The documentary "Ostravaganza – Discovery of East German Avant-Garde" is ready for viewing! Director Martin Miotk accompanies culture journalist Marion Christen at her search for traces of the true origin of avant-garde music.

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The story: Six East German artists didn’t only give rise to the most important innovations of New Music, they also still indulge experimental music in a subversive cultural underground in senior residencies and cultural centers. The sprightly pensioners officially personate as schlager- and entertainment stars and disguise their performances as nostalgic shows and tea dances, where they already had to hide their avant-gardist artistic work under dictation of the GDR regime. These pioneers of the radical modernism now push into the public to present their “Ostravaganza” to a broad audience. The musical avant-garde was originated in the East, was betrayed, dispossessed, forgotten and finally shall be rehabilitated. Including coming-outs, nervous break-downs, confession orgys and emotional minefields…

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The artists' collective Opera Lab Berlin presents "The Great (re)Learning", a musical theater spectacle at the artists' association Flutgraben on the Spree Kreuzberg/Tempelhof.

The Corona pandemic has increased everything, especially the differences between people and all that separates them from each other. That's why the task now is to overcome the differences again and rebuild what they have in common. But this is something that needs to be learned. Welcome to: The Great (re)Learning!

After years of contact restrictions, we are implementing a large-scale music-performative social experiment: maximum contact entanglement. We will relearn how to be physically together. We will reconnect to the social, psychological and emotional group dynamics that are essential to the human condition. We will embrace the herd mentality to gather and create a collective experience together. Join us for music theater as social action!

„Gefördert von der Beauftragten der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien im Rahmen von NEUSTART KULTUR“ 

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Wagner must be conquered. Music theater must free itself from the trap of the Gesamtkunstwerk and find its way back to its roots: the game. The play of instruments, a performance with a slice of bread and games. What is the opposite of 5 hours of notated insanity? The improvisation of the players and the audience: music theater as a game show. 

During the pandemic, Opera Lab Berlin continued its education: a comedy improv course started as a teambuilding activity and ended in a new artistic idea. How can improvisational art from dance, jazz & blues, baroque music and classical free improvisation be brought together in an entertaining form? 

Inspired by ancient mime, contact improvisation, mystery dinners, soap operas and reality TV, the show will be different every night - because the audience will determine the progress of the action. The lights in the hall will definitely not be dimmed, and whatever may come: bet that Big Brother will lose the drag race against RuPaul and move to Schillerstrasse with Wagner? All in all: TOTAL WORK ART.

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Manos Tsangaris’ "Love & Diversity" takes the aesthetic form of a speed date. Seven musicians and one actress, positioned in their own distinct performance station, inhabit the theatrical space. Meanwhile, small groups of three audience members move from station to station until they have experienced all eight performances. These dates develop a rich web of instrumental music, spoken text, video and light interactions, where the instrumentalists themselves are the actors.