120 years of the Handwerkervereinshaus, 30 years of Sophiensæle, 30 years of Tanztage Berlin: Starting in November 2025, the Sophiensæle will launch an extraordinary anniversary season. With a diverse program full of highlights, festivals, and special projects, the house will celebrate several anniversaries over the course of an entire year. Through this anniversary program, the Sophiensæle will reflect on their history while looking toward the present and future of the performing arts.

“In our anniversary year – 120 years of the Handwerkervereinshaus and 30 years of Sophiensæle as a theatre – we are focusing intensively on our future as a production house for the independent performing arts. We are asking ourselves what our founding moment in 1996 – conceived as a ‘house by artists for artists’ – can mean today and in the future. How can we actively inscribe ourselves into the democratic history of our building since 1905 and contribute to the ongoing development of democratic processes in society? And how can we continue to practice radical accessibility as a core identity of this house, regardless of fluctuating financial resources?”
— Jens Hillje, Andrea Niederbuchner (Artistic Directors, Managing Directors Sophiensæle)

The listed building complex in Berlin-Mitte that houses the Sophiensæle was inaugurated on 21 November 1905 as the association hall of the New Berlin Craftsmen’s Association. From then on, it served as a place for education and training for craftspeople and apprentices. Soon, the building also became a site of political organization and cultural events, including Yiddish theatre, before being forcibly sold in the 1940s and subsequently used for forced labor. Nearly 90 years after the inauguration of the Handwerkervereinshaus, the Sophiensæle were founded as an independent theatre by Sasha Waltz, Jochen Sandig, Dirk Cieslak, Jo Fabian, and Zebu Kluth, and officially opened on 26 September 1996.

With the project Fractures and Continuities, the Sophiensæle also engage with the multifaceted history of the building – as a place of craft education, Yiddish theatre, political organization, forced labor under the Nazi regime, and less visible perspectives such as Crip History. In collaboration with artists, historians, and civil society initiatives, a vivid discourse on remembrance culture and shared responsibility emerges. Following a workshop in September 2025, we invite audiences to the project’s final presentations on 8 November 2025. A historical building tour on 28 November 2025 will mark the anniversary of the complex with a thematic focus. Afterwards, we invite everyone to a festive communal table in the Festsaal Foyer. During House Stories, we will discuss topics that connect the building’s past and present, joined by guests involved in current labor struggles and representatives of workers’ organizations.

In celebration of the Sophiensæle anniversary, the festival Never Work in June 2026 will bring together international and Berlin-based artists, thinkers, and activists to explore intersectional questions of labor, precarity, and the future of work through performances, discussions, and installations. These themes are deeply rooted in the history of the house – in its beginnings as a craftspeople’s association, as a meeting point for the workers’ movement in the 1920s, its misuse under National Socialism as a site for forced labor, and its use as workshops for the Maxim Gorki Theater during the GDR era. Since their founding, the Sophiensæle have been a space for questioning, rethinking, and experimenting with the conditions under which art can be created. Over several weeks, the festival will occupy all Sophiensæle stages as well as unconventional workspaces such as the courtyard, kitchen, and offices.

In the Sophiensæle anniversary year, the Vienna-based performance group Nesterval brings immersive queer folk theatre to Berlin. With Nesterval’s Eldorado (AT), the ensemble explores the site’s and the Scheunenviertel’s resistant histories – inspired by the biographies of queer people persecuted in the Berlin Scheunenviertel around the Sophiensæle during the Nazi dictatorship. Over three weeks in September and October 2026, Nesterval’s Eldorado (AT) will unfold throughout the building complex. The canteen on the ground floor will serve as a central gathering place for audiences and performers throughout the entire period.

Beginning on 8 January 2026, the 35th edition of Tanztage Berlin will once again showcase the diversity of Berlin’s dance scene – while also celebrating the festival’s 30th anniversary. Since 1996, Tanztage Berlin has been a platform for emerging choreographers. Produced by the Sophiensæle since 2001, the festival presents innovative works in contemporary dance, choreography, and performance. The anniversary program will be published in December 2025.

With the concept A Production House for the Independent Performing Arts as a Model for the Future, the Sophiensæle will be part of the nationwide program Übermorgen – New Models for Cultural Institutions, through which the German Federal Cultural Foundation supports 50 cultural institutions and municipalities in their future-oriented projects over a period of one and a half years. In addition, from 2025 to 2028, the Sophiensæle will serve as a model venue within the Shaping Diversity funding program, initiated by the German Association of Independent Performing Arts and supported by the European Social Fund, under the theme The Transformation of Work.