome and audience participation is highly encouraged.