Angela Alves: Never Rest (After Work Tours #2) – Sophiensæle | Independent Theater in Berlin

Angela Alves: Never Rest (After Work Tours #2)

Two people in an office: one in a blue boiler suit leans over a seated person and points with an outstretched arm. Computer screens in the background.
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Sophiensæle is located in a building rich in history—a history told by the ceiling decorations, cracks in the walls, and drawings on old doors, as well as by the intangible spirits and memories that inhabit this building. The walls, stairwells, and columns also reveal much about the evolution of labor over the 120 years of its existence—and about emancipation, resistance, democratization, and self-organization, as well as the violence, coercion, and exploitation that manifested within and alongside it.

Building on the format of the Historical house tours regularly offered at Sophiensæle, three Berlin-based artists are developing new site-specific performances as commissioned works for the festival.

Rest is a vital practice for good health. It has anti-inflammatory effects and helps alleviate chronic pain, high blood pressure and burnout. However, for rest to work its magic, it matters not only how we rest, but also where we do so.

In Never Rest, Angela Alves explores the spatial limits of rest. She asks whether rest is even possible in work and healthcare spaces characterized by pressure, control and expectations.

Conceived as a guided tour, she leads the audience through the rooms of Sophiensæle on a historical quest for traces of non-rest: from the Eastern European laborers of the Nazi regime, who were forced to work and sleep in what is now Sophiensæle’s Festsaal in the 1940s, to the sleepless nights of dancers in the theater, to the long-term bath patients of the sanatoriums and nursing homes of early modernism, who had to find rest in the bathtub and sometimes even spend the night there.

The installation, as part of Never Rest (After Work Tours #2), is free to view on the 3rd floor and is open at the following times:

19.06.: 18:30–20:30
20.06.: 18:30–20:30
21.06.: 18:30–21:00

Evening information

The performance addresses Nazi forced labor as well as medical violence.

Duration

  • Approx. 45 min. without intermission

Language

  • Spoken English

Audience

  • The audience moves through the building together with the performer
  • The tour involves climbing stairs. There are no alternative step-free routes by lift.   
  • The audience carries water canister.
  • Water may be spilled in some places, which can create a risk of slipping
  • There are only a few moments during the tour when it's possible to sit down
  • Portable museum stools are available and will be handed out before the tour if needed

Interaction

  •   The audience is asked to carry water canisters

Light

  • There is one section of the tour that is very dark

Sound

  • Music is played. At one point during the tour it can become loud.

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.

Choreography, performance: Angela Alves 
Dramaturgy: Annekathrin Walther
Illustrations: Koen

Never Rest is being produced in co-operation with Sophiensæle as part of the festival Never Work. Never Work—International Performance Festival is a festival by Sophiensæle, supported by the Capital Cultural Fund (HKF). Sophiensæle is supported by the Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion. Media partners: Berlin Art Link, Missy Magazine, Siegessäule, taz.

Angela Alves lives as a choreographer in Berlin and identifies as a crip artist. Her artistic practice focuses on political dimensions of the unavailable body and explores its transformative potency in classist and ableist pre-structured spaces. Alves translates access into performative formats and questions perceptions of “healthy” and “sick”. She studied dance at ArtEZ (NL) and dance theory at Freie Universität Berlin.

  • Two people in an office: one in a blue boiler suit leans over a seated person and points with an outstretched arm. Computer screens in the background.
    © Mayra Wallraff
  • Several people lie side by side on the floor of a historic vaulted hall, looking upward. Two more people are visible standing in the background.
    © Mayra Wallraff
  • A person in a blue boiler suit walks through a long backstage corridor, holding papers and glasses. A group of people follows in the background.
    © Mayra Wallraff
  • Close-up of two hands holding a folded booklet reading "Civilian Forced Labour"; further people at a table in the background.
    © Mayra Wallraff
  • Several folded booklets stand and lie on a table; the one in the foreground reads "Sleeping in the Ballettsaal". Blurred background.
    © Mayra Wallraff
  • Several folded booklets fly through the air in front of a weathered wall with an old multi-pane window.
    © Mayra Wallraff
  • A person throws a booklet into the air in a courtyard; weathered masonry with arched windows in the background. Low-angle perspective.
    © Mayra Wallraff
  • A person in a blue boiler suit speaks with gestures to a group of people in a backstage area with stage technology in the background.
    © Mayra Wallraff
  • Several people lie side by side on the floor of a historic vaulted hall; a person in a blue boiler suit stands to the left. Stage technology in the background.
    © Mayra Wallraff