Juan Pablo Cámara: Homopticum – Sophiensæle | Independent Theater in Berlin

Juan Pablo Cámara:
Homopticum

A person stands on a dark stage in front of a large projection showing a perspective sequence of window- or tunnel-like frames. A glowing, lightning-shaped line runs beside the projection. On the left side of the stage, a green houseplant sits in a pot. The person wears tight-fitting clothing and raises one arm upward while extending the other arm sideways. Purple and blue stage lighting illuminate the scene.
Back to the start page

The Homopticum knows the truth: they are all the same, exposed beneath its lens, each movement recorded, each glance replayed. The air thickens, something turns. The Homopticum blinks.

In Homopticum the performer and choreographer Juan Pablo Cámara, in dialogue with visual Artist Andrey Bogush, explores gazing as a practice of attention and a possible site of agency. In a world shaped by surveillance capitalism—where attention is not only manipulated but actively constructed through market logics—the work invites the audience to slow down and observe with intention.At the center of the stage lies the question: how does seeing take form?

The theater becomes a domestic space of sorts, inhabited by an augmented being—feral, anthropoid, machinic. Online and offline interfaces perform as both backdrops and foredrops, framing a dance that exceeds the flesh. Moving between watching and being watched, across the mundane and spectacular, the body remains exposed, revealing fragility, monstrosity and excess. 

Homopticum lays bare the psychological realities of a contemporary condition: bodily autonomy is increasingly compromised. By way of immersive contemplation, the work cultivates a state of heightened awareness, reclaiming attention as a vital tool for sensing, knowing and resisting

Ticket
Ticket

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 27 89 00 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 27 89 00 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.

In collaboration with Andrey Bogush

Choreography, performance: Juan Pablo Cámara
Lights, video: Joseph Wegmann
Sound: Mauro Guz Bejar
Costume: Lennard Schnitzler, JU ISHI

A production by Juan Pablo Cámara and Andrey Bogush, in coproduction with Kiasma Theatre Helsinki. With support of Tanzhaus Zürich, Arts Promotion Centre Finland, Finnish Cultural Foundation, Tapiola Artist Studios, Diorama Berlin.Media partners: Missy Magazine, Siegessäule, taz.

Juan Pablo Cámara is an Argentinean-born, Berlin-based choreographer and performer who graduated from the School for new Dance Development in Amsterdam. Drawing from his country’s psychoanalytical traditions, he explores the boundaries between the personal, fictional and cultural, using artificiality and hyper-theatricality as tools for world-making and identity construction. He has performed across Europe, North and South America, and collaborated with artists like Adam Linder, Michele Rizzo and Jefta van Dinther. His recent works, La cosa piel and Main, Main, who’s there?, were co-produced by and presented at Sophiensæle. Cámara was in residence at Work Space Brussels (2020), Tanz Haus Zürich (2021), and Sophiensæle (2022).

Andrey Bogush lives and works in Helsinki, Finland. They work with images and installations in which the fantastic and the familiar are indistinguishable. Their works have been displayed at Architecture and Design Museum, Helsinki, Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki, Plato Ostrava, Czech Republic and The Finnish Museum of Photography, Helsinki. Their work has been featured in Artforum, The British Journal Of Photography and Foam Magazine, as well in the surveys Photography As Contemporary Art, published by Thames & Hudson, and Photography is Magic, published by Aperture. They have been working in several residencies, including Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, and HIAP, Helsinki. They hold a BFA and MFA in Time and Space Arts from the Academy of Fine Arts, University of Arts Helsinki.

  • A person stands on a dark stage in front of a large projection showing a perspective sequence of window- or tunnel-like frames. A glowing, lightning-shaped line runs beside the projection. On the left side of the stage, a green houseplant sits in a pot. The person wears tight-fitting clothing and raises one arm upward while extending the other arm sideways. Purple and blue stage lighting illuminate the scene.
    © Petri Virtanen
  • Close-up of a person on stage raising both arms straight upward. The person wears a tight, light-colored full-body costume with gloves and rings on their fingers. Purple stage lighting illuminates the face and upper body while the background remains dark. A small wireless device is attached to the costume.
    © Petri Virtanen
  • Silhouette of a person standing in darkness in front of a bright light source, holding their hands close to the light. The body is visible only as a dark outline, while the background remains black.
    © Carla Birrozzo
  • A person stands at center stage between two large, partially opened white curtains. The person holds one side of the fabric with each arm, pulling them apart. They wear a tight, light-colored stage costume and sneakers. Blue-violet lighting colors the scene while the space behind the curtains appears dark.
    © Carla Birrozzo