| Press Release3 March 2026 |
| A look ahead to the Berliner Festspiele’s annual programme In 2026 the Berliner Festspiele will present a great variety of unconventional artistic positions with international appeal that transcend genre boundaries: at Haus der Berliner Festspiele, Gropius Bau and many other venues in Berlin. This includes a focus on Marina Abramović with an cross-house exhibition and performance project and the Berlin Ringbahn becomes a new venue.The iconic artist Marina Abramović frames the anniversary year with her current form-defying project Balkan Erotic Epic. Balkan Erotic Epic. The Exhibition will take place in the spring at the Gropius Bau, while the performance Balkan Erotic Epic. The Stage Version will open the Performing Arts Season 2026/27 in the autumn at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele. Particular prominence will also be given to the artist Gabriele Stötzer, whose largest institutional solo show to date Dabei sein und nicht schweigen will open at the Gropius Bau in June. Gabriele Stötzer has designed a poster for the Berliner Festspiele for the anniversary. To mark this occasion she will also present an unconventional performance at the Gropius Bau at the end of August. With these contributions, together with the exhibition Es ist nicht mehr mein Problem, macht eure Scheiße alleine featuring works by Christoph Schlingensief and the group show Kreuzberg (working title) in the autumn, the Gropius Bau under the direction of Director Jenny Schlenzka will illuminate gaps in processing the past of a divided Germany and reveal different perspectives on its reunified present. With an art project that takes place over several weeks on the Ringbahn, What If Berlin, the Japanese artist Akira Takayama will combine global perspectives with local questions in the anniversary year. From the end of August, the project which is produced in partnership with Deutsche Bahn will present unrealised artistic ideas from the history of Berlin and the Berliner Festspiele to visitors to 27 S-Bahn stations – and transform these old ideas with the aid of professional tour guides into new proposals for the city’s future.\\\ |
| “In their 75th anniversary year, the Berliner Festspiele will not only examine how their development has been filled with tradition and transformation and their enduring connections with post-war history in Germany and Europe, but they will also look forward and consider the radical cultural and geopolitical shifts of the present day. With special programmes in the festival theatre, the Gropius Bau and on Berlin’s Ringbahn we will create spaces and living locations for artistic excellence and innovative formats, for polyphonic dialogue with the world and new possibilities for co-existence.” Matthias Pees, Director Berliner Festspiele |
| Entitled The Great Disorder, the 4-day focus at the end of August Reflexes & Reflections will welcome guests including Angela Merkel, Adam Tooze, Steffen Mau and Meera Nanda in panel discussions about patterns of geopolitical and social (dis-)order at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele, curated by Saba-Nur Cheema and Meron Mendel. With the anniversary in mind, this edition of Reflexes and Reflections will also consider the Festspiele’s traditional ties to the West since their foundation in 1951 and ask: what comes after East-West and North-South? The Musikfest Berlin – presented in co-operation with the Berliner Philharmoniker Foundation – also places the festival’s anniversary at the core of its programme under the artistic direction of Winrich Hopp, emerged as an international orchestra festival in 2004 from the Berliner Festwochen, which was first opened with a concert on 5 September 1951. The opening concert of Musikfest Berlin 2026 on 28 August 2026 in the Philharmonie Berlin with György Ligeti’s anti-opera Le Grand Macabre is also a celebration to mark the 75-year history of the Berliner Festspiele and the festivals and activities associated with them. This year’s edition also commemorates a series of composers and works with special links to the Berliner Festwochen, such as George Gershwin’s opera Porgy and Bess and the music of Igor Stravinsky, Hans Werner Henze, Sofia Gubaidulina and Wolfgang Rihm. The Berliner Festspiele provide scope for the experimental aspects of contemporary music with their festivals MaerzMusik and Jazzfest Berlin. MaerzMusik – under the artistic direction of Kamila Metwaly – opens with Georg Friedrich Haas’s monumental work 11.000 Saiten in the factory space of the MaHalla and presents a total of 16 world premieres with ensembles such as Klangforum Wien, Ensemble Dedalus from France and KNM Berlin. Another highlight is the concert by Meredith Monk, which is framed by film screenings. The unconventional composer will be awarded this year’s Berlin Art Prize – Grand Prize by the Akademie der Künste. At the end of October, the Jazzfest Berlin – under the artistic direction of Nadin Deventer – once again brings together the diverse improvised music scenes from the USA and other countries with Berlin’s lively musical landscape and continues its community activities, which have grown over the past three years, with Berlin’s civil society, including children, young people, and students. An experimental short film emerged from this last year and is about to premiere. In May the Theatertreffen, directed by Nora Hertlein-Hull and funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation, will present the ten most remarkable productions of the past year selected by a jury of critics, which include works directed by Leonie Böhm, Sebastian Hartmann, Pınar Karabulut and Jette Steckel. The discourse programme conceived by Matthias Dell will be directly related to the themes of the invited plays. The new format Mehr Drama! – conceived in conjunction with the Verband Deutscher Bühnen- und Medienverlage (VDB) – enables distinguished playwrights such as Gerhild Steinbuch, Sivan Ben Yishai and Sasha Marianna Salzmann to offer a personally curated perspective on contemporary playwriting. In addition, there will be the three traditional award ceremonies. The Treffen junge Szene in the four disciplines of theatre, dance, literature and music offer talented young people aged between 11 and 21 an artistic platform and space for creative exchange and development. They are part of an entire series of national contests, initiated and funded by the Federal Ministry for Education, Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth. In 2026 the Treffen junge Szene under the direction of Susanne Chrudina will be devoted particularly to views of the future and the political dimension of art by young people. In November the Treffen junger Autor*innen will celebrate its 40th birthday and participate for the first time in a collaboration with another national contest, the up-and-coming International Film Festival Hannover. Go to Prizewinners’ Anthology 2025 In the Performing Arts Season 2026/27 – under the artistic direction of Yusuke Hashimoto – following its launch with Marina Abramović’s Balkan Erotic Epic. The Stage Version at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele, in October it will also be possible to experience the world premiere of Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s new creation GLA55, which she will develop with the Ictus Ensemble, Bl!ndman and the dancers of her company Rosas to early compositions by Philip Glass. Running through until January 2027, five more international productions by the artists Mario Banushi, Marie Chouinard, Damien Jalet / Kohei Nawa, Gisèle Vienne and the multimedia performance collective Dumb Type will offer a multi-faceted panorama of the contemporary performing arts ranging between performance, dance, multimedia and multidisciplinary approaches that are thematically linked by the artistic exploration of myths and rituals. |
| Marina Abramović on her project Balkan Erotic EpicWatch the video |
| In addition to the exhibition by Marina Abramović, the Gropius Bau will also present other artistic positions in 2026 that engage critically with social structures and dissolve genre boundaries. The programme starts at the beginning of March with Leila Hekmat’s new performance Roses Rising – The Movement. Also in spring, works by Peter Hujar and Liz Deschenes can be seen in an intergenerational dialogue about photography and BAUBAU invites young visitors to laugh, go on the rampage or do nothing at all in its permanent play space. The Berliner Festspiele and its venues consistently host long-term co-operation partners and guest events: The festivals Tanz im August and the international literature festival berlin are our guests once again in the festival theatre this summer. The Akademie der Künste will also present Bundesjugendballett John Neumeier with The Invisibles on 4 and 5 March at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele. The company Sasha Waltz & Guests will also present a guest performance on the Main Stage, which is also where the Theaterpreis des Bundes will be awarded on 17 April. And the Goethe-Institut will mark its own 75th anniversary in June at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele. To the Overview of the Year 2026 |
| Save the Date MaerzMusik (20.–29.3.2026) Meet & Greet 18 March, 15:00 h, Spore Haus Theatertreffen (1.–17.5.2026) Programme Launch and Start of Accreditation 2 April Tickets Released for Sale 18 April Press Conference with Artists 29 April, 11:00 h, Haus der Berliner Festspiele Musikfest Berlin (28.8.–23.9.2026) Release Full Programme and Tickets 23 April Reflexe & Reflexionen (27.8.–30.8.2026) Die große Unordnung Release Full Programme and Tickets inEarly Summer Artistic project on the Ringbahn (circle railway) (28.08.–20.09.2026)What If Berlin Programme Release in Early Summer Performing Arts Season (14.10.2026–22.1.2027) Release Full Programme and Tickets 18 June Jazzfest Berlin (29.10.–1.11.2026) Release Full Programme and Tickets in September |
