What: exposition of toy collection
Where: me Collectors Room Berlin
Who: Selim Voral
Popart and thousands of toys. Nice to see how the popart influences the design industry and the other way around. Impressive how many toys one cab collect. Nice to see that isolation of one object can be interesting, but the mass of thousands can be interesting as well.
What: film –Take shelter
From: Jeff Nichols
Where: Freiluft kino Cassiopeia
Love to watch movies in the open air!!!! The film was also pretty ok. A nice mix of psychological drama and thriller. Good acting and nice how they took there time to let the characters develop. Especially the dilemma of the wive played by Jessica Chastain Was nicely shown.
What: carnival parade and concerts
Where: Kreuzberg / Schönefeld
The diversity is what makes Berlin such a great city to live in. That is what this event is all about. Got to spent more time the next year after a short impression I got this year.
What: Openair from Wasted Unicorns
Who: DJ Wankelmut u.v.a.
Where: Badeschiff
Sun, nice sounds, nice people and a pool. TANZEN IST AUCH SPORT!
What: live set from Jozak Sander
Where: Kellerparty in RitterButzke
A bit chaotic and unfocused in the beginning but later on it became nice and deep. I like that the set is not only based on the kick of a loud bass but that you can really dance to the deeper layers. Almost soundscape like noises and warm sounds with a nice groove. Start to notice more and more that I like it when there is more than only the four to the floor beat to dance to.
What: Performance physical theatre – United states
Who: RODRIGO SOBARZO DE LARRAECHEA
Where: Sophiensaele
Nice to see that everything you do with attention attracts attention. Also nice to see again that everything that was really a physical problem and a real danger was interesting to watch, if it is not really a problem but acted to be a problem, you loose interest very fast.
What: Text theatre – Madame Bovary
Regie: Nora Schlocker
Where: Maxim Gorki Theater
Nice abstractions and good acting. Loved the way they made jumps in time.
When: 4th Mai 2012
What: dance performance Dance for Sale
Where: Hoftheater Kreuzberg
Who: Grupo Oito
A nice mix between amateur and professional dancers. The way of including the audience in the decision of which dance was performed by paying for it with a group of people worked pretty well, but could have had more consequences. For example iff you had not payd for a dance you were not allowed to watch.
When: 3rd Mai 2012
What: concert Certain People
Where: Berghain
Who: Matthew Dear, When saints go Machine, Hercules and love affair
Only heard the last song of When Saints go Machine, but that sounded pretty good. A band to keep in mind for festivals etc. Matthew Dear sounds much better on cd than live. The digitals sounds and the more analog didn’t come together. The noisy sound they are creating starts interesting, but gets boring. Hercules and Love Affair always know how to create a party with the 90’s beats, but the singers were new and were by far NOT as good as the old. that was a bit disappointing.
When: 20 April 2012
What: concert Patrick Watson
Where: Heilig Kreuz Kirche
SIMPLY AMAZING
When: 19 April 2012
What: youth theatre Frucht und Schrecken
Where: Sophiensaele
Regie: Dennis Deter
interesting performance about honorig and demolishing fruit. Nice to hear afterwards that it all started with the demonisation of fruit in the EHEC affaire. What i liked about the performance was that it was very simple in concept, bur for everything was done very carefully and with a lot of attention so that it kept being interesting. It played really well with the focus of the audience and creating an expectation by giving a lot of attention to small things. Nie how they first gave the fruit a personality/ a face, and then demolished it. made me think of the pig slaughter in times of the “varkenspest”.
When: 19 April 2012
What: youth theatre Pünktchen trifft Anton
Where: Grips Theater
Regie: Frank Panhans
A great up tempo performance. All the children had there attention on the play for the full two hours. The open way of acting made me think a lot of PlayBack. Nice that there was a live band that made it all very Dynamik. Verry barve to make a play about refugees for this age group (9-10 years old) A good combination of abstraction and concrete real life scene’s
When: 18th April 2012
What: Opera / musical Europe mon amour
Where: Neuköllner Oper
Who: Daniel Pfluger
great music, but the story line was a bit cliche. The mise en scene was sometimes interesting sometimes a bit to much. A nice way of viewing at opera so it is less stiff and traditional. The more abstract enscenering worked pretty well. Also nice that it was in such a small theatre so you could smell the sweat and the hard work of the actors/singers.
nice but not blown away.
When: 17th April 2012
What: text theater play die vier Himmelsrichtungen
Where: Deutsches Theater
Who: Roland Schimmelpfennig
Interesting: I really liked the way the actors jumped from the storytelling roll into the characters they played. It was nice to see that they slowly blended the neutral way of telling with the emotional development of the characters. The same story was told over and over again but always from a different perspective adding new information to the story. The audience was forced to make the puzzle complete to understand the whole story.
This week i saw two versions of snow-white. The first one was the film Mirror Mirror by Tarsem Singh. That was a bit disappointing. I loved the design of his films ‘the cell’ and ‘the Fall’. But this time it was as if he tried to make an un-animated animation film like ‘Shrek’. To many bad jokes take the tempo out of the story. The costumes look good but a bit to literally. BUT the second version was Schneewittchen of the Deutsche Staatsballet and that was WONDERFUL!
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the 7th of April i saw the theatre performance Fraülein Julie in the Schaubuhne. It was amazing! one of the most beautiful performances i have ever seen. I love the way film, sound, staging and acting was combined in such a balanced total. The stage was a filmset in which they played a story real time, during the play they filmed with different cameras so the editing was done live. Also they added live sounds and voice-overs and close ups. Hard to explain, but it was so well done so well timed. WOW!!!! have to remember the directors: Katie Mitchell und Leo Warner
30 March i went to see the dance and music performance Apart in Galerie Unter Berlin. It was in an old water supply under the ground in Prenzlauer Berg. A nice and atmospheric environment. The sound design of the performance was done live and really added something to the experience of the space where it was held.
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25 March i visited an Icehockey match from the Berliner Eisbären against the Köllner Haien. It was a spectaculair event with a lot of show and fighting on the ice. It was a nice match which we won with 3 to 1. But it is not the exciting experience of the match why i want to post this on my blog. I visited the match together with my friends Albert and Vilas. It was a birthday and a farewell gift to Vilas. He is from India and he was no longer allowed to stay in Berlin. That sucks.
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It wasn’t the art that was particularly great but it was the open atmosphere that made it in to an inspiring event. A nice way to get to know a city and its veneus.Together with my Playback Berlin partner Benthe Verhagen I went to the opening of the TUSCH festival on the 15th of March. An evening in which different projects of different theatregroups that worked for or with children at schools in Berlin presented themselves. A nice evening with a big diversity in styles and quality. We got to talk about the different between the focus on the process and the focus on the quality of the product.
On the 10th of March I visited the International Performance Festival Second in GlogauAIR in Kreuzberg. An evening with five different performances. The nice thing about this evening was that all the performances were completely different in approach and style.
On the 7th of march I visited the Sophiensaele for the Zukunftbühne night. This evening young theatre makers would present their vision on the theatre of the future. I was very curious and I hoped to see and hear a few interesting new concepts. It turned out to b e a very disappointing evening. If this is the future of theatre i don’t think i want to be in theatre anymore. The quality of the presentation was terrible. Continue reading
14 feb i went to see two programs of the Berlinale shorts. I saw in total 12 short films from all over the world in all different styles. An inspiring experience. A great extra was that almost all of the filmmakers were there to talk shortly about their film and the process of making it. My personal highlights:
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Last night i watched the beautiful film Mammoth from Lukas Moodysonn. In my own work i often try to create a discussion about how things are divided in this world. For example my performance Chosen is about who deserves to live in wealth and who doesn’t. Mammoth is also about this theme but the great thing is that it connects the personal stories to the greater world themes. This combination of personal small stories and worldwide big themes is what i want to reach in my next performances. How can you make such a big theme as the division of wealth a personal experience… something to think about for my next work.
