„Alternde Meister“ – Koproduktion von Berliner Ensemble und Gemäldegalerie

Ersan Mondtag and Nadim Samman: “Aging Masters” – A co-production by the Berliner Ensemble and the Gemäldegalerie

As part of Berlin Art Week, Ersan Mondtag and Nadim Samman are staging a dialogue between 25 performers and the collection of the Gemäldegalerie – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin: They juxtapose the visual worlds of the Old Masters with the transience of today’s bodies and life stories. Serving as a bridge between theater and museum, a tableau vivant unfolds that revolves around exhaustion and renewal, disappearance and endurance. The participants include actors, artists, singers, and dancers from various generations, among them Frank Büttner, Eva-Maria Keller, Sema Poyraz, WestBam, and Louis Hofmann.

Premiere:Friday, September 11, 2026, 7:00 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. 
Performances:Saturday, September 12, andSunday, September 13, 2026, at 10:30 a.m., 1:00 p.m., and 3:30 p.m.

Tickets for “Aging Masters”

For the performances on Friday, September 11, 2026, at 7:00 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. (outside the Gemäldegalerie’s opening hours): 
Berliner Ensemble website

The performances on Saturday and Sunday, September 12 and 13, 2026, at 10:30 a.m., 1:00 p.m., and 3:30 p.m., can be attended with an admission ticket to the Gemäldegalerie for the respective day: 
Gemäldegalerie website

A performance that bridges theater and the museum

The Gemäldegalerie houses numerous works that explore mortality and transformation. At the same time, its mission is to preserve the paintings themselves from aging and decay. “Aging Masters” connects the mythical time of religious and allegorical imagery with the lived time of artists and their careers. Their visibility is never permanent. It arises at a specific moment and fades again as soon as attention shifts. For the artists, therefore, the process of becoming visible begins anew time and again.

In doing so, the play also paints a collective portrait of Berlin, a city that has based its identity on youth and freedom in recent decades and is now grappling with the fractures in this narrative. The city itself is reflected in the play’s protagonists: as a performer who ceaselessly stages her own youth while, beneath the surface, bearing the traces of countless lived stories.

A 30-minute cycle

The performance repeats in a 30-minute cycle throughout the show. At the beginning of each sequence, the performers stand motionless in various exhibition rooms. They appear among the paintings, as if they were part of the collection. Gradually, they awaken, get dressed, and carry out individual actions before gathering at a common location for a collective ceremony. Afterward, the group disperses again and a new cycle begins. Visitors can join the performance at any point, follow individual performers, and move freely between the rooms.

“The Fountain of Youth” as a Starting Point

The dramaturgy is based on Lucas Cranach the Elder’s painting “The Fountain of Youth” (1546), an exploration of age and transience. Cranach depicts elderly women who regain their youth by bathing in a stone fountain; they are then dried off, dressed in fine garments, and led into a garden filled with music, dance, and festivity. The painting can be read, not least, as a mirror of courtly vanity: it is not virtue that is renewed, but outward appearance and desire. “Aging Masters” adopts the sequence of transformation, dressing, and communal gathering, but alters the outcome of the events. The performers are not preparing for a celebration but are gathering for a memorial service.

Mourning and Transformation

In each cycle, one person takes center stage and is mourned by the other participants. The ritual is accompanied by a sequence from Gustav Mahler’s “Kindertotenlieder” (1901–1904), based on poems by Friedrich Rückert about the loss of a child. The songs do not end in despair, but in an image of peace: the children return home and sleep, as if the loss had been undone. The ritual of the performance takes up this movement and, at the same time, reverses it. Grief dissolves into shared laughter, which eventually freezes into a tableau in which grief and vitality merge.

Bodies as Testaments to a Life Lived

Visitors are invited to observe the performers and their actions with the same attentiveness as the Old Masters. The performance draws attention to bodies marked by the passage of time. Ersan Mondtag and Nadim Samman suggest that wrinkles, scars, exhaustion, and vulnerability be read as testimonies to a life lived.

Performers

• Amal Keller, actress
• Paul Herwig, actor
• Jannik Mühlenweg, actor
• Semra Uysallar, actress
• Sema Poyraz, actress and film director
• Peter Luppa, actor
• Frank Büttner, actor
• Eva-Maria Keller, actress
• Anton Ruslanovic, (Ukrainian) dancer
• Ashley Alexandra Wright, dancer
• Candice Breitz, artist
• Helga Wretman, stuntwoman and actress
• Pierre Emö, actor
• Frank Küster, bouncer and former club owner
• Westbam, DJ
• FRZNTE, pole dancer
• Louis Hofmann, actor
• Udo Kittelmann, curator and former director of the Neue Nationalgalerie
• Neda Pourbakhshayeshi, performer and rapper
• Bärbel Warneke, actress
• Günther Weidmann, retiree and partner of Birgit
• Birgit Heinecke, retiree and partner of Günther