End of the 2024/2025 Season and Outlook for the Upcoming Season

In a completely sold-out Festsaal, Brazilian director and performer Jéssica Teixeira concluded the 2024/2025 season at Sophiensæle with her award-winning work MONGA. From December 2024 to July 2025, Sophiensæle presented more than 60 stage productions and numerous additional formats including guided tours, artist talks, and workshops, welcoming over 20,000 visitors in the second season under the artistic direction of Jens Hillje and Andrea Niederbuchner.

The season opened with the premiere of INNOCENCE by Göksu Kunak and the revival of Ewa Dziarnowska’s This resting, patience as part of Berlin Art Week 2024. In the Festsaal and on the rooftops of the Sophiensæle courtyard, Kunak reflected on the Susurluk scandal, a notorious car crash from 1990s Turkey. Dziarnowska staged an archive for unused sensuality and a somatic (strip)tease in the Kantine. In cooperation with Haus am Waldsee and the Georg Kolbe Museum, Sophiensæle presented Gisèle Vienne’s film Jerk in September 2024 and her acclaimed performance Crowd in the Festsaal.

Further 2024 premieres included works by Isabelle Redfern/MamaNoSing, Henrike Iglesias & Miss Theatre, Olivia Hyunsin Kim/ddanddarakim, Flinn Works & Afra Tafri Creations, Markus&Markus, and Marga Alfeirão. Also featured were acclaimed guest performances by Kévin Bonono, Thibault Lac, Harald Beharie, Jaha Koo / CAMPO, and Ania Nowak. In October and December, Hendrik Quast presented his darkly humorous stand-up comedy Hairkunft, which was also invited to the 2025 Impulse Festival. Additional productions included the premiere of Faith Fiction by Turbo Pascal and Ssassin’s Creed (Lady says Stop) by Liina Magnea. The year concluded with the premiere of MASTEKTOMIE. Ein bittersüßes Abschiedslied by CHICKS* and the guest performance Get off by Katy Baird.

In January, the Tanztage Berlin 2025 festival offered a diverse program of dance, performance, discourse, and networking across 29 events, including 25 sold-out performances and four premieres. The high demand at the box office and over 400 people on the waiting lists underscore the remarkable audience interest. More than 200 submissions for this year’s edition highlight Berlin’s creative emerging scene and affirm the festival’s importance as the first of the year and a unique platform for emerging choreographic talent.

After Tanztage, Eva Meyer-Keller presented her premiere Turn The P/Age, a dialogue about aging, women’s health, and medical history. New productions at Sophiensæle also came from Lulu Obermayer with Rachel Troy, Unbestimmte Bewegung, Company Christoph Winkler, Isabelle Schad, and Anton Kats / ILYICH. Guest artists included Melanie Jame Wolf with Ballads of Outlaw Feelings, Teresa Vittucci with SANE SATAN, Queer and Present Dangers/Sex by and with Olympia Bukkakis, as well as works by Alex Franz Zehetbauer, Eszter Salamon, Kareth Schaffer // Construction Company, and the MaerzMusik festival with two productions. In February 2025, Simone Dede Ayivi hosted Schwarze Kantine, a networking and exchange platform for Black theater-makers, and in April, the Drag Resources Action Group presented their program and demands for minimum working standards in drag performance in the Festsaal.

From May 15 to 31, 2025, the international performance festival Making Life in the Ruins took place at Sophiensæle, presenting ten guest performances, including six German premieres. The festival brought together contemporary artistic productions from around the world. The works gently reexamined history and fostered dialogue between past and future generations. Outdated ideas were laid to rest, and lost homelands were linked to new forms of belonging.

In June 2025, an exhibition segment of the 13th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art opened in the Kantine of Sophiensæle. Titled das flüchtige weitergeben (passing on the fleeting), the international exhibition runs through September 14 and features over 60 artists across four venues, with Sophiensæle as a sister organization. The opening performance of the Berlin Biennale took place over two evenings in the Festsaal: The Beggars’ Convention, 2025 by Major Nom with Shu1o1O, Ngar galay (Little Fish), and Larmashee offered a key work of the civil disobedience movement following the 2021 coup in Myanmar.

To close the season, we also celebrated the premieres of Carbon Negative – Kompensations-Performance by Flinn Works and Hä?! by Simone Dede Ayivi & Kompliz*innen, as well as the revival of A Walk Through Berlin-Mitte by Ariel Efraim Ashbel and friends. In total, we welcomed visitors six times for the Historical House Tour, exploring the nearly 120-year-old spaces of the Sophiensæle.

Outlook

During the summer break, Tanz im August will once again be our guest. The festival runs from August 13 to 30 and will present two productions at Sophiensæle: suân ซ่วน by Nguyễn + Transitory and from rock to rock... aka how magnolia was taken for granite by Jeremy Nedd.

Sophiensæle will open the 2025/2026 season on September 10 and 11 with the premieres of Subjoyride by Boglárka Börcsök & Andreas Bolm and CROWD CONTROL by Oliver Zahn. Ceylan Öztrük will present the German premiere of Fourth Eye, 4.40 AM in September, and we are also looking forward to the revivals of MASTEKTOMIE. Ein bittersüßes Abschiedslied by CHICKS* and LOUNGE by Marga Alfeirão with Mariana Benengue, Myriam Lucas & Shaka Lion.

Further premieres in October will come from Olivia Hyunsin Kim/ddanddarakim, Camille O (formerly Hans Unstern) & Jule Flierl, and Justin F Kennedy.

Many thanks for a wonderful season to all the artists, friends, and partners of Sophiensæle. We are already looking forward to welcoming you back in September 2025!