Topics 2020
1. ITʼS THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT - A World Under Threat
Climate change, a political shift to the right, the destruction of habitats, the dethroning of the privileged white man complete with heteronormative notions of lifestyles and concepts of love with brown coal excavators at the gates: a world under threat has become a part of everyday life! The performing arts analyze this, think about it, document it, make appeals arising from this, call for support, pledge to fight against it, write, dance ... and deal with the topic on stage or in public space. In this topic, all works are invited that turn an alert eye to sociopolitical questions in a world at risk.
2. DONʼT LET ME BE MISUNDERSTOOD - A Construction Expansion of Reality
Our perception is a construction and the construction in turn is subjective, the result of our times and our consciousness. Too few constructions have previously been shared, too few histories have been written, too few alternatives have been offered. Fight! - or shake off what is getting in the way of the new and blocking another way of thinking about our world.
Within this topic, we are searching for positions that are dedicated to outrageous perspectives and perspectives that have gone unheard that think about the past, present and/or future differently and provide a new narrative, reassess and reinterpret current events as well past ones.
3. WE BUILT THIS CITY ON ROCK AND ROLL - Urban Exodus (or Curse)
What happens when urban space and society are rethought? Berlin, the city which breathes history like no other in Germany, whose beauty comes from the architecture of different (political) systems and which once had freedom, that is, open spaces, has gotten a little stuffy. Things have gotten tight on the rental market and the space available for non-commercial or alternatively oriented initiatives is continuously shrinking. How can we survive (together) in the Berliner Luft, or Berlin air, of the present? Resignation is no alternative for the artistic positions of an independent performing arts community that uses nearly all available spaces in the city for its projects. Spatial positions belong at the center of this topic.
4. VIOLENTLY HAPPY - Lonely We
The people on the subway in permanent monologues with their cellphones, the old man, dead and rotting away in his apartment, the new arrivals, straying through the streets, the single mother fighting her way through the swamp of bureaucracy, the homeless person with their story and their unconventional scent. The punch to the punching bag, the scream from the window that fades out. Alone together. Curse and choice. Suffering that can be sung, danced, written, celebrated, but also actively challenged. Stay on your own, have fun and join the duet by myself. This topic is searching for positions.
5. VIRTUAL INSANITY - Data-Based Future
Technologies, algorithms and digitalization determine our lives today more than ever before. Online platforms know what we want to order, who our friends are and read our e-mails; virtual assistants give us advice and listen to us; the beloved smartphone is bank card, communication tool, alarm clock and much more in one. The transfer of human capabilities to machines and robots constitutes one of the biggest fields for experimentation in our future and the questions of where the human stops and the machine begins or of whether the cyborg, the machine that is “more than” human, needs to be addressed are being discussed in a variety of ways in society. The views of whether the future with the development of technologies means the beginning of a better life for humanity and if groundbreaking technologies can lead to more participation by those who are currently excluded or if, instead, that the human being is now standing at the beginning of a dystopian era in which it will soon be dominated by a super intelligence stand in opposition to each other. Artistic positions examining post-humanity, digitalization and the question of how, when and in what way one can communicate with objects and non-human entities have a place here.
6. (FORGET ABOUT THE) PRICE TAG - Powerful Emptiness
Money makes the world go round – that’s true for everyone that has it, manages it or makes decisions about it. But not for those who need it, don’t have it and also can’t get it due to a variety of structural reasons. At the end of the day, the fact that a flat screen television can travel through the world more quickly and more safely than a human being who has to leave their country of origin to make their life elsewhere always concerns business, exploitation and the unfair distribution of capital. The fact that an old man has the power of the state without being capable of statecraft or perhaps without even being aware of it is due, amongst other sources, to his financial capital and the power resulting from that. The facts that we are more stressed by the thought of losing our jobs than by the knowledge of all the human beings currently being without a permanent residence and the opportunity to participate in social life is the result of a social system of exclusion based on money and wealth. Swansongs, declarations of war, shattered loyalty – this topic is open to artistic positions that seek to examine the structural power of capital/capitalism.