For his third production at Ballhaus Naunynstraße, multidisciplinary artist, performer, and actor Sisi Bo’wale is looking for three professional QTBIPoC actors/actresses with proficiency in English and German; those with experience in movement and singing are also welcome.

Sisi Bo’wale’s new project, Into the Chronosphere (working title), is a performative theater piece about stolen, archived, constructed, and self-determined time, as well as a psychedelic quest to find the “origin of time.”

Rehearsals begin: expected for October 9, 2026
Premiere: expected for November 21, 2026, plus four show dates
Venue: Ballhaus Naunynstraße

Auditions: September 28 and 30, 2026, 12:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. at Ballhaus Naunynstraße.

If you’re interested, please get in touch with a brief introduction that includes key milestones in your artistic career and productions, a photo, and a few sentences about your motivation. Please note that the production will primarily be in English.

Please indicate which of the two casting days you’re available for. If you can’t make either date, please feel free to reach out anyway!

Please feel free to forward this request to anyone who might be interested. If you have any questions or suggestions, don’t hesitate to contact us:

s.ersekeller@ballhausnaunynstrasse.de

For more information about Sisi Bo’wale’s artistic work—especially his performances at Ballhaus Naunynstraße—visit:

https://ballhausnaunynstrasse.de/person/sisi-bowale/

It is rare for encounters to have such an empowering effect. We organized only one event together with Bianca Klose: gegen Rechts: die Kunst, politisch Stellung zu beziehen (Against the right-wing: The Art of Taking a Political Stand) in 2017 at Ballhaus Naunynstraße. Prominent people  from the worlds of art, culture, politics, and society came together to develop possibilities and strategies to counter right-wing political influence and the appropriation  of culture.

Bianca Klose sat between Amelie Deuflhard (artistic director of Kampnagel / Hamburg), Kazım Erdoğan (chairman of the Aufbruch Neukölln association and founder of the first Turkish fathers’ group in Germany), Clara Herrmann (district councilor for Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg / B’90/Die Grünen), Steffen Mensching (artistic director / Theater Rudolstadt), and Dr. Torsten Wöhlert (State Secretary for Culture / Berlin). Adrienne Goehler (independent curator/author; former Senator for Culture and HKF curator) moderated. It was a unique evening: here, political experience and complementary approaches to social change came together. And since the stage reveals truths, one could also see sparkling self-convictions and dazzling passion for one’s own cause. Only Bianca Klose sat there, listening, analysing, and speaking with the clarity of someone who knows the issue inside and out. In every field, there are dedicated and capable people – and then there are professionals. Bianca Klose was a professional  at understanding how the far right operates and how to prevent it from gaining more and more ground. And she was an expert at framing the task as a collective one – that is, presenting panelists and the audience with a realistic challenge.

Bianca Klose founded the Mobile Beratung Rechtsextremismus (Mobile Advisory Service on Right-Wing Extremism) and shaped it for years. Her dedication, her expertise, and her voice were invaluable to many people and initiatives. Especially now, as right-wing extremism expands its influence, becomes institutionalized, is normalized, and threatens the lives of many, we will miss her voice and her actions.

After that first encounter, one was simply glad to know that there are people like Bianca Klose – that there is Bianca Klose and the Mobile Beratung Rechtsextremismus. And so, over the years, one’s thoughts kept returning to that remarkable event, to that encounter. One was glad because she had shown that it is possible to contribute to society with great clarity.

For his third production at Ballhaus Naunynstraße, the multidisciplinary artist, performer and actor Sisi Bo’wale is seeking three professional QTBIPoC performers with experience in movement and singing.

Sisi Bo’wale’s new project Into the Chronosphere (working title) is a performative theatre format exploring stolen, archived, constructed and self-determined notions of time, and a psychedelic search for the „origin of time“.

Rehearsals begin: provisionally mid-April 2026 Premiere: provisionally mid-June 2026

Venue: Ballhaus Naunynstraße

Casting: 10th and 11th April 2026, 12:00–16:00 at Ballhaus Naunynstraße

If you are interested, please get in touch with a brief introduction including key stages of your artistic career and productions, a photograph, and a few sentences about your motivation. Please also indicate which of the two casting days you are available for. Neither date works for you? Do get in touch anyway!

Feel free to pass this call on to anyone who might be interested. If you have any questions or queries, don’t hesitate to contact us: s.ersekeller@ballhausnaunynstrasse.de

For more information about Sisi Bo’wale’s artistic work, in particular his performances at Ballhaus Naunynstraße, please visit: Sisi Bo’wale

For her fifth production at Ballhaus Naunynstraße, the Black choreographer, visual artist, and parent Magda Korsinsky is seeking three performers who identify as Black FLINTA* and FLINTA* of Color and who have caregiving responsibility for children. Dance and singing experience are required.

The new project explores the beauty, tensions and achievements in the everyday lives of BIPoC  FLINTA* parents, navigating care work, economics, external and self-determination and collective resistance. On stage, an immersive cosmos of personal testimonies, dance and song emerges within a textile installation – an interdisciplinary archive of Black parental realities.

Rehearsals begin: 18 May 2026
Premiere: 1 July 2026
Venue: Ballhaus Naunynstraße

Casting: 28 March 2026, 10.00 a.m. – 2.00 p.m., at Ballhaus Naunynstraße.

If interested, please get in touch with a short introduction, a photo and a few sentences about your motivation, and indicate which of the two casting dates you are available for. If neither date works for you, feel free to reach out anyway.

Please share this call with anyone who might be interested. For questions and suggestions, do not hesitate to contact me at:
contact@magdakorsinsky.com

More information about my artistic work, especially my performances at Ballhaus Naunynstraße, can be found at:
magdakorsinsky.com

Magda Korsinsky

The dance performance Caminhos das Águas – Unaufhaltsames Fließen (Unstoppable Flow), created as part of the Black feminist series Wie ich werde, wie ich sein will (How I Become Who I Want to Be) at Ballhaus Naunynstraße, has been invited to the 45th International Festival for Contemporary Dance “Lila López” in San Luis Potosí (October 10, 2025), the Centro Cultural del Bosque in Mexico City (October 14, 2025), and the Festival Internacional de Danza Jalisco in Guadalajara (October 19, 2025). Choreographer Fernanda Costa will take to the stage herself during this tour, alongside dancers Amada Tinoco and Lia Estelle Widmaier.

Choreography & Concept: Fernanda Costa; Choreography assistance: Sumona Dhakal;
Stage design: Jaq Lisboa; Light design: Aslı Atasoy Öner; Video: Arel Dewi; Sound design: Sky Deep; Costume: Mathieu Amadou; Production management: Sylivia Erse-Keller;
By and with: Fernanda Costa, Amada Tinoco, Estelle Widmaier

A production by Kultursprünge im Ballhaus Naunynstraße gemeinnützige GmbH in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut Mexiko and PIAC, Goethe-Zentrum „Bezirk“ Guadalajara, Centro Cultural Alemán San Luis Potosí, Festival Internacional de Danza Contemporánea Lila López, Coordinación Nacional de Danza, Festival Internacional de Danza de Jalisco. The initial production was created as part of the dance series Wie ich werde, wie ich sein will, funded by the Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhalt des Landes Berlin and the Hauptstadtkulturfond.

PERFORMANCE – Akademie der Autodidakten

Facilitator: Zé de Paiva

19 – 22 September 2024

In the project Gegenrhythmen, the participants of the akademie der autodidakten, under the guidance of performance and video artist Zé de Paiva, explored self-rhythms, empathy, healing and self-empowerment. More

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DANCE

by Nasheeka Nedsreal

13 – 16 June 2024

Since childhood, our hair is dealt with – confronting us with expectations as to who we are and who we should be. It is an intimate learning of norms and codes. It is permeated by power and violence. The person that touches your hair has power. Who is it? Is it you? Does empowerment also mean styling? But how? Let it fro? More

TICKETS

We are there! Student & Trainee Ticket Market

with other Berlin theaters, operas and concert halls.

If you are a student or trainee, you can buy discounted tickets for our performances in the current 2023/24 season on April 10, 2024 from 3 – 7 pm.

Come to the Podewil foyer and discover theater, dance and music. Here you will find exciting first-hand information and can talk to other theater people. Get tickets for your next visit.

Tickets cost between 5.00 and 20.00 euros. Please note that payment at our stand is only possible in cash.

Location: Podewil, Klosterstraße 68, 10179 Berlin-Mitte, U-Bahn Klosterstraße (U2 ), U+S Bahn Alexanderplatz

Performance

By Bishop Black

13 – 16 April 2024 (English with German surtitles)

Flight of the Canaries is Bishop Black’s fourth work at Ballhaus Naunynstraße and a continuation of their artistic endeavor to counteract everyday experiences with resistant and self-determined movements: Emerging from the realms of drag and burlesque, They seek to challenge the compelling harshness of colonialist attributions of sexual identity and racial identity in performances and create a space beyond Eurocentric cosmology and epistemology. Yet, this marks Bishop Black’s debut as a director. More

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In dem Projekt KRAFTWANDLER*INNEN tauscht Ihr Euch gemeinsam mit dem Hip-Hop-Tänzer und Performer Raphael Moussa Hillebrand darüber aus, wie Euer Alltag ist, wie Selbstbehauptung aussieht, was das mit Tanz zu tun hat.

Weitere Infos

Music

Concert with Eurico Ferreira Mathias, Kaio Moraes and Trigo Santana

21 & 22 March 2024

A tribute to the legendary Brazilian composer and musician Moacir Santos. Mathias, Santana, and Moraes combine Black musical traditions with classical instruments. Against the habit of traditional musical order, the musicians of the Muacy Trio create a cultural possibility, their own richness of sound. More

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Film BLACK BERLIN BLACK – UNITED POLYPHONIC BLACK EYES ON BLACK BODIES

Von Rafik Opti

On 28 February, 8 p.m.

A film about identity, a celebration of Black freedoms, an Afro-futuristic exploration of the quest for independence among Amsterdam’s Black residents. Rafik Opti is known for artistic works that nuancedly celebrate themes of the Black trans and queer community. More

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With Maisha M. Auma, Katja Kinder and Peggy Piesche

On 27 February, 8 p.m.

A Talk to reflect on a seven-year process to implement the goals of the UN Decade for People of African Descent in Berlin. The panelists explain the role of Feminist Africans in Berlin in promoting the equality of people of African descent. More

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By Quinsy Gario

23. & 24. February 2024

Quinsy Gario, Caribbean-Dutch poet, visual artist and performer, known especially for his performance Zwarte Piet Is Racisme, continues his project of renewing historiography with his lecture-performance Tracing a Memory Pt. III. More

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Exhibit BLACK BERLIN BLACK – UNITED POLYPHONIC

By Sagal Farah and Lerato Shadi

Finissage 28.02.2024, 6pm

Sagal Farah and Lerato Shadi play the central organ of Ballhaus Naunynstraße, the staircase between workshop and art, between rehearsal and public, between yesterday and tomorrow, and from there everything unfolds. Open on all performance days, one hour before the start of the event. The exhibition is not barrier-free. More

Free entrance

By José Fernando Peixoto de Azevedo

16 – 20 February 2024

Orestes returns home to a completely destroyed world. He is tasked with restoring justice. But what is justice? And how can it endure? José Fernando Peixoto de Azevedo, one of the prominent figures in Black Brazilian Theatre, presents in his production a Black perspective on violence and the possible end of violence. More

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Film

In English, Swahili, German, Kitharaka (with English subtitles)

Mother tongue – it takes a long time for our dreams to change language. Shot in lockdown, MU/T/T/ER is an introspective meditation on the twisting and breaking of language, drawing on the work of Audre Lorde, M. NourbeSe Philip and May Ayim. In doing so, Esther Kondo Heller approaches the process of filmmaking like a poet, focusing on overlays and unfoldings to articulate memory, resonance and language. More

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PORTRAIT PERFORMANCE

by Thiago Rosa

15 – 18 May 2024

 The portrait performance by Thiago Rosa is back! At school, history books told colonial history. A Black teacher said, „That’s just one perspective.“ There is a connection from the Black history teacher to the fact that Thiago Rosa is now in Europe, living in Berlin. There is a connection between Thiago Rosa’s Black grandmother to the gaps in the history books and the fact that Thiago Rosa is an artist. More

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Ballhaus Naunynstraße invites Black people in leadership positions to share their experiences and take part in a public discussion. After all, much of the knowledge gathered here is likely to be helpful for others – for colleagues, for those who are in the starting blocks, for those who need further perspectives, for the next generation. More

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In English

The film shows Mrs. wandering through Berlin at night, preparing for performances and on stage. Black women in the blues, artists from the 1910s to the 1950s, Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday, are quoted and embodied – until historical references are made right up to the present day.
Eloquent in prose, poetry, spoken word and blues, Mrs., this blues personality, explores the relationship of black women to beauty and pain. More

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Concert

We are 3 women, 3 people, 3 women, 3 Black women who have been making music together for over 10 years. Our respective life paths and visions are different and yet similar. Something common emerged from opening up, listening, communicating and trying things out. This is how our music grows with us. More

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Many artists started here, many moved on to bigger stages; what they all have in common is that they have made a contribution to an unlikely story: That a theater with a focus on Black protagonists has now existed in Germany for ten years and is emphatically setting impulses in culture, politics and science. Some of these artists will come together on this evening: They will provide insights into their work and that of Ballhaus Naunynstraße and reflect together on the impact of theater. More

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Due to a temporary fault in the central telephone line, we kindly ask you to send your questions to the various departments at Ballhaus Naunynstraße exclusively by e-mail. The telephone number (030) 754 537 25 is still available for ticket reservations only. Thank you for your understanding.

PREMIERE

By Magda Korsinsky
Part of the dance series Wie ich werde, wie ich sein will

Stroboscope will be used

This society poses too many obstacles for Black FLINTA*, too much violence. So where do they find strength and self-confidence? a choreographic and performative network woven from the experiences of Black FLINTA* individuals. WERDEN is part of the series Wie ich werde, wie ich sein will (How I will become, you I want to be) at Ballhaus Naunynstraße, in which three Black choreographers inquire about the important inspirations, solidarities, and connections for the empowerment of self-determined Black femininities. More

A short film by DeLovie Kwagala Aka Papa De

The short film That Ugandan Flaming Homosexual tells the story of growing up in Uganda from a personal perspective. According to DeLovie Kwagala aka Papa De, the film tells a story „about my constant becoming, rooted in my traumatic experience of growing up „different“ but never knowing what „different“ meant. The film tells the story of navigating my sexuality and identity through a homophobic society to eventually become Uganda’s first openly non-binary queer photographer*.

Tickets are available here.

„Moments when I feel my blackness are always connected to a sombre, dark feeling – I affectionately refer to this feeling as my dystopian Black Discomfort.

When I feel it, I become a part of a collective pain that feels like fainting. I feel it, for example, when a politician on a political talk show unabashedly and casually uses the N-word. At the same time, however, I feel the power of a collective consciousness – a Black collective reservoir of knowledge, a history of which I am a part.“

Jessica Weisskirchen, a member of the jury for the Federal Theater Prize 2023 in the category „Municipal and State Theaters“, also composed by Nuran David Calis, Gunnar Decker and Anna-Katharina Müller.

To read the speech and the official jury statement in full, click here.

Film by Brenda Akele Jorde

Germany, Mozambique, and South Africa – THE HOMES WE CARRY portrays a family spread across three countries. At its center is Afro-German Sarah, who travels to Southern Africa with her daughter Luana. Her father lives here, and Luana’s father is also expecting them. Luana is supposed to have a different relationship with her father, her grandfather, and her family in Mozambique and South Africa than what was possible for Sarah as a child. Because, at that time, a world was falling apart – her father Eulidio recalls the almost forgotten history of Mozambican contract workers in East Germany. THE HOMES WE CARRY is Brenda Akele Jorde’s documentary debut and her final project at the Film University Babelsberg Konrad Wolf.

Tickets are available here.

„We are delighted about this award – an acknowledgment of our work at Ballhaus Naunynstraße that spans over a decade. In brief, it revolves around decolonization and intersectionality, the visibility of Black people and People of Colour, access, societal participation, the expansion of the arts, and an effort to bring about change in society through the arts“.

Wagner Carvalho, artistic director and managing director of Ballhaus Naunynstraße

„When I was nine years old, I danced for the first time at Ballhaus. The piece explored the relationship between Black children and their white grandmothers who grew up during the National Socialist period…. The stage at Ballhaus Naunynstraße provides People of Colour and queer individuals a space to present themselves and their perspectives“.

Naê Selka de Paiva, 14 years old and the youngest artist of Ballhaus Naunynstraße.

To read the full speeches, click here.

Panel discussion with Marlize André, Lewamm Ghebremariam and Jeff Kwasi Klein.

How can we create spaces in the face of structural violence? For ourselves and for others. How can we build spaces that allow us to take a breath and empower ourselves? Spaces where we meet, encounter each other, share knowledge, dance, and collectively create something. Spaces where we establish structures to act publicly with strength. Ultimately, it’s about reshaping life according to our desires and goals.

Thursday 05.10, 8 pm

Tickets are available here.

We’re celebrating! We’re celebrating twice!

We wanted to celebrate our anniversary: For ten years now, since the Black Lux Festival – a celebration of Black perspectives, Black artists have been influencing discussions, politics, and everyday life from the stage of Ballhaus Naunynstraße. That’s what we wanted to celebrate. And now we have been awarded for this very work! The Theater Prize of the Federal Government 2023 goes to Ballhaus Naunynstraße. We’re celebrating twice – and DJs and sound artists like Blck Crcker, Sky Deep, Ford Kelly, Pam Bam, and Ava Irandoost will create the beat to dance, the rhythm of this celebration, the soundtrack to this night!

Saturday, October 21st, 8pm

Admission: 1€, tickets

Lecture-Concert by meLê yamomo & Eurico Ferreira Mathias

Sound scientist and composer meLê yamomo and cellist Eurico Ferreira Mathias come together once again. The classical repertoire of European music history shaped their education. The musical landscape of their everyday life was marked by other frequencies. Now they meet here to play the borders of the two sound worlds in trying out, thinking, speaking, creating sounds.

The production will then go on tour, invited to this year’s November Music Festival in the Netherlands, performed on the occasion of the presentation of the Open Ear Award to meLê yamomo.

Tickets are available here.

Ballhaus Naunynstrasse has been awarded the Theater Prize of the Federal Government. on 11.10.2023! Our thanks to Culture Minister Claudia Roth and the the International Theater Institute – Center Federal Republic of Germany (ITI) in collaboration with the Fonds Darstellende Künste e.V.

Ten years, one festival – Ballhaus Naunynstraße celebrates the tenth anniversary of Black Berlin Black, the largest producing festival of Black perspectives in Germany. Since 2013, since Black Lux – a homecoming festival of Black perspectives, the biennial event has been an opportunity for the venue to invite translocally operating artists to perform and collaborate in Berlin, presenting concerts, exhibitions, discussions, theater, performances, dance, and films.

In this spirit, the theme of this year’s edition is United Polyphonic – as the experiences are numerous, the struggles are numerous, and the artistic and political strategies of Black self-assertion are diverse. For six months, from September 2023 to February 2024, Ballhaus Naunynstraße will showcase a wide range of Black perspectives and works

PREMIERE

Performance by Family Connection

At the center is the story of feminist, Black liberation work. Glenda Martinus, Caribbean artist and part of the Family Connection collective, was employed as an office worker in the 1970s and 1980s, recognizing the need to advocate for labor rights – after all, Caribbean women had been leading labor struggles since enslavement. Thanks to a fellowship program developed by revolutionary choreographer, dancer and academic Rex Nettleford at the University of the West Indies‘ Women and Development Unit (WAND), she was given the opportunity to travel back and forth between different Caribbean islands and participate in political workshops. This story for Family Connection is the occasion to reflect in this performance on forms of learning beyond institutions, on solidarity and on the collectivization of struggle.

Performance: Thursday, 07.09.23, 8 p.m.

                         Friday, 08.09.23, 8 p.m.

Tickets are available here.

Lecture-Performance by Quinsy Gario

Quinsy Gario, a Caribbean-Dutch poet, visual artist, and performer, known especially for his performance Zwarte Piet Is Racisme (Black Pete Is Racism), continues his project of renewing historiography with his lecture-performance Tracing a memory pt. III.

 The starting point is historical footage of the Caribbean islands, captured on 35-millimeter black-and-white motion picture. These recordings were commissioned, shortly after World War II, by the Rijksvoorlichtingsdienst (Information Service of the Dutch Government) during the Indonesian War of Independence against Dutch colonial rule. In 2019, Quinsy Gario and his mother Glenda Martinus traveled to St. Maarten, one of the islands documented in the films. They visited the same places and filmed them again, this time on Super-8: tracing a memory.

Tuesday, 12.09.23, 8 p.m.

Wednesday, 13.09.23, 8 p.m.

Tickets available here.

Talk with Sandrine Micossé-Aikins and Beatrace Angut Oola

One’s appearance is political. Hair is political. Sandrine Micossé-Aikins, art scholar and head of the Berlin Conception and Consulting Center for Diversity Arts Culture, has published „People of the Comb. Contemporary Hair Politics in Ghana”. This book untangles the interweaving of beauty standards, social control, economic motivations, sexuality, and desire in Ghana. She shows how lived aesthetic practices could serve as resistance and self-design outside the sphere of white dominance.

Friday, 15.09.23, 8 p.m.

Tickets available here.

Film by Mona Okulla Obua

Indigo, the color of the diaspora, of a diasporic life – where old connections are sought and new intertwinements are formed. Mona Okulla Obua’s short film follows two Afro-German women, showcasing their distinct perspectives on Black identities. The narrative threads that ultimately weave together in a hair braiding ritual are diverse: Within this shared act and the transmission of ancestral knowledge lies healing.

Saturday, 16.09.23, 8 p.m.

Tickets available here.

Perfomance by Bishop Black

This world is rigid, it is becoming more rigid. The increasing potency of radical right-wing, nationalist positions is hardening the binary orders dominated by Christianity and whiteness. The movement must begin, accelerate, spread warmth. It has already begun, without beginning or end. Into other multiverses.

Bishop Black seeks decolonization. Movement by movement, image by image, word by word, Bishop Black works against the old myth of „In the beginning was purity.“ With every sound layer and every muscle movement they seek to resist the pressure of the old polar axis powers of sexual identity and racial identity and to open the gravitational field to a third, open, unknown pole.

Wednesday, 27.09.23, 8 p.m.

Thursday, 09.28.23, 8 p.m.

Friday, 09.29.23, 8 p.m.

Saturday, 30.09.23, 8 p.m.

Tickets are available here.

FOR BLACK WOMEN*, AGED 25 TO 35 YEARS

Magda Korsinsky is a Black choreographer and visual artist living in Berlin. For her new production as part of „Wie ich werde, wie ich sein will“ (“How I will become, who I want to be”) she is looking for about five Black women*, aged 25 to 35, who are interested in participating in a performance project.

When a woman* grows up, where does she draw her strength, her self-confidence as a Black woman*? What roles do media, friends, parents play? What do the struggles of the last thirty years mean to her?

The result is a choreographic-performative stage production, woven from the wealth of experience of Black women*. This will be her fourth work at Ballhaus Naunynstraße: after „Gazes that matter“ (2014), she staged „STRICKEN“, a work about relationships of Black granddaughters* to their white grandmothers socialized under National Socialism (2019), and „PATTERNS“, a dance performance about everyday behavior patterns, performed by ten Black women* (2019).

For the performance in the context of „Wie ich werde, wie ich sein will“ [AT], about five female experts* of everyday life come together to exchange ideas about the meaning of their role models: Who do they choose as role models? Where do they get their inspiration? Which images do they grow from? How do they deal with conflicts, which dreams, ideas and self-designs motivate them?

If you are interested, please register for one of the two selection workshops with a short description of yourself – stage experience is not necessary, but the desire for movement, text and the stage:

Sunday Sept. 3, 2023 or Saturday Sept. 9, 2023, from 10 a.m. – 2 p.m.
Please bring a document (photo, text, video) of one of your role models.

Rehearsals will begin in early October, and will likely take place on Wednesday or Thursday evenings and weekends. The performance will premiere on Friday Dec. 15, 2023 at Ballhaus Naunynstraße, 8pm. Three performances will immediately follow. Resumptions with a few months interval are planned.

For registrations, suggestions and questions please contact Magda Korsinsky directly contact@magdakorsinsky.com.

From Ballhaus Naunynstrasse, we wish you all a nice summer break and we will see you back in the Fall!

CANCELED

PREMIERE

By Bishop Black

In B*romance, four Black queer protagonists embark on a quest for self-determined Black identities and more (fear-)free ways of relating. What images of self-determined identity do they develop, what relationships do they shape? And where? Welcome to the Pink Gym! Bishop Black acted in the last years at Ballhaus Naunynstraße as a performer in Permanente Beunruhigung (2017) and Your Devices (2018), as a solo artist in the multiple revived performance Becoming my body (2019) and as a play director of the production re-searching joy (2022) within the akademie der autodidakten. B*romance is Bishop Black’s debut as a director.

CONCERT

by Nevzat Akpınar and Merve Akyıldız

10 May 2024, 8 p.m.

… More

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Theater

By Yatri Niehaus

5 – 8 March 2024 (with English surtitles)

The play Abdruckkörper is coming back! The Afro-German protagonist of Abdruckkörper navigates his body within and away from the predetermined course. For, the direction, the trajectory is marked. German society is a historically constructed architecture. A cultural labyrinth, that produces networks of relationships, wealth, visibility and exclusions. Whiteness is inscribed in the social disposition. The protagonist, the ego, lurches. More

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Dance performance by Raphael Moussa Hillebrand

The popular dance performance is back! Based on his experience of growing up in Berlin in the 1980s and 90s, dancer and choreographer Raphael Moussa Hillebrand attempts to shape his own life experience so that the next generation and his own child can pick up on it.

Performance: Thursday, 6.1.23, 8pm

                          Friday, 6.2.23, 8pm

                          Saturday, 6.3.23, 8pm

                          Sunday, 6.4.23, 7pm

Tickets are available here.

Dance performance by Jao Moon

Everybody can be everybody can not be is a danced queer performance about exotization, energies of resistance and self-determined visibilities. After Gritty Glamour (201 5), FRUTAS AFRODISÍACAS (2016) and the solo performance Memory of Dislocation ‒ Exactly the same is the opposite direction (2017), Ballhaus Naunynstraße now presents Jao Moon’s fourth production with Everybody can be everybody can not be and on our stage for the fourth time.

Performance: Wednesday, 6.21.23, 8pm

                          Thursday, 6.22,23, 8pm

                          Friday, 6.23.23, 8pm

                          Saturday, 6.24.23, 8pm

Tickets are available here.

PREMIERE

FOR HEALTH REASONS TODAY’S PRESENTATION, ON 03/27/2023, UNFORTUNATELY HAS BEEN CANCELLED!

Play by To Doan

There are four of them, friends and siblings, beyond the binary code. Despite the different paths they take, something keeps them together. But if you want change, you risk yourself. But where do you get the strength from when life is already risky? For Asarela Orchidia Dewi, RISKANT. Vögel aufscheuchen is the directorial debut. The dramatic text of RISKANT. Vögel aufschuchen is the fourth theater text created in the writing workshop Unconventional Signs – neue postmigrantische Theatertexte to receive its world premiere at the house.

Performance: Friday, 3.24.23, 8pm

                          Saturday, 3.25.23, 8pm

                          Sunday, 3.26.23, 7pm

                          Monday, 3.27.23, 8pm

                          Tuesday, 3.28.23, 8pm

Tickets are available here.

Performance by Bishop Black

Bishop Black is driving decolonization; movement for movement, with every sound layer, every video layer, every muscle movement, with every sentence they counter the pressure of the old polar axis powers of sexual identity and racial identity. Becoming My Body is the way against colonization – be it in and through sexuality concepts and derived fashion, be it through Eurocentric cosmology and epistemology. Becoming My Body is a performative, danced, synthetic stepping towards a space where other power relations prevail, Bishop Black’s invitation into their multiverses.

Performance: Saturday, 3.11.23, 8pm

                          Sunday, 3.12.23, 7pm

                          Monday, 3.13.23, 8pm

                          Tuesday, 3.14.23, 8pm

Tickets are available here.

PORTRAITPERFORMANCE

by TRVΛNIΛ

07 – 10 March 2023

Just stay composed.

Two places. Stretched between two societies, two energies, connected with friends, languages, sounds, affection across half the globe – on good days the ego levitates. On bad days, the burden of the situation and the coldness of the surrounding society are unbearable.

Just stay composed. Do not pose. Just stay composed.

More

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Theater

By Atilla Oener

27 – 30 September 2024

Im Strom is back!  Kubi used to be one of the most popular party organisers of the city. Now he is living with his parents again. hey migrated to Germany from Turkey in the 1970s, worked hard and achieved modest prosperity. With Im Strom, Attila Oener showcases the roller coaster ride of life. The short-term goal of his protagonist: pay off debts, stand on own feet and be someone again! This dramatic script was created within the framework of the writing workshop Unconventional Signs – neue postmigrantische Theatertexte at the Ballhaus Naunynstraße during the 2020/21 season. More

TICKETS

Lecture by Quinsy Gario

The high-profile demands of formerly colonized countries are having an impact: major ethnographic museums are currently wrestling with the question of what to do with collections acquired through colonial expropriation or unequal power relations. Using his own travels to Germany, specifically Berlin and Munich, as a starting point, Quinsy Gario invites us to consider how Black subjectivity can be centered when engaging with colonial legacies and ethnographic museums.

Lecture: Sunday, February 26, 7pm

Tickets available here.

Play

In Auf dem Mars sieht die Welt so aus, author Patty Kim Hamilton depicts a sibling relationship, brother and sister, and the impact of political discourse on personal relationships. The dramatic text was created as part of the writing workshop Unconventional Signs – neue postmigrantische Theatertexte at Ballhaus Naunynstraße in the 2020 / 21 season. Two siblings, 16 months apart. The age difference hardly mattered. As a child, you adapt to norms, fashions, institutions. The social environment brings pressure, and suddenly decisions are made. And what if they turn out differently? What language do you speak then?

Tickets are available here.

akademie der autodidakten

In the project Scar-City, the participants of the akademie der autodidakten, under the guidance of the multidisciplinary performance artist Ariel William Orah, deal with questions around the topics of wealth, empathy, healing, self-empowerment. Because lack is a practice of domination.

Performance: Sunday, 4.2.23, 7pm

                          Monday, 4.3.23, 8pm

                          Tuesday, 4.4.23, 8pm                      

Tickets are available here.

Concert

With almost sixty concerts in 2022 alone, Shishani is certainly one of the great musicians of the Netherlands. She acts as a singer, guitarist and songwriter. Now she is coming to Berlin – with her formation Miss Catharsis! By bringing their own stories to the table, musicians Jasmine van der Waals, Jaimie van Hek, Ceciel Moyano and Shishani create a sound that embraces and transcends genres like soul, reggae, jazz and indie rock.

Concert: Tuesday, January 24, 8pm

Tickets are available here.

Lecture by Minna Salami

Minna Salami studied political science and gender studies and is one of the most prominent thinkers on Black feminisms today. As an author, lecturer and advisor to governments on the subject of gender equality, she actively contributes to expanding the spaces of action of Black women. In a world of crises, the question of what it means to be human is central. From a Black feminist perspective grounded in contemporary African thought, Minna Salami addresses this challenge.

Lecture: Monday, January 23, 8pm

Tickets are available here.

A girl and her grandmother, two related bodies meeting between generations, eras. A significant distance, women’s roles, body images, values; nevertheless, an undeniable connection. The relationship we have with our grandparents is complex ‒ and presumably underestimated. Especially when the grandmother was raised during the Nazi era.

 More

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A film by Thais Nepomuceno

Herdeiros (The Heirs) is a documentary about samba, about carnival, about the power of a resistant tradition, the film tells the story of the cultural and musical history, of the African heritage of formerly enslaved people in Brazil today.

Portuguese with English subtitles

Film screening: Wednesday, January 18, 8pm

Tickets available here.

Workshop led by Maureen Maisha Auma and Eben Louw

The confidential discussion aims to promote mutual support within Berlin’s diverse Black community and encourages intergenerational exchange. The focus is on knowledge and ways to nurture and grow one’s own as well as collective energies.

Workshop: Saturday, January 21, 8pm

Tickets are available here.

The event „Im Strom“ from November 10-13 must unfortunately be cancelled!

From November 18 – 21, re-searching joy of the academy of autodiacts is back on our stage.

Tickets are available here.

From October 27 to 30, Pepe Dayaw’s portrait performance is back with us. In it Pepe shows his art and his life: He grew up with a gendered uniform mandate at school, with catholic dogmatism, in a nationalist post-colonialism.
The series PORTRAIT provides artists with the space to showcase themselves, their own skills and artforms, yes that, what is truly important.

Click here for tickets.

A new festival is in the starting blocks for us: we are very excited to open Black Berlin Black – Widerstand in November. Every two years since Black Lux we join forces for several weeks and set new accents. Over four months, from November 2022 to February 2023, we set impulses. The focus is on resistance: forms of resisting; of remembering what should be forgotten; of saying what should remain hidden in silence; of taking what should be exclusive; of doing together where loneliness should reign.

And so we open Black Berlin Black – Widerstand with a guest performance from Brazil, a counter-interpretation of a classic of white theater history, on November 4 and 5, 2022. Directed by José Fernando Peixoto de Azevedo, it becomes a representation of Black reality: Navalha na Carne Negra.

Tickets can be found here.

Auf meinen Schultern geht wieder auf Tour: Dieses Mal freuen wir uns beim Interkulturellen Theaterfestival Made in Germany in Stuttgart dabei zu sein.
Am 19. November um 20:30 Uhr betreten Raphael Moussa Hillebrand und Eurico Ferreira Mathias wieder gemeinsam die Bühne für ihre eindrückliche Performance.

Tickets findet Ihr auf der Website des Festivals Made in Germany.

Two musicians, two life stories, a musical encounter, a concert. Brazilian jazz, Argentine zamba, jazz standards and improvisation – many elements and influences can be found here. And yet the jazz cellist Eurico Ferreira Mathias as well as the guitarist and sound artist Nacho Buk follow their own individual sound, in which some elements of contemporary music also appear. The focus is the encounter: it’s the moment of coming together, of listening, of sharing, of feeling – Zwa as it is called in the context of ubuntu – that creates the sound.

Concert: October 21, 8 pm

Click here for tickets.

In October, we are especially looking forward to a highlight: the concert of the Brazilian singer-songwriter Chico César, who will stop by us at Ballhaus Naunystraße on October 6 as part of his world tour. Vestido de Amor, the tenth studio album by Chico César, delves deep into Pan-Africanism, this time from the perspective of the diaspora.

October 6, 2022; 8pm

Click here for tickets.

After its premiere in September 2021, Courageux! Furchtlos! returns to our stage from October 15-18.
Dominant discourses prevent a deed from becoming a heroic deed and the doer from becoming a black role model. Directed by Atif Mohammed Nor Hussein, the performers Maya Alban-Zapata, Lamin Leroy Gibba , Aloysius Itoka and Diana Marie Müller survey the resulting void – based on a text by Amina Eisner and Atif Mohammed Nor Hussein. 

The dance performance Memory of Dislocation – Exactly the same in the opposite direction by Jao Moon will open October with us.

In Memory of Dislocation Jao Moon traverses spaces of social segregation in Colombia, spaces of heteronormativity, precarity, dance discipline, queerness and Berlin club culture.

DATES: October 1/3/4, 8pm & October 2, 7pm.

TICKETS can be found here.

Because I grew up here, I dream. Whose dream?

Just because one grew up in this system, doesn’t mean that one feels good in it, that one supports it. Or does it? Just because one holds the society in one’s own body, doesn’t mean that one dreams the same dreams. Or does it?

Abdruckkörper is the theater debut of film director Yatri Niehaus and was created as part of the project Unconventional Signs – new postmigrant theater at Ballhaus Naunynstraße. After the premiere on June 17, Abdruckkörper now returns to the stage from September 21 to 24.

TICKETS are available here.

Dear audience,

we can’t wait to celebrate the new season with you! On September 9 at 8 pm the time has come. We will start the new season with the premiere of Im Strom, the directorial debut of Atilla Oener. Im Strom was created as part of the writing workshop Unconventional Signs – new postmigrant theater texts at Ballhaus Naunynstraße in the 2020/21 season and shows a rollercoaster ride that is life. Kubi used to be one of the hottest party promoters in town. Now he lives back home with his parents. They had migrated from Turkey to Germany in the 1970s, worked hard and made it to modest prosperity. The protagonist’s short-term goal: to pay off debts, to stand on his own two feet again, to be somebody again! And his long-term? Kubi is working. He’s fed up with racism, with his parents‘ ideas of the good (family) life, with this I-have-so-me of his environment. 

We look forward to seeing you!

September 09/10/12/13, 8pm & September 11, 7pm. Tickets can be found here.

31. Juli und 01. August 2022

Auf meinen Schultern

Goethe-Institut Sri Lanka

Dear audience,

with Auf meinen Schultern (engl. On my shoulders) by Rapahel Hillebrand, we have closed this eventful season. With several premieres and successful re-stagings, we now take our leave for the summer break.

We will keep you informed about the program for the next season, starting September 9th, here and in our newsletter!

We wish you a wonderful summer!

The team of Ballhaus Naunynstraße

The brilliant final of this season is the re-staging Auf meinen Schultern by Raphael Moussa Hillebrand, musically accompanied by the cellist Eurico Ferreira Mathias. The play can be seen here from June 27 to 30.

Click here for tickets.

From mid-March to early June, a group of young BIPOC met, led by the performance artist Bishop Black, in order to experiment with different forms of artistic expressions, with contemporary dance, contact improvisation and acting. The central question was on how passion, joy and vitality can be reclaimed, since they are crucial for self-empowerment and liberation.

re-searching joy: June 4-6. For tickets click here.

Because I grew up here, I dream. Whose dream?

Just because one grew up in this system, doesn’t mean that one feels good in it, that one supports it. Or does it? Just because one holds the society in one’s own body, doesn’t mean that one dreams the same dreams. Or does it?

Abdruckkörper (June 17-21) is the theatre debut of film director Yatri Niehaus and is part of the project Unconventional Signs – neues postmigrantisches Theater.

Click here for tickets.

The specialist in sound studies and composer meLê yamomo and the cellist Eurico Ferreira Mathias are coming together once again at Ballhaus Naunynstraße May 27 & 28, at 8 pm for their performance Eigenschwingungen – Forces of Overtones. The classical repertoire of European music history has shaped their education. The musical landscape of their everyday life was shaped by other frequencies. By meeting here, they will explore the limits of the two sound worlds, pierce them, interfuse them, in order to generate decolonial waves and forms of listening.

Click here for tickets.

Let’s go into the last month of the 2021/22 season! Two premieres are on the program: re-searching joy by the akademie der autodidakten opens the month. The performance focuses on the question of how joy can be reclaimed in a structurally racist society. The result can be seen from 04 – 06 June. Click here for ticktes.

Abdruckkörper is the second premiere of the month and the theatrical debut of film director Yatri Niehaus. In this we see an Afro-German protagonist maneuvering between the demands, expectations, drawers, trap doors and career lifts of this society. This premiere marks a unique continuity: it is the eighth Afro-German drama created and premiered at Ballhaus Naunynstraße. To be seen from 17 – 21- June! Click here for tickets.

The brilliant conclusion of this season is the revival Auf meinen Schultern. With more than 25 performances since its world premiere in September 2019, this dance performance by Raphael Moussa Hillebrand, musically accompanied by cellist Eurico Ferreira Mathias, is one of the much requested productions in our repertory. On view June 27-30. Click here for tickets.

Is it possible to travel with the help of sound? To unknown places? We know, since the sound events of Sun Ra, that sound has a driving energy. It is an energy that can transport us away from all earthly borders to other planets. And when we speak of earthly borders, we mean the man-made hierarchies, exclusions, arrangements of bodies and roles, of thought patterns and patterns of behaviour. Sound is the energy that propels us into open space.

Synthesized Planet will take place on May 20 & 21 as part of the Decolonial Frequencies festival, curated in collaboration with meLê yamomo.

Find tickets here.

In Echoing Europe – Postcolonial Reverberations, the performer, composer and sound studies scholar meLê yamomo re-arranges European musical appreciation as colonial history. The focus is on the recording techniques in times of colonialism, specifically in the period 1890-1950 in Southeast Asia. With Echoing Europe, meLê yamomo creates together with the performer Pepe Dayaw a new sound chamber at Ballhaus Naunynstraße: electronic music and historic sound documents, recordings dealing with the Berlin archives and their current policies constitute the elements of his musical narrative. 

The performance can be seen here on May 6 & 7. Tickets are available here.

The composer, performer and video director, Isabel Gonzalez Toro and the cultural geographer and singer, Anjeline de Dios are coming together for the first time at Ballhaus Naunynstraße. Unprepared. With several years of experience. They create spaces with their own art, open spaces in which the usual hierarchies of judgment and exploitation are suspended for the moment. What they have in common, is that they understand sound as an act of decolonial and feminist power. Because sound doesn’t just exist on its own, it is a shared endeavour.

Tuning In To Resonances will take place May 13 & 14 as part of the festival Decolonial Frequencies in curational collaboration with meLê yamomo.

Click here for tickets.

In Unknown Frequencies, Emilio Cordero Checa and Marque-Lin look for the political power of noise, for the comfort within noise. Because the opposite of „music“ is not silence.

On April 21 & 22, their lecture performance can be seen on our stage. Tickets are available here.

From April 27 to 30, 2022, the Thiago Rosa’s portrait performance can be seen again after its premiere in September 2021 at Ballhaus Naunynstraße. Click here for tickets.

The month of May is characterized by the Decolonial Frequencies festival, curated by meLê yamomo, which started in 2021. He opens the month together with Pepe Dayaw and their sound performance Echoing Europe – Postcolonial Reverberations. In it, they re-arrange the European colonial history of music. The performance can be seen on May 6 & 7 at 8pm.

Click here for tickets.

We also have two more program items as part of the Decolonial Frequencies festival with the sound performances of Anjeline de Dios & Isabel Toro on May 13 & 14 and Pisitakun & Sky Deep, on May 20 & 21. We will keep you updated on our website for further information and ticket links.

At the end of the month, meLê yamomo and Eurico Ferreira Mathias enter our stage again with Eigenschwinungen – Forces of Overtones on May 27 and May 28 (as part of the Performing Arts Festival). The lecture-concert had its premiere in November 2021.

For tickets, please follow this link.

Memory of Dislocation is the name of the dance performance that will open April with us. In this long-awaited revival of the piece, dancer and choreographer Jao Moon explores queerness, spaces of heternormativity, and spaces of social segregation in Colombia. April 6-9, Memory of Dislocation at 8 pm. each night. Tickets can be ordered here.

Thiago Rosa’s portrait performance is also back on our stage April 27-30. Tickets can be purchased here.

In addition to the two revivals, the Decolonial Frequencies festival, curated by meLê yamomo, is back in April with several performances: for example, a new performance Overlapping Waves by Pepe Dayaw & J. Mo’ong Santoso Pribadi on April 14 & 15 at 8pm. Tickets can be purchased here. You can enjoy the lecture-performance Unkown Frequencies by Marque-Lin & Emilio Cordero Checa on April 21 & 22 at 8pm. Tickets can be ordered here.

From April 6 to 9, the dance performance Memory of Dislocation – Exactly the same in the opposite direction by Jao Moon will be on our stage again after a long time. In Memory of Dislocation Jao Moon traverses spaces of social segregation in Colombia, spaces of heteronormativity, precarity, dance discipline, queerness and Berlin club culture.

Click here for tickets.

If you couldn’t see Auf meinen Schultern in December, you can rejoice: From March 17 to 20, Raphael Moussa Hillebrand’s impressive dance performance is on stage again.

Get your tickets here.

The dance performance STRICKEN by Magda Korsinsky is back on our stage!
A girl and her grandmother, two related bodies meeting between generations, eras. A significant distance, women’s roles, body images, values; nevertheless, an undeniable connection. The relationship we have with our grandparents is complex ‒ and presumably underestimated. Especially when the grandmother was raised during the Nazi era.

Tickets are available here!

In the lecture performance Remix Almanya – A Postmigrant HipHop Narrative by Murat Güngör & Hannes Loh, images, texts, songs and films from 40 years of Almanya are remixed with personal experiences and social debates. Forgotten years of hip hop oldschool are traversed, the influence of reunification on the birth of Deutschrap (german rap) is illuminated, and the sound of gangsta rap is questioned – linked to themes of class, race and gender in this story of empowerment.

Remix Almanya – A Postmigrant Hip Hop Narrative takes place on March 12 as part of the Decolonial Frequencies, curated by meLê yamomo. For tickets, click here.

Dear audience,

as of Friday, March 4, 2022, the Berlin Senate has decided that the 3G rule will apply in Berlin theaters. You will be admitted to performances at Ballhaus Naunynstraße if you have either been fully vaccinated against Covid-19 or have recovered from Covid-19 or can present a current negative test. These requirements must be proven at the time of admission. Here, you can also find our current regulations to protect against COVID-19.

With Junctions Nasheeka Nedsreal and her ensemble trace the political power of dance. Based on a reflection of othermothering and care, they test the energetic, protective, connective qualities of the medium. Here, dance becomes an autonomous sphere, in which various differences are related, in which connecting factors are shaped and strengthened. Because junctions, stable connections are formative. Through them futures can be shaped.

JUNCTIONS February 24 til 28– click here for tickets.

March begins with a long-awaited revival: STRICKEN, a dance performance by Magda Korsinsky, is back on our stage! We also have a new program item as part of the Decolonial Frequencies festival, which started in 2021: Remix Almanya – A post-migrant hip-hop narrative as a lecture-performance by Hannes Loh and Murat Güngör in the program. Raphael Moussa Hillebrand’s dance performance Auf meinen Schultern (engl. On My Shoulders) from March 17-20 will be the brilliant finale of the March program.

Am 19. Februar jährt sich der Anschlag von Hanau zum zweiten Mal. Nach dem Mord an Walter Lübcke und dem Anschlag in Halle war dies ein weiterer rechtsterroristischer Anschlag innerhalb von wenigen Monaten in Deutschland.

Am 15. Februar 2022 lädt die Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung zu einer Abendveranstaltung ins Ballhaus Naunynstraße ein, um die Frage nach Sicherheit für alle in der offenen Gesellschaft zu diskutieren. Das Programm wird begleitet durch künstlerische Beiträge und Impulse.

Weiter Informationen finden Sie hier.

Because discourses reflect privileges: Who is speaking? Who is listening? Who has access to which technique? This seems clearly distributed. Here, in Alternative Acts, they determine how their voice sounds, what force it has, what there is to narrate and hear – so that this apparently clear, even monotonous order is shaken up by its own frequency.  

The participants of the akademie der autodidakten, led by the sound artist Shanti Suki Osman, have developed sounds that highlight personal and political stories about hopes, fears, the future and memories of young Black women and young women of Color from Berlin.  Now they will be presented to the public: the protagonists and producers will present their different voices, sounds and songs in a joint session and become interwoven to create a listening experience.

The month of February promises empowering programming, with a mix of dance, sound and performance. The revival Becoming My Body by Bishop Black opens February 4-7, followed by Gaung – Unpredictable Resonance, which first premiered in 2021 as part of the Decolonial Frequencies festival. We are also very excited about the Heinrich Böll Foundation’s special event: Sicherheit für alle! on Feb. 15.
Nasheeka Nedsreal closes February with a highlight: the premiere of her play Junctions from February 24 – 28.

Bishop Black seeks decolonisation. Movement by movement, image by image, word by word Bishop Black works to counteract the old myth of In the beginning there was purity. With every layer of sound and with every muscle movement he seeks to withstand the pressure of the old polar axis powers of sexual identity and racial identity and to open the gravitational field for a third, open, unknown pole.

Becoming My Body: February 4 – 7. Click here for tickets.

The gamelan is at the centre of Bilawa Respati und Ariel Orah’s performance Gaung – Unpredictable Resonance on February 12 & 13. It is an instrument of power. The tradition is royal and religious. Both of them have grown up with this tradition. They know about the powerful expectations of this spiritual, political and – from the other side – exoticizing style of play. But their own experiences call for a different play. Can sound sequences be found that elude the hegemonic setting?

Click here for tickets!

Dear audience,

the 2G-plus rule applies in Berlin theatres from Saturday, January 15. You will be admitted to performances at Ballhaus Naunynstraße if you have either been fully vaccinated against Covid-19 or have recovered from Covid-19 and can present a current negative test or a booster vaccination. These requirements must be proven at the time of admission (2G-plus rule). Tickets already ordered for upcoming events can be canceled. Here, you can also find our current regulations to protect against COVID-19.

At school, the history books spoke of colonial history. A Black teacher said, “this is just one perspective.” Since he was responsible for the exams, he examined Black History. There is a connection between the Black history teacher and the fact that Thiago Rosa is now in Europe and lives in Berlin. There is a connection between Thiago Rosa’s Black grandmother to the gaps in the history books and the fact that Thiago Rosa is an artist.

From January 15 to 18, 2022, the Thiago Rosa’s portrait performance can be seen for the second time after its premiere in September 2021 at Ballhaus Naunynstraße. Click here for tickets.

From October 2021 onwards, Black women and women of Colour came together for a dance and movement workshop. Led by the dancer Yvonne Sembene, they dealt with the body as a medium of communication and dealt with the interrelationship between one’s own body and others. The focus was on the empowering access to one’s body, the playful use of newly developed and tested means of expression, as well as the development of a common language of movement.

Be there when the group presents their work Verbunden in a final performance on January 21, 8 pm at Ballhaus Naunynstraße.

Click here for tickets.

We grow up in society – but how can one grow in a society that was once sold off by colonial powers? Identities develop through cultural imprints, suggestions and influences. How can one develop one’s ego when the culture is saturated with propagandistic artefacts?

Pepe Dayaw will be showing his portrait performance, which was first performed at Ballhaus Naunynstraße in September 2021, from January 07 to 10, 2022. 
Get your tickets here.

An exciting program awaits you for the month of December! Territory, a documentary theater by Atilla Oener, will open this month. From December 3 to 6, four protagonists tell about their journey: how they became who they are today; about the spaces they have passed through and the struggles they have fought with themselves and others.

Click here for tickets.

After a long time, the akademie der autodidakten is also back with in the program: Carving Out Community shows black, queer, feminist and postcolonial perspectives: six young protagonists negotiate community, solidarity and resistance on stage – and the meaning they have in their lives. The performance can be seen here from December 17 to 19, 2021.

Click here for tickets.

Dancer and choreographer Raphael Hillebrand will perform his piece Auf meinen Schultern at EinTanzHaus in Mannheim on December 03 and 04, 2021, both at 8 pm. Click here for more info.

Closing December will be Auf meinen Schultern, a dance performance by Raphael Hillebrand from December 27 to 30, 2021. We look forward to seeing you! Auf meinen Schultern (On my shoulders) is a solo performance by the dancer and choreographer Raphael Hillebrand, his first at Ballhaus Naunynstraße. Based on his experience of growing up in Berlin in the 1980s and 90s, he attempts to give shape to his own lived experience so that the next generation and his own child can connect to it ‒ a danced, break-danced, spoken and performed passing on.

Click here to get tickets.

In the new year 2022, the excitement continues. The portrait performances of Pepe Dayaw and Thiago Rosa can be seen again after their debuts in September 2021. And the akademie der autodidakten also has two new projects for our program! In Verbunden, a movement workshop led by dancer Yvonne Sembene, participants engaged with the body as a medium of communication and explored the interrelationship of their own bodies with others.

The participants of Alternative Acts developed sound pieces with Shanti Suki Osman, focusing on personal and political stories about hopes, fears, the future and memories of young Black women* and young women* of color from Berlin. 

With a group of ten Black women, the choreographer and visual artist Magda Korsinsky has taken a look at everyday behaviour patterns, gestural routines, repetitions of the self. Patterns that unconsciously and sometimes consciously define us, patterns that are our bodies. We develop them under pressure and against the pressure of the behavioural standards of the dominant society. Behaviour that can be shifted and developed to create our own counter-rhythms.

In collaboration with ten everyday experts, PATTERNS turns the everyday lives of Black women into a choreography, an archive of self-determined gestures, a new composition of the diverse actions of Black women.

You can watch PATTERNS on stage from November 3 to 6, each night at 8 pm.

Click here for tickets.

Dear Audience,

after a long time and several premieres this season, we are very pleased to announce two revivals. Our November program starts with PATTERNS, a performance by Magda Korsinsky, on November 3-6, 2021, at 8pm. Tickets are available here.

https://ballhausnaunynstrasse.de/person/raphael_hillebrand/Raphael Hillebrand’s dance performance Auf meinen Schultern will close out December, and with it the year 2021, with its performances on December 27-30. Click here for tickets.

In the time between these two performances, we are also excited to announce several new pieces and premieres. We’ll keep you updated with information on dates and ticket orders here and on our social media channels.

The lecture concert Eigenschwinungen – Forces of Overtones will close the first part of our festival Decolonial Frequencies. The specialist in sound studies and composer meLê yamomo and the cellist Eurico Ferreira Mathias are coming together at Ballhaus Naunynstraße November 11, at 8 pm. The classical repertoire of European music history has shaped their education. The musical landscape of their everyday life was shaped by other frequencies. By meeting here, they will explore the limits of the two sound worlds, pierce them, interfuse them, in order to generate decolonial waves and forms of listening.

Click here for tickets.

Gespräch, Lesung, Poetry

Our last program item in September is the premiere of Thiago Rosa. In his portrait performance the artist and performer gives us an insight into his growing up and his life path. At school, the history books spoke of colonial history. A Black teacher said, “this is just one perspective.” Since he was responsible for the exams, he examined Black History. There is a connection from the Black history teacher to the fact that Thiago Rosa is now in Europe, living in Berlin. There is a connection from Thiago Rosa’s Black grandmother to the blanks in the history books to the fact that Thiago Rosa is an artist….

Click here for tickets.

In October we have four great plays in our program. The staged reading Unvonventional Signs – new post-migrant theatre texts will open the october at Ballhaus Naunynstraße.

We need literature that mirrors our experience and that makes contemplation possible. Theatre needs literature that stages current society. We need post-migrant reflections and theatre models. We need a diverse abundance of the post-migrant landscape, for a new theatre setting. Unconventional Signs – New Post-Migrant Theatre Texts as a writing workshop is unique in this country.

Current and contemporary literature has been developed for the theatre by way of ten texts. Within two evenings we will present passages from them.

texts by: Amina Eisner, Patty Kim Hamilton, Toks Körner, Nina Karimy, Lamin Leroy Gibba, Mmakgosi Kgabi, To Doan, Dora Cheng, Yatri Niehaus, Atilla Oener

The first premiere of the month October is Echoes of the Stones by dancer and performer Silvia Ospina. She teamed up with the narrator, Aliza Yanez the musician and composer, Biliana Voutchkova and the video artist, Claire Fristot, in order to create her own artistic cosmos from her experiences.

Mountains, rivers, seas, heavenly bodies, animals and gods – the mythological counterparts of humans – were ripped from their symbolic orbits. Back then, when the conquistadors set sail. When they began to define all living things as material and used them dead or alive, according to the standards they set. The current crisis is giving birth to new forces – forces of the renewed repression, but also of resistance and self-determination.

Echoes of the Stones is an invitation to step out of the familiar structure, to search for the old and new, circular collaborations.

Click here for tickets.

At the center of the performance Gaung – Unpredictable Resonance by Bilawa Respati and Ariel Orah is the gamelan. It is an instrument of power. The tradition is royal and religious. The Indonesian government uses the gamelan as a messenger on festive, national occasions. Numerous musicians in strict costumes create the powerful vibration of a hierarchical society and a national identity. Bilawa Respati and Ariel Orah have grown up with this tradition. They know about the powerful expectations of this style of play: spiritual, political and exoticizing from the other side. But their own experiences call for a different play. Can sound sequences be found that elude the hegemonic setting? Can one use the complexity of the gamelan, which breaks all musical grids in European music, to have self-determined effects? Can the community-creating function of the instrument be utilized for a self-chosen gathering?

Bilawa Respati is trained in playing the gamelan. Ariel Orah’s focus is on electronic music. On October 17, you, dear audience, can witness how the two sound artists‘ own experiences of crossing borders and traversing cultural structures allow them to search for a new way of playing, a new approach to their instruments, as part of the Decolonial Frequencies festival.

Click here for tickets.

In sonus ‒ the sound within us the performance artist and sound scholar meLê yamomo invites us as an audience to immerse ourselves in the sentimentality of his childhood hometown and the soundtrack of his youth. He links his story with the history of imperialism, post-colonial nationalism and the migration of musicians rendered subaltern. What is the sound of memory? How do we listen to memory in its multitude – to histories? The sound of history is ephemeral. And yet it persists.

From October 22 to 25, the piece can be seen at Ballhaus Naunynstraße as part of the festival Decolonial Frequencies. Click here for tickets.

Dear audience,

we were pleased to be able to open the 2021/22 season with you. On September 2, 2021, the premiere of Courageux! Furchtlos! by director and writer Atif Mohammed Nor Hussein together with co-writer Amina Eisner kicked off the new season. A story about the lack of Black role models and hero*ines in the mainstream and a call to fill those voids.

Pepe Dayaw made his debut at Ballhaus Naunynstraße from September 11 to 13, 2021 – with a portrait performance, a fascinating insight into his artistic work. Thiago Rosa will show his portrait on September 24: With this, we are not only celebrating two premieres, but also the continuation of our PORTRÄT series: It offers artists the space to show themselves and their own skills and arts, indeed what is really important. PORTRÄT is thus an invitation to the audience to meet outstanding artists and to experience the complexity of their self-determined mode of expression, their art.

Sandeep Bhagwati’s lecture performance The Sound Of Misunderstanding – Dhvanivala‘s Sonic Explorations  opened the Decolonial Frequencies festival on September 19, 2021.  More than 20 artists are invited to this festival: Black perspectives, queer approaches, Asian-diasporic settings, post-migrant traditions, and voices of color, create their own sonic spaces and decolonial impulses for six months with numerous performances, lectures, and concerts. In his performance, Sandeep Bhagwatis follows the traces of electronic music between Darmstadt and Bollywood at the height of the postcolonial controversy, encountering a confusing play of identities, sounds and novel compositions.

We are back! Be excited about the new season! We are too and look forward to seeing you!

Your Ballhaus Naunynstraße

„We honor Raphael Hillebrand because, for all his charme and candor, he ist an artist through and through who recognizes an engine in the body that can only overcome the social imbalance injustice in our society through courage.“

With these convincing words, the jury of the German Dance Award justified their decision to honor Raphael Hillebrand for his outstanding achievements in contemporary dance as part of the German Dance Award 2020. The award ceremony took part October 17, 2020 in Essen, Germany.

Due to this special occasion, the dancer shows his current personal biographic play „Auf meinen Schultern“ from October 27 – October 30, 2020. The play has been produced at Ballhaus Naunynstraße and had it’s premiere September 2019.

For those who can’t make it in October: The next opportunity to experience this rousing dance performance is from December 10 to 13, 2020.

„Ballhaus Naunynstraße is one of the few (the only?) theatres in Germany that is committed to showing and supporting the perspectives of BIPOC and of those who identify as queer. It offers a strong impulse to development of postcolonial discourse and practices. Here, performance artist Nasheeka Nedsreal presents her first solo performance ‚New Growth’“. – Annette van Zwoll, tanzschreiber (21. Oktober 2020)

Here is the link to the review: tanzschreiber, am 21. Oktober 2020

Our next piece is just about to start. NEW GROWTH is back from october 19th! The first solo performance of dancer and performer Nasheeka Nedsreal at Ballhaus Naunynstraße.

Culture and monitoring. Appearance matters, women’s hair, black women’s hair. The person that touches your hair has power. Who is it? Is it you? Does empowerment also mean styling? 

What a great premiere of COMPLEX OF TENSIONS! We are still intoxicated by and overjoyed about last night’s great evening, with which we reopened our house after a long, unwanted break and started our new season 2020/2021!

A big THANK YOU to the whole artistic team and to the beautiful audience.

Foto: Ronni Maciel, Aloysius Itoka, Eurico Ferreira Mathias (Cello); Complex of Tensions; © Wagner Carvalho

We’re back! October is going to blow a fresh breeze into our theatre hall: Queer Black positions and Perspectives of Color as well as feminist performance! With the premiere of COMPLEX OF TENSIONS by Jasco Viefues we are kicking off the new season! The film director, video artist and theater maker Viefhues has been working for years from queer perspectives on subjects like experimental Remembrance Culture and Black masculinity.

In October we continue with Nasheeka Nedsreal’s moving solo performance NEW GROWTH and then Raphael Hillebrand will bring his personal biographical dance performance AUF MEINEN SCHULTERN to the stage.

We’ve been longing for our opening. And we’ve missed what actually defines theatre: You, the audience! Now we’re looking forward to actually defines theater: You, the audience! Now we’re looking forward to actually welcoming you to Ballhaus Naunynstraße soon! We have developed new plans for the program and set up a differentiated security concept on and behind the stage. Detailed informations on the visit at Ballhaus Naunynstraße you can find here

GET YOUR TICKETS NOW

October is on sale! We’d advice you to get your tickets quickly on the webshop, because there is only a limited number of tickets available!

Only three weeks left until the Premiere of Complex of Tensions in October 9, 2020!

Director Jasco Viefhues already makes curious about his new play. For several years he has worked from a queer perspective on topics such as experimental memory culture and Black masculinity.

After the premiere of his documentary „Rettet das Feuer“ at the Film Festival Munich in 2019, this play will be his debut as a theatre director.

Click here for tickets.

We are happy for Raphael Hillebrand who has been awarded by the jury of the German Dance Award 2020 in the category Honoring Outstanding Artistic Developments in Dance. The award ceremony will take place on October 17, 2020 in Essen.

„We honor Raphael Hillebrand because, for all his charme and candor, he ist an artist through and through who recognizes an engine in the body that can only overcome the social imbalance injustice in our society through courage.“

Click here to read the complete statement of the jury.

Due to this special occasion, the dancer shows his current personal biographic play „Auf meinen Schultern“ from October 27 – October 30, 2020. The play has been produced at Ballhaus Naunynstraße and had it’s premiere September 2019. Click here for tickets.

Dear visitors,

right now, our premises are still empty. We miss you, the audience, the artists, the real encounters and the common experience.

Therefore, we are so happy to announce our new season 2020/2021! We can expect an empowering programm from decolonial, postmigrant and queerfeminist perspectives by and with Black artists and artists of color: Anestis Azas, ShaNon Bobinger, Pepe Dayaw, Amina Eisner, Ali Enani, Raphael Hillebrand, Magda Korsinsky, Toks Körner, Jao Moon, MUSA, Nasheeka Nedsreal, Atilla Oener, Silvia Ospina, Jasco Viefhues, meLê yamomo and many more!

We hope to see you after the summer break and we’ll keep you posted.

Have a lovely summer and stay safe!

Your Ballhaus Naunynstraße

Video: Zé de Paiva