Making theater in Berlin: Theater students gain hands-on experience in collaborative new course

This semester, Prof. Dr. Nina Tecklenburg is teaching a course called Making Theater in Berlin - A Collaboration with the Theater Ballhaus Ost. In a new class format that Tecklenburg aims to continue in the future, students leave campus and to move into a professional theater environment.

All of the classes take place at Ballhaus Ost, a theater venue located in Prenzlauer Berg. As one of most vibrant places for bold and innovative independent performing arts in the city, BHO offers a rich program that includes emerging performing artists as well as established, award-winning theater makers. Students have been working together with BHO’s staff and commissioned artists throughout the semester, which Tecklenburg says has been “an absolutely wonderful, insightful, and rewarding experience.” Ultimately, students will have the opportunity to show their final performance in the professional theater space of Ballhaus Ost on Tuesday, May 7 at 8:00pm as part of BCB’s Open Studios and Performance Factory. 

The course offers an intensive study and practical exploration of how performing arts are produced in Berlin through the case study of Ballhaus Ost. Throughout the course, students explore questions such as: How do people work in a theater? What departments are needed to make a theater piece? How does one curate a meaningful program? What is the relationship between artists and the institution? Between the institution and cultural policy? 

In workshops with artists commissioned by Ballhaus Ost, the class explores their artistic approaches, concerns, and working methods. The aim is to get hands-on experience of creating performing arts and working in a theater institution, while situating the working structures and art produced at Ballhaus Ost in a larger context of Berlin’s rich theater culture and a globalized theater industry.

Some of the workshops as part of the course have included a lighting workshop with lighting designer Fabian Eichner, BHO’s lighting technician; a workshop with newcomer performance collective Blomen/Moré/Reiniger based on their performance "You Know the Feeling," which the class attended prior to the workshop; a visit to an exhibition at BHO by famous set-designer Janina Audick's University of the Arts Berlin class; and the “Imaginative Justice Workshop” by the performance artist duo Salma Said and Miriam Coretta Schulte based on their performance “Court Fantasies” which explores alternatives to the existing systems of asylum.

All are welcome to attend the final performances of the Making Theater in Berlin class on Tuesday, May 7 at Ballhaus Ost (Pappelallee 15, 10437 Berlin) at 8:00pm.

Post Date: 04-22-2024