Goodbye Berlin

Inspired by Isherwood’s semi-autobiographical novel “Goodbye to Berlin”, the research work “Watching Weimar Dance” by Kate Elswit and the legacy of prominent dancers of that time such as Anita Berber and Valeska Gert, the show explores an amoral universe of intoxicating spectacle. It unfolds as „a nightmarish hall of mirrors of political and social anxiety“: a cabaret.

Set in a liminal space that moves back and forth between the turbulent Germany of the Weimar Republic and the present, Goodbye Berlin confronts overwhelming contradictions, paradoxes, and apocalyptic visions with the palatable forms of a pure spectacle.

As the world spins dangerously forward, this cabaret becomes home to subversive and counter-cultural rituals. These rituals are in turn our artistic repertoire, our staged patrimony.

But are they only good for suspending our machinations about the rise of reactionary politics in an entertained bliss? Or can they actually counteract the depressed feelings of our inability to act and spark a mobilization against increasingly encroaching powers?

Is pleasure still possible, not instead of hope, but in addition to it?

Goodbye Berlin is a journey through the fascinating aesthetics that aim for ecstasy and fantasize with death.