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Contact info

Address

Schaperstraße 24
10719 Berlin
Germany
http://www.berlinerfestspiele.de/

Info

Tel: +49 30 25 48 90
Fax: +49 30 25 48 91 11
info@berlinerfestspiele.de
http://www.berlinerfestspiele.de/
Berliner Festspiele
Schaperstraße 24
10719 Berlin

Administration

Tel: +49 30 25 48 90
Fax: +49 30 25 48 91 11
info@berlinerfestspiele.de
http://www.berlinerfestspiele.de/
Berliner Festspiele
Schaperstraße 24
10719 Berlin

Tickets

Tel: +49 30 25 48 91 00
Fax: +49 30 25 48 92 30
ticketoffice@berlinerfestspiele.de
http://www.berlinerfestspiele.de/
Berliner Festspiele
Schaperstraße 24
10719 Berlin

Press

Tel: +49 30 25 48 92 69
Fax: +49 30 25 48 91 55
presse@berlinerfestspiele.de
http://www.berlinerfestspiele.de
Berliner Festspiele
Schaperstraße 24
10719 Berlin

Accountancy

Tel: +49 30 26 39 70
Fax: +49 30 26 39 73 97
info@kbb.de
http://www.kbb.eu/
KBB GmbH
Schöneberger Straße 15
10963 Berlin

Berliner Festspiele

Five festivals – one house, one framework. With our point of departure in the Berliner Festwochen, the Berliner Festspiele have organized a multiplicity of highly specialized festivals, exhibition projects, and individual events. Our activities are devoted to the presentation of exceptional contemporary artistic positions in the fields of music, the performing arts, the visual arts, and literature – in this sense, every season generates fresh Polaroids, since our festivals and exhibitions are snapshots which reveal underlying attitudes in two ways: through the language of the presented work, and through the perspective of the program designer.

The Berliner Festspiele live through the intelligence and the emphases of its curators and jurors in the projects realized at Martin Gropius Bau and at various festivals: MaerzMusik, Theatertreffen, Musikfest Berlin, Spielzeit’europa, and Jazzfest. We are simultaneously producers as well as hosts to and partners with a range of national and international institutions – from the Berlinale to Berghain, from the Sophiensäle to MoMA in New York. Over the years the Haus der Berliner Festspiele has transformed itself continuously – from campus and display window for competitions showcasing young talent, to a stage for authors from around the world during international literature festivals.

As an institution of the German federal government, the primary task of the Berliner Festspiele is to stimulate exchange. Here at the centre of Berlin, it is a question of movements between inner and outer, between individual and society. Art is not only that which is pleasing. The Polaroids created in the framework of the Berliner Festspiele move us as well. They focus attitudes which respond to clashes between the contrasting visions or prophecies embodied in the works of individual creators. Emerging from such collisions are symphonies, performances, dramas, poems, and images which then take the form of programmatic orientations, festivals, celebrations. Which is why the framework of the Berliner Festspiele, as you and I now perceive it, must be mobile, never a firm boundary.

This festival has been an EFA member since 1952.

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Festival Programme

Each EFA member manages its own Calendar. In case there is no programme availabable for this year, please visit the festival's own website.

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History

Since the early 1950s the Berliner Festspiele have played an essential part in shaping Berlin’s cultural landscape. The legendary Berliner Festwochen (1951 to 2003) provided a stage for international developments in music and theatre, with culture as the bridge between East and West. The Berliner Festwochen treated the public to performances by high-ranking orchestras, soloists and directors including Wilhelm Furtwängler, Leonard Bernstein, Eugene Ormandy and Claudio Abbado. Its programme offered plays by Eugène Ionesco, Samuel Beckett and Edward Albee, dramatic works by Ingmar Bergman, Peter Brook, Patrice Chéreau and Robert Wilson and choreographies by Martha Graham, Pina Bausch and Merce Cunningham. With time the Berliner Festspiele spawned further high-quality festivals such as the Theatertreffen (1964), the JazzFest Berlin (1964) or the Horizonte-Festival (1979) which in its turn inspired the foundation of the House of World Culture. A high point in the history of the Berliner Festspiele was the multi-faceted programme of events celebrating the 750th anniversary of the city of Berlin in 1987. After the fall of the Berlin Wall the European perspective on international developments in the arts became increasingly important. New formats such as MaerzMusik, spielzeit’europa and musikfest berlin were established and continue to shape the intellectual landscape in Berlin and beyond.

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