Goodbye Berlin von Constanza Macras | Dorky Park

In the organizer's words:

Inspired by Isherwood's semi-autobiographical novel Goodbye to Berlin, the essay Watching Weimar Dance by Kate Elswit and the legacy of prominent dancers of the time such as Kurt Jooss and Valeska Gert, the show explores the amoral universe of the intoxicating spectacle, which unfolds as a "nightmarish hall of mirrors of political and social anxieties": a cabaret.

Goodbye Berlin is set in a liminal space that moves back and forth between the turbulent Germany of the Weimar Republic and the present, confronting contradictions, paradoxes and apocalyptic visions with the palatable forms of pure spectacle.

As the world spins dangerously on, cabaret becomes the home of subversive and counter-cultural rituals. These rituals are our artistic repertoire, our staged heritage. But do they only serve to halt the rise of reactionary politics into entertaining bliss? Or can they counteract our depressive feeling of inability to act and actually spark a mobilization against increasingly overarching powers?

Is pleasure still possible at all, not instead of hope, but beyond it?

Goodbye Berlin is a journey through a fascinating aesthetic that strives for ecstasy and fantasizes with death.

Co-production with Constanza Macras | Dorky Park