MEMORY IS AN ACTIVE THING: 25 YEARS OF TWIN CITIES WINDHOEK — BERLIN

About 8,356 kilometers separate Berlin and Windhoek, the capital of Namibia. Yet, on the anniversary of their partnership as twin cities, they feel closer than ever. Their histories have long been intertwined, shaped by the colonial past. With the purpose to (in part) make this past tangible, the partnership has been in place for 25 years, honoring remembrance while looking toward the future — creating spaces, exchanges, and diverse perspectives for a sustainable tomorrow. During the anniversary week 25 years of twin cities Windhoek – Berlin, from 17.–23.11.2025, this connection will not only be celebrated but actively practiced. Over 30 events will take place, involving more than 40 partners and around 100 participants from art, film, music, and science fields. The core pillars of the program are civil society and activist actors from both cities, who aim to strengthen municipal networks and foster dialogue. Throughout the week, the artistic intervention “Memory Scripts” by Windhoek-based artist Vitjitua Ndjiharine will be projected onto the Berlin House of Representatives. Guided city tours by Berlin Postkolonial and deSta – decolonial city tours will reveal just how much colonial heritage is embedded in Berlin’s buildings and streets. One highlight comes on 21., 22., and 23.11. at the Humboldt Forum. Following its world premiere in Windhoek, traditional choral music meets performance, dance, and theater when the Namibian-German artist collective around the theater association Momentbühne performs the musical theater production “People of Song.”

On November 19, Afrikamera will present Namibian short films under the title Windhoek Shorts and invite filmmakers and interested audiences to exchange ideas at Sinema Transtopia. The pop-up photo exhibition Reframe Namibia showcases the resistant perspectives of a young collective of photographers. At the Gropiusbau (20.11.) and Berlin Global Village (17.11.), panels and workshops will ask important questions. How can a city partnership be conceived decolonially? How can relationships be built that do not simply manage the colonial legacy, but uncover it? During this week, remembrance is not a quiet retrospective, it is an active movement, spanning kilometers and unfolding right at our doorstep.

Text: Emma Zylla / Credits: “People of Song” © Michael Nakapandi, Surreal Art Creative Studio, Windhoek; “Memory Scripts” © Vitjitua Ndjiharine; “Shadows of the Past” © Julia Runge, 2023-2025

25 Years of Twin Cities Windhoek – Berlin
17.–23.11.2025. Find the full program and locations here.

@kulturprojekteberlin

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OPENING UP SPACES, SHIFTING PERSPECTIVES: THE PERFORMING ARTS SEASON 2025/26

When South Korean choreographer Eun-Me Ahn’s Post-Orientalist Express rolls in, you let yourself be swept along — and be prepared to leave your baggage behind. In her latest work, which will celebrate its European premiere on 15.11.2025 at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele as part of the Performing Arts Season 2025/26, Eun-Me Ahn explores the legacy of Orientalism. She deconstructs the stories that the “enlightened West” tells about the “mysterious Orient” and asks: Who is speaking about whom — and how? Together with her ensemble, she searches for hybrid choreographic identities that move beyond internalized stereotypes. On a stage that merges traditional cultural forms with neo-traditional remix elements, Ahn demonstrates that “tradition” and “modernity” are no longer separate categories but exist in continuous dialogue, often through contradictory images. These tensions are visible in the 90 costumes, all designed by Ahn herself. Her questions remain pressing: How do orientalist perspectives continue to shape the work of Asian artists today? What role does the memory of colonial regimes of the gaze still play? And how can encounters between East and West be reimagined? The Post-Orientalist Express doesn’t simply travel from A to B, it traverses spaces, ideas, and attributions, inviting audiences to climb aboard and dive in deeply.

Continuing this exploration of deconstructing clichés and inherited images, Gisèle Vienne and Étienne Bideau-Rey’s Showroomdummies #4 premieres on 05.12.2025. Here, dolls meet performers, and the boundaries between body and object become disturbingly interchangeable. Vienne and Bideau-Rey work with the tension between attraction and repulsion, drawing on references that range from masochism to Japanese horror. The result is a piece that lays bare desire, the staging of femininity, and the mechanics of the gaze. The dolls are not mere props; they form an integral part of a dramaturgy of withdrawal and suggestion. While Ahn interrogates questions of identity and attribution, Vienne and Bideau-Rey examine attribution itself as a physical and theatrical pattern. Together, both productions transform the stage into a laboratory of perception, standing as emblematic examples of the radical, playful, and critical international dance, theater, and performance works that the Performing Arts Season will bring to the Haus der Berliner Festspiele through early 2026.

Text: Laura Storfner / Photos: Credit: Jean-Marie Chabot, Hervé Véronèse, Sukmu Yun & Jiyang Kim

Haus der Berliner Festspiele, Schaperstr. 24, 10719 Berlin-Wilmersdorf; map

Performing Arts Season 2025/26 until 25.01.2026. Info and tickets can be found here.

@berlinerfestspiele

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OF WHAT LIES BEYOND — THE TENTH BERLIN SCIENCE WEEK

Exploring the city through research… At the beginning of November, Berlin becomes the smartest city in the world, for as long as the tenth edition of Berlin Science Week fills museums, forums, and stages. From November 01.–10.11.2025, more than 150 partners from Berlin and beyond will host over 350 events, showing how research comes alive when it steps out of the lab and into the city. At the same time, it becomes clear that science is deeply connected to culture, society, and our most nagging questions. The theme for this year’s anniversary edition is “Beyond Now”, and it’s an invitation to stay curious amid the chaos of the present. For instance, the Campus at the Museum für Naturkunde (01.–02.11.2025) will transform into a small city for researchers and the curious alike. There, CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) will showcase the particle accelerator of the future, while the Fraunhofer Network for Science, Art and Design experiments with fabrics that respond to touch. Scripts (04.11.2025) will explore how science and politics challenge one another at the Centre for East European and International Studies.

Under the title “Collective Freedom: What’s Worth Fighting For”, experts from science, politics, and society discuss the conditions under which freedom must be fought for today. The festival then moves to the water, to the Forum at Holzmarkt 25 (06.–09.11.). There, at the Decision Theater Idea Lab (06.–07.11.), vast amounts of data become visible and dynamic through interactive tools, revealing just how much tomorrow depends on our actions today. In “Introduction to the Future Self” (07.11.), artist Angela Aux merges concert and experiment into a progressive, dreamlike performance. And on November 9, you can completely immerse yourself: “Coral Sonic Resilience” transforms coral reefs into soundscapes. Can sound be healing? Maybe. Most of the festival is free of charge. One thing’s for sure, we all still have plenty to learn.

Text: Emma Zylla / Photos: Christoph Schneider, Felix Zahn, Photothek

Berlin Science Week 01.–10.11.2025. Find the full program and the locations here.

@berlinscienceweek

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THREE DAYS OF TOMORROW — THE FESTIVAL OF FUTURE NOWS AT THE NEUE NATIONALGALERIE

The future is on the agenda! From 31.10.–02.11.2025, the Neue Nationalgalerie will become a stage for what has yet to be written. The Festival of Future Nows returns and invites you to shape tomorrow. Around a hundred international artists — from emerging voices to well-known names — will transform the interior and exterior spaces of the van der Rohe building through performances, soundscapes, choreographies, and interventions. Here, art is not merely displayed but shared: as a process, as an exchange, as an invitation to encounter the unpredictable. Originating from the Institute for Spatial Experiments, founded by Olafur Eliasson at the Berlin University of the Arts, the festival sees itself as a laboratory for new forms of coexistence and reflection on what lies ahead. The first edition took place in 2014 before the renovation of the Neue Nationalgalerie. And, in 2017, the festival moved to the Hamburger Bahnhof for its second iteration. With its third edition, the festival returns to its place of origin — the transparent pavilion that has itself become a symbol of exchange and movement. Here, we don’t explain what the future might look like; we try it out (and celebrate it at the afterparty on Friday at Studio 1111). Three days in the heart of Berlin, surrounded by glass, concrete, and ideas. Admission is free!

Text: Emma Zylla / Photos: David von Becker, Phillip Rahlenbeck / Credit: Neue Nationalgalerie – Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Institut für Raumexperimente, UdK Berlin, María del Pilar García Ayensa

Neue Nationalgalerie, Potsdamer Str. 50, 10785 Berlin–Tiergarten; map

Festival of Future Nows 2025 31.10–02.11.2025, Opening 31.10.2025 19h.

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ALL THAT JAZZ — LATE-NIGHT JAM SESSIONS AND COMMUNITY CONCERTS AT JAZZFEST BERLIN

Do you know your cool jazz from your free jazz? Hard bop from avant-garde? If the answer is no, then all the more reason to check out Jazzfest Berlin (30.10–02.11.2025) – not least because it stretches well beyond jazz to everything from hip hop to soul. The 62nd edition of the Berliner Festspiele’s four-day festival is billed as a space fostering encounter and artistic diversity in response to a turbulent world, with a program featuring 120 international musicians playing across ten different venues. It opens with a four-hour evening of three concerts: energetic improv trio Angelika Niescier, Tomeka Reid and Eliza Salem; followed by the rhythmic depth of Felix Henkelhausen’s septet Deranged Particles and a meditative duet from Vijay Iyer and Wadada Leo Smith (30.10, 18h).

The late-night jazz basement energy will be in full force at music club Quasimodo on Friday evening (31.10, 22h30), where collective The Young Mothers will be blending jazz with hip hop and metal. It’s followed by a jam session with musicians from the festival program. On Sunday 02.11 it’s time to go to church – the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church – where French saxophonist Sakina Abdou and trio The Handover take to the stage for a musical afternoon in an architecturally stunning atmosphere (starts 15h). In addition to the main concerts, there is a whole program of Kiez sessions, free lunchtime concerts and children’s workshops as part of Community Week. Check out the full line-up and get tickets here.

Text: Benji Haughton / Photos: Ana Iramain, Anna Sorgalla, Thomas Sayers Ellis

Jazzfest Berlin (30.10–02.11.2025) – program, tickets and more info here.

@berlinerfestspiele

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MEMORY IS AN ACTIVE THING: 25 YEARS OF TWIN CITIES WINDHOEK — BERLIN

OPENING UP SPACES, SHIFTING PERSPECTIVES: THE PERFORMING ARTS SEASON 2025/26

OF WHAT LIES BEYOND — THE TENTH BERLIN SCIENCE WEEK

THREE DAYS OF TOMORROW — THE FESTIVAL OF FUTURE NOWS AT THE NEUE NATIONALGALERIE

ALL THAT JAZZ — LATE-NIGHT JAM SESSIONS AND COMMUNITY CONCERTS AT JAZZFEST BERLIN