Hofesh Shechter: Sun I Dance I 4 and 5 July at 20:00
Perfection becomes warped and harmony gives way to a visceral depiction of antagonism and violence in Shechter’s disruptive work “Sun”. From the courtly idyll that sets the scene to the clean, spare vision of a perfect world, Shechter’s choreography embraces frenetic abandon and his signature understated intricacy in a work that confronts the pastoral horror of colonialism with a hint of sharp humour. With its powerful, virtuoso choreography, the production touches the dark sides not only of bygone colonial times, but also of our own. An expanded company of 14 dancers is accompanied by an eclectic soundtrack that includes original music by Shechter himself.
Hofesh Shechter, born in Israel and a former member of the Batsheva Dance Company from Tel Aviv, is one of the UK’s most exciting contemporary artists, gaining international acclaim for his choreography and atmospheric music scores. The international dancers of Hofesh Shechter Company have achieved worldwide renown touring his shows “Political Mother”, “Uprising”, “The Art of Not Looking Back” and “In Your Rooms”.
Tickets/Category: 35 / 25 / 15 Euro (reductions: 25 / 15 / 10 Euro)
Scott King: The Festival of Stuff I Music performance I 10 and 11 July at 23:00
Haven’t we all been there? You come home late at night after a few drinks; you have another beer and begin to browse through YouTube … and to dream of being the protagonist in some personally significant moments from pop history. Wouldn’t it be great if some of these fantasies could come true? Since the 1990s, Scott King, artist, graphic designer and author from London, has been investigating image production, the imagistic and emblematic in pop – first as art director for i-D magazine, later designing album covers for the Pet Shop Boys, Suicide or Morrissey. In his own works, he circles around the seemingly ephemeral objects of pop culture – gestures, hair styles, clothes and accessories, visual productions on stage or in video clips. King manages to show again and again that the “essence” of pop will not be found at its apparent centre – in music – at all, but rather in the accumulation of ephemera, the “stuff” which will be at the hub of this pop-musical live research.
Tickets: 15 Euro (reductions: 10 Euro)
Jeremy Deller: Acid Brass I Concert, film and party I 12 July at 20:30
Acid house and brass band music? These musical styles are only very rarely connected. British artist Jeremy Deller – Turner Prize-winner and artist for the British pavilion at the 2013 Venice Biennale – has made it his mission to prove their kinship and historical parallels. In a gigantic pencil drawing, he charted their congruencies. Brass band music stems from the mid-nineteenth century, the era of industrialization; Acid House started in the 1980s and is effectively the soundtrack to de-industrialization. In the 1980s and 90s, both brass band and Acid House were the musical backdrops of great political protest movements: the big miners’ strikes on the one hand and the gigantic raves around London, held in protest against the Criminal Justice bill, on the other. It was only logical, therefore, that at the end of the 1990s, the Fairey Band from Stockport near Manchester played brass versions of Acid House classics at Deller’s request. Foreign Affairs presents the German premiere of “Acid Brass”. Plus: a humorous lecture about the work by the legendary British DJ and journalist Dave Haslam, a live set by Graham Massey, whose influential project 808 State is included in Deller’s map, and the rarely shown film about Jeremy Deller's re-enactment of the famous miners’ strike, “The Battle of Orgreave”.
Tickets: 15 Euro (reductions: 10 Euro)
National Theatre Wales & Neon Neon: Praxis Makes Perfect
With Neon Neon, the popduo from Wales and L.A., the National Theatre Wales has created the perfect fusion of concert and theatre. Find more information about the event in Berghain on our What's on page.