Ania Nowak: Future Tongues – Sophiensæle | Independent Theater in Berlin
Ania Nowak:
Future Tongues
Future Tongues
English, Polish, Latin
25€/20€/15€/10€
German premiere
Future Tongues parts from the biblical story of the tower of Babel to speculate about the future of human communication. The work also references the 1982 science fiction porn film Cafe Flesh where, in the aftermath of a nuclear apocalypse, the majority of people lose their sex drive, while a sex positive minority engages in acts of sexual theatre in front of fascinated audiences.
Understanding language as a constant practice of negotiating difference, Future Tongues approaches analogue communication technologies, like speech and touch. Intimacy – both pleasure and discomfort brought on by closeness – is preserved and exhibited like an extinct language or a relic of the past in our accelerated digital culture. What forms of embodied communication do we need today? Who has the right to speak their own language? Can we trust our collective intuition before we obey the authority of knowledge and power?
Future Tongues – performed by Ania Nowak with a group of dancers and actors on a copy of Slavs and Tatars‘ artwork Mother Tongues and Father Throats – has been part of the repertoire of Nowy Teatr in Warsaw since the end of 2018. What began as a commission to imagine theatre a hundred years from then evolved into a voice of dissent against both symbolic and real violence toward migrants and the queer community in Poland haunted by nationalist phantasmagoria and the conservative and right-wing fixation on tradition, origin and sterile national identity.
The information on accessibility is still in progress and will be updated as soon as possible. If any questions remain unanswered until then, please feel free to contact the communication department at barrierefreiheit@sophiensaele.com or 030 278 900 35. Please note that details may change by the day of the event. Therefore, if you find out after you have purchased your ticket that the performance is no longer accessible to you, you can contact us for a ticket return at ticketing@sophiensaele.com or 030 278 900 45 until 5 business days after the event (Monday through Friday between 10am and 6pm).
Early boarding
If, for artistic reasons, the door to the auditorium does not open until very shortly before the performance begins, there is the option of early boarding.
Tickets
- Reservations can be made via the ticket telephone at 030 283 52 66, Monday to Friday from 4pm–6pm
- Via the online ticket shop
- At the box office
You can also find more information about accessibility at the house here.
Idea, text, choreography, performance: Ania Nowak
Creation, performance: Oskar Malinowski, Aleksandra Osowicz, Rafał Pierzyński, Jaśmina Polak
Dramaturgy: Mateusz Szymanówka
Sound design: Justyna Stasiowska
Light design: Jędrzej Jęcikowski
Set design Mother Tongues Father Throats: Slavs and Tatars
Costume: Grzegorz Matląg/Wsiura
Curator of the Theatre 2118 project: Tomasz Plata
A production by Ania Nowak and Nowy Teatr. The guest performance is co-organized by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute as part of the international cultural program of the Polish Presidency of the Council of the European Union 2025, co-financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage as well as funded by the Foundation for German-Polish Cooperation. The guest performance takes place as part of Making Life in the Ruins, a festival by Sophiensæle, funded by the Capital Cultural Fund (HKF). Media partners: Berlin Art Link, Missy Magazine, Siegessäule, taz.
Ania Nowak approaches vulnerability and desire as ways towards reimagining what bodies and language can and cannot do. Nowak develops formats such as live and video performance, installation and text. In her practice Nowak engages with bodies in their nonlinear feeling and thinking capacity to tackle the intricacies of companionship and care in times of perpetual crisis.
Her work attempts to reimagine the notions of disorder, pleasure, disease, intimacy, pain, sexuality, class and accessibility as sites of binary free living. Nowak’s works have been presented at Sophiensæle, Berlinische Galerie, HAU Hebbel am Ufer, Akademie der Künste, KW Pogo Bar, Berlin; Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Helsinki; La Casa Encendida, Madrid; Salzburger Kunstverein; 14th Baltic Triennial at CAC Vilnius and 12th Gothenburg Biennial for Contemporary Art, amongst others. Nowak recently held solo shows at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw an Galerie Wedding – Raum für zeitgenössische Kunst in Berlin.
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© Maurycy Stankiewicz -
© Ania Nowak -
© Ania Nowak