Sophiensæle
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Sophienstraße 18
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Festival Never Work – Sophiensæle | Freies Theater in Berlin

Program

Saison 26/27

Festival Never Work

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Never Work - Web - Rain2 - 1800 x 900 px
Festival Never Work

International Performance Festival
12.–27.06.2026

While the German chancellor urges us all to work harder, and targets the working population with inflammatory terms like “lifestyle part-time” or insinuations of malingering - expressions like “job hugging”, “quiet quitting”, or “burn-on” tell a different story. They reflect the current wave of viral language that captures the widespread disenchantment with work under capitalism and the contradictions of today’s 24/7 work culture. Good work is becoming increasingly scarce, yet we practically cannot survive without selling our labor, and work does leave many discouraged, exhausted, and sick. In a rapidly changing world shaped by economic inequality and gig labor, mere survival becomes a tough job for many. Consequently, the vision of a “good life” remains out of reach for most.

The International Performance Festival Never Work, at Sophiensæle in Berlin-Mitte, brings together artistic positions from various parts of the world that critically engage with contemporary discourses and the lived realities of the working world. The venue opened 120 years ago as the Berliner Handwerkervereinshaus (Berlin Craftsmen’s Association House), providing vocational, political, and cultural education for artisans. In the early 20th century, it evolved into a pivotal meeting point for the labor movement and the revolutionary left; in the 1940s, so-called Ostarbeiter—forced laborers from Eastern Europe—were coerced into labor there, before the workshops of the Maxim Gorki Theater moved in during the GDR era. Finally founded in 1996 as an independent theater by artists for artists, Sophiensæle has been producing and presenting dance, theater, and performance for 30 years—always with a mandate to scrutinize, discuss, and transform working conditions within the independent arts scene.

To mark these anniversaries, the artists, thinkers, and activists participating in the festival explore the connection between labor, survival, and the constant work on the self. They examine the global division of labor and the relationship between work and nation or identity—addressing indispensable, invisible, precarious, and illegalized labor, as well as romanticized and completely superfluous work. In doing so, transforming the absurdities of a working world under financial capitalism into aesthetic experiences. Without claiming to provide a complete representation of this socio-politically charged field—where election campaigns and the future of democracies are decided worldwide—Never Work brings together diverse artistic explorations and provocations. It thus gives a platform to the nuances and grotesque experiences that unite workers across the globe—or to their dreams of working differently, or not at all.

Download program booklet (an accessible PDF will be available shortly)

Never Work—International Performance Festival is a festival by Sophiensæle, supported by the Capital Cultural Fund (HKF). Sophiensæle is supported by the Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion. Media partners: Berlin Art Link, Missy Magazine, Siegessäule, taz.

Concept and Curation:
Lena Kollender, Mateusz Szymanówka

  • Never Work - Web - Farbe 2 - 1800 x 1350 px
    © KaranKobel
  • Never Work - Web - Rain1 - 1800 x 1350 px
    © KaranKobel
  • Never Work - Web - Farbe 1 - 1800 x 1350 px
    © KaranKobel