Elvan Tekin: THIS IS (NOT) THE END – Sophiensæle | Independent Theater in Berlin

Elvan Tekin: THIS IS (NOT) THE END

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How do embodied practices transmit cultural memory? What forms of belonging and togetherness become possible when bodies and dances do not have to belong to only one tradition (or nation)?

By bringing different forms of dancing into contact that have travelled across places, borders, communities and generations, THIS IS (NOT) THE END unsettles familiar ideas of virtuosity, beauty, gender and social propriety. Within Krzysztof Bagiński’s musical landscape and to live piano by Saemi Jeong, the two dancers Elvan Tekin and Samuel Francis Perreira combine, layer and shift these forms, creating a hybrid movement vocabulary in which no dance remains quite what it was before. Rather than presenting dances as fixed markers of cultural identity, the work approaches them as living practices: knowledge carried by bodies, gained from others and constantly changing through transmission.

The dancers move between individual display and collective action, between competing, observing, imitating and refusing. Their relationships constantly shift—and the audience, too, becomes part of this dynamic. Watching is not neutral: desire, attraction, judgement and power circulate between performers and spectators. THIS IS (NOT) THE END asks who is allowed to watch, who is being watched, and what happens when a body refuses to be fully readable—particularly within ways of seeing shaped by colonial histories and systems of classification.

In simple words

In THIS IS (NOT) THE END, dances from different regions and eras meet. The dancers mix and change them. The piece asks: Who gets to watch? Who is being watched? And what if a body cannot be categorised?

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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.

Choreography, concept, performance: Elvan Tekin 
Performance: Samuel Francis Pereira
Sound: Krzysztof Bagiński, Saemi Jeong
Costume, set design: Evan Loxton
Light design: Robert Prideaux
Production: Tammo Walter
Dramaturgy: Boglárka Börcsök, Jette Bühsenschutz
Outside eye: Irem Aydin, Enad Marouf
Dialogue partner: Simge Burhanoglu

A production by Elvan Tekin in co-production with Sophiensæle. Funded by the Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion and by the Capital Cultural Fund (HKF). Supported by the residencies in PerformIstanbul, Schloss Bröllin, HAUT Copenhagen, MDT Moderna Dansteatern with kind support of Life Long Burning. Media partners: Missy Magazine, Siegessäule, taz.

Elvan Tekin is a Kurdish artist working across dance, choreography, performance, text, research, collaboration and community building based in Berlin. Her comprehensive artistic practice investigates how movement can function as a catalyst for social change and how embodied experiences can generate alternative ways of relating to memory, belonging, and collective life. She holds a master’s degree in Choreography from HZT, Berlin.

  • Two people move through a plain room with a blue-grey wall. On the right, a person in a black slip dress with arms spread wide, one hand touching the shoulder of the person on the left. That person wears an open grey-blue pinstriped shirt and turns their head to the side.
    © Spyros Rennt
  • Two people stand closely one behind the other in a plain room with a pale wall. Both have their arms raised and bent, the front person's hand close to their own chin. The person in front wears a black slip dress, the one behind an open grey-blue pinstriped shirt. Both look off to the side.
    © Spyros Rennt
  • two people stand side by side in a dimly lit room with a pale wall, their shadows falling behind them. Both cross their arms up to the backs of their own necks. On the left, a person in an open grey-blue pinstriped shirt and dark trousers; on the right, a person in a black slip dress. They look in different directions.
    © Spyros Rennt