Tanztage Berlin 2021

Due to the current pandemic situation the 30th edition of "Tanztage Berlin" will start as an online program from January 7th to 16th. All planned live performances will be postponed until spring 2021. The film showdown AV by choreographer Judith Förster and filmmaker Stella Horta will kick off the festival on January 7. The first digital premiere will be on January 15th with the performance "Indication of Spring at the End" of Time by Clay AD. We also invite you to an online Zukunftswerkstatt - a series of discussions about work culture and mental health, organized in cooperation with the ZTB (Zeitgenössischer Tanz Berlin) association. Pedro Marum will also curate an online format focusing on new artistic practices of care in club culture. In addition to this, the festival presents the first three episodes of its podcast, which was prepared in collaboration with the queer-feminist rave collective LECKEN.

Under the new curator Mateusz Szymanówka, the 30th edition of "Tanztage Berlin" speculates about the future of our dance floors and the ways we can act against being isolated from each other. In dancing, we form unexpected alliances. Through dancing, we heal, mourn and resist.

As 2020 saw theatres closing and clubs turning into museums, dance spilled across screens, bedrooms, basements, parks and streets. Undisciplined bodies occupied digital and public space to rave, but also to rave against, opposing violence, unjust policies and systemic oppression. Since hard times require furious dancing, this year’s festival investigates dance’s anti-authoritarian tradition. It examines the body in revolt in its fragility, mortality and ability to transform itself and the others. With the hope that moving together on stage can be as urgent as live gatherings outside.

Confronted with the continuous reoccurrence of fascism, a global pandemic and other doomsday scenarios, dance tries to tell stories of different futures. In the dystopian “now” after the afterparty, science fiction becomes a somatic practice, a tool used not only to create better worlds but to cultivate a critical body and to rehearse scores for times when borders between us will be abolished: The scores of tenderness and solidarity that tell us to hold on together and leave no one behind.

WITH Clay AD, Juan Pablo Cámara, James Batchelor & Collaborators, Judith Förster, Layton Lachman/Samuel Hertz, Lecken, Ana Lessing Menjibar, Michelle Moura, Cassie Augusta Jørgensen, Tiran Willemse Normanson/Nkisi, Lulu Obermayer, Robert Ssempijja, Shiori Tada u. a. CURATOR Mateusz Szymanówka DRAMATURGICAL SUPPORT Maciej Sado, Maxi Wallenhorst

ARTISTIC DIRECTOR SOPHIENSÆLE Franziska Werner MANAGING DIRECTOR Kerstin Müller PRODUCTION OF FESTIVAL Johanna Withelm PRODUCTION Aurore Werniers PRESS Miriam Seise COMMUNICATION Sarah Böhmer, Manuel Chittka, Gina Jeske, Siri Lindell (FSJK), Sofia Popp GRAPHIC DESIGN Jan Grygoriew HOMEPAGE Manuel Wisniewski ARTISTIC ADMINISTRATION Henriette Fock, Andrea Spirkl TECHNICAL DIRECTOR Fabian Stemmer TECHNICHIANS Florian Brückner, Ignacio Buquete, Gordon Dyballa, Mohammad El-Awad (Azubi), Walter Freitag, Ernesto Hernandez, Sebastian König, Falk Windmüller

The 30th edition of "Tanztage Berlin" is a production of SOPHIENSÆLE. Supported by the Senate Department for Culture and Europe. With the friendly support of Tanzfabrik Berlin e.V., Theaterhaus Berlin Mitte and Förderband e.V./Berliner Spielplan Audiodeskription. Media partner: taz. die tageszeitung