Brüche und Kontinuitäten – Sophiensæle | Independent Theater in Berlin
Program
Brüche und Kontinuitäten
German, partly in English
5€ (Special price)/10€/15€/20€/25€
Relaxed Event
Three artistic research projects have focused on the historical traces of the Sophiensæle: the history of Yiddish theater, bodymind politics & crip history during the Weimar Republic, and the Sophiensæle as a site of Nazi forced labor. Following the workshop held in September, we now invite you to the final presentations of Breaks and Continuities. They offer insights into the history of the theater and invite visitors to engage with questions of memory culture and historical reappraisal.
Duration
- Approximately 300 minutes with several breaks
Language
- German spoken language
- A discussion round will take place in English spoken language
- Whispered translation as required
Audio description
- The event is accessible to blind and visually impaired audiences.
- There is a tactile guidance system.
- The preceding tactile tour/orientation in the room will take place at 12:30 p.m. The meeting point for the tactile tours is in front of the box office in the courtyard.
- If required, we offer a pick-up service for blind and visually impaired persons from the nearby S-Bahn and tram stations before the tactile tours. These are the Hackescher Markt S-Bahn station, the Weinmeisterstraße U-Bahn station, or the Weinmeisterstraße/Gipsstraße tram station. To use the pick-up service, please contact us during our business hours (Monday to Friday between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m.) at 030 27 89 00 35 or barrierefreiheit@sophiensaele.com.
- More information about audio descriptions and the pick-up service at the Sophiensaele can be found here.
Lighting
- The lighting in the room is bright enough at all times to find your way around.
- There are no changes in lighting.
Sound
- In some places, speech is amplified by a microphone.
- The discussion rounds take place without amplification. Speakers may talk at the same time, which may result in overlapping sound.
Other
- There are contact persons on site for accessibility needs.
- Drinks and snacks are available.
Room
- Participants can take a seat at three tables in the room.
- There are chairs with backrests, stools with backrests, beanbags, and space for wheelchairs.
Relaxed Event
- The event is a relaxed event.
- There is a quiet space at the back of the room. Beanbags, blankets, mattresses, pillows, headphones, and stimming toys are provided there.
Early Boarding
- There will be a soft arrival. All participants can arrive relaxed and get their bearings in the room before the event starts.
Tickets
- Registration via ticketing@sophiensaele.com
Artistic research: Lotta Beckers, Noam Brusilovsky, Lisa Schank, Vanessa Amoah Opoku, Steven Solbrig
Access dramaturgy: Leo Naomi Baur
Dramaturgical consulting for blind and visually impaired audiences: Annika Jakobs
Project management: Elias Capelle, Stefanie Hauser
A project by Sophiensæle. Funded by the Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion. Media partners: Missy Magazine, Siegessäule, taz.
Leo Naomi Baur (they/them) works in Berlin as a choreographer, video artist and access dramaturge. Baur is trans* non-binary and chronically ill. Initially without formal training, Baur has been involved in numerous productions and artistic research projects since 2017. They have since completed an MA in Performing Public Space at FONTYS (Tilburg, NL) and an MA in Choreography at HZT Berlin. They are a co-founder of the network for dance and activism Urgent Bodies. Baur’s artistic research focuses on Aesthetics of Access, with an emphasis on Relaxed Performance and access for audiences with chronic illness or chronic pain. Politically, Baur advocates for more mental, physical and social sustainability in production structures. Until March 2025, Baur was co-project manager of Making a Difference and is currently a freelance collaborator in Claire Cunningham's Einstein strategic professorship team at HZT Berlin.
Lisa Schank is a historian and history educator with a focus on the history of National Socialism. She has worked for the Buchenwald Memorial and the Nazi Forced Labor Documentation Center (Dokumentationszentrum NS-Zwangsarbeit), among others. Her projects include the creation of a digital educational portal on Nazi forced labor, the development of an exhibition on Nazi forced labor in Villingen-Schwenningen as well as educational materials, texts and editing for various institutions. She is interested in the contemporary communication of the history of National Socialism and the question of how connections between National Socialism and other periods can be researched in a differentiated way and made visible in a way that is relevant to the present.
Lotta Paula Mathilda Beckers (she/they) lives in Berlin and works as a dramaturge and artist. She studied Applied Theater Studies in Gießen, Choreography and Dance in Copenhagen and European Media Studies in Potsdam. She is currently part of the class for performative arts at the HGB Leipzig. As a dramaturge and co-author, she has a long-standing collaboration with theater director Noam Brusilovsky, with whom she develops documentary performances that question power structures and address the impossible in theater. She also regularly collaborates as a dramaturge and performer with choreographer Deva Schubert. Becker’s own artistic research revolves around the entanglements of desire and power. She is interested in the oscillation between the documentary and the poetic, the intimate and the public and the historical in the personal.
Noam Brusilovsky was born in Israel in 1989. After attending the Thelma Yellin High School of the Arts, he moved to Berlin in 2012 and studied theater directing at the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts. While still a student, he directed his first radio plays for Deutschlandfunk and SWR. He received the ARD German Radio Play Award in 2017 for his production Broken German. In the same year, he completed his studies with the autobiographical solo performance Orchiektomie rechts. Since then, Brusilovsky has produced numerous radio plays for SWR, Deutschlandfunk, rbb and WDR and has directed at Sophiensæle, the Munich Residenztheater, Münchner Volkstheater, Schauspiel Stuttgart, Konzerttheater Bern and Stadttheater Klagenfurt. His work has received numerous awards, including the Nestroy Prize, the ARD German Radio Play Prize, the Radio Play Prize of the War Blind and the Prix Italia.
Steven Solbrig (*1984 in the GDR, pronouns -/all) studied cultural studies and aesthetic practice at the University of Hildesheim. Steven is currently working at the interface of art, culture and science. Solbrig develops lecture performances (Cripping Home), photographic series (Unmatched Touch), organizes symposia with others (Stating the Aesthetics of Access) and transdisciplinary works such as Soon We Will Be Legends?. This year saw the publication of a scientific-literary essay on the body politics of the GDR and on disability arts/culture in East Germany.
Vanessa Amoah Opoku is a German-Ghanaian interdisciplinary artist who explores history, digitality and marginalized narratives through mixed realities. She uses art, science and technology to challenge conventional notions of innovation and visions of the future. Her main artistic mediums include 3D scans, video, sculpture, performance and sound. Opoku has had solo exhibitions at EIGEN+ART Lab in Berlin, Synnika Frankfurt a. M. and HBS Research Center of the Times Museum Guangzhou. She has exhibited in institutions such as Belvedere 21 Vienna, Deichtorhallen Hamburg, Fotomuseum Winterthur and Staatstheater Nürnberg. She was recently nominated for the S+T+ARTS Prize 2025 by the European Commission and Ars Electronica. In addition to her artistic practice, Opoku teaches at the HGK Basel FHNW, Institute Experimental Design and Media Cultures (IXDM), among others. She lives and works in Berlin and Basel.