Breathing Rivers Festival

In the festival's words:

A choreographic summer festival on the connectedness of the living with Amanda Piña, Lina Gómez and Luísa Saraiva.

Located on the Spree River, the Radialsystem was originally one of Berlin's first pumping stations, diverting sewage from the rapidly growing city in the late 19th century. As part of the summer festival "Breathing Rivers," today's Radialsystem will explore our relationship to life and water July 20-23 with works by choreographers Amanda Piña, Lina Gómez and Luísa Saraiva.

The festival "Breathing Rivers" opens spaces of experience in which we remember together a connectedness of all that is alive, which has experienced ruptures through the thought and action of European modernity. Fractures between human and nature, body and mind, or even separating categorizations such as gender and race - fractures against whose background violence and exploitation are justified. The return to the inseparable integration of human beings into a larger context begins here with the body as a site of experience. Instead of the idea of a universally valid knowledge, "Breathing Rivers" proposes a multiplicity of possibilities of knowledge production that emerges with and from the reality of differently situated bodies.

In a variety of formats, the festival ties in with the long-term research of artist and choreographer Amanda Piña, whose work explores the loss of our planet's cultural and biological diversity. Central to her exploration are points of contact between art, indigenous knowledge, activism, and scientific research. In the context of indigenous knowledge practices of the American double continent, she addresses the question of how the relationship between humans and nature can be experienced as an equal relationship of bodies - beyond a modern, extractivist way of thinking that considers humans detached from their environment. This weekend Radialsystem will show their performance "Frontera / Procesión - Un Ritual de Agua" as well as the video installation "Agua es Futuro!".

In addition, the new work of choreographer Lina Gómez will be premiered: "Vagarosas" is inspired by the mountain world as a metaphor for strength and movement, as well as for the ability to achieve change through perseverance and determination. In the German premiere of the immersive sound choreography "Tirana", Luísa Saraiva explores the physicality of singing and the limits of the female voice. Portuguese folk songs and a polyphonic repertoire sung exclusively by women, which deals with themes such as women's work, motherhood and violence, serve as a source of inspiration. The festival program is complemented by "The River Talks" series of talks curated by Amanda Piña, which gathers experts with scientific, artistic, local and indigenous knowledge. The third and final edition of "The River Talks" will take the form of a one-and-a-half-hour boat trip that will depart from and return to the Radialsystem pier.