It is the water that connects us; as the blood flows through man, so does the water flow through Europe. Small veins, wild streams, canals and wide rivers always connect us. The water knows no boundaries, it cannot be stopped by anything. In this way, all players of the evening are so connected to each other. The stories of their lives are in some way related by the structure of the watercourses. In the second part we will get to know the players through personal letters. These letter texts will merge into a sound collage, from which again stories of life, of one's own identity and of memory emerge. Here too, what connects us and not the divisive is the focus of the collective memory.

In German.

In the festival edition of the Gorillas' format, which has been successful for many years, the focus will be on characters who play an important role in the lives of the performers: mothers, fathers, first-time friends or swarms never met, detested competitors or revered Stars. Four of these characters make it to the final poll: Who gets the lead role for the rest of the evening? Because after the break, everything revolves around him. Or you?

In German.

One of the most successful and popular formats of our festival - at the Improvision Song Contest, of course, you decide what to sing, and of course, which country receives the most points for its naturally improvised song. Six singers from six European countries compete with each other - Hip Hop or Blues, Aria or Heavy Metal, Chanson or Reggae. Who sings most beautifully? Who textes most quickly? Who touches the hearts most? And our twelve points go to ...

In English.

IMPRO will be the first time we Gorillas will be working intensively with our fellow improvisers from Czech Republic. This is reason enough to dedicate an entire evening to this fruitful co-operation, an evening which will also be imbedded in the »Moment!« Project. »Moment!« is a six-months project intensifying the exchange between the German and Czech improv theatre scenes at artistic as well as organisational level. In the long term, we want to form a solid partnership between Gorilla Theater e.V. and Česká improvizační liga, creating a space for regular encounters between the ever growing number of improv theatres in both countries. This show will playfully examine the clichés we have about each other, with zest and passion. What do we know about the lives of our Czech neighbours, and - to be more precise - about the lives of our Czech improv colleagues? What do we know about ours? On this evening, we take the biographies of these six people who perform on stage together as the basis for our improvisations. How do you live in Ostrava? Where do you shop in Prague? How was it to grow up in the Palatinate country? And, what are YOU interested in?

With Michaela Puchalková, Ladislav Karda, Vanda Gabrielová as well as Barbara Klehr, Christoph Jungmann and Robert Munzinger (Music).

Performance in English, all performers are non-native speakers, easy to understand.

With the financial support of:

As always, the last evening belongs to the audience. Because you have the chance to improvise with some colleagues from all over the world - take it!

In English.

It has become a small tradition that we ask the international colleagues to bring short country-specific improv formats for the opening evening and to show them to the other actors as well as the Berlin audience. A colorful, blazing, energetic kick-off of our Our Lives festival in the two main venues of the festival: 14 artists play in the Ratibor, the other half at the same time in the English Theater Berlin | International Performing Arts Center.

In English.

Life in contemporary forms of capitalism is becoming unbearable, and one survival strategy is to develop and protect at all costs small communities that offer us different relations. With art, we cannot and do not aim at causing great social change but we can make room for collective creation, a space where it is possible to survive and even have a good time. Every moment is worth asking the very important human question of »How do we actually want to live together?«. And by doing so, we are finding answers along the way. Exquisite and daring performers from different cultural, economic and political environments dive into the topic of community: Alenka Marinič (Slovenia), Alexander Mitrev (Bulgaria), Audrius Bruzas (Lithuania), Beatrix Brunschko (Austria), Gilles Delvaulx (Belgium), Hannu Risku (Finland), Mia Møller (Denmark). Artistic Director: Maja Dekleva Lapajne (Slovenia).

In English.

When we remember the life that's behind us: what are the milestones? What are the particularly beautiful, intimate situations, which were the happiest moments for us, which held great importance for us? Seven improv players from seven countries will base their improvisations on these questions: Greg Melmer (Luxemburg), Henk van der Steen (Netherlands), Kasia Chmara (Poland), Marta Borges (Portugal), Órla Mc Govern (Ireland), Pavel Wieser (Czech Republic), Savvas Thoma (Cyprus). Artistic Director: Michaela Puchalková (Czech Republic).

In English.

We spent and spend our lives in places. When we remember our grandparents' living room, the sound of the ticking clock, the smell of the chocolate cake, and the sunlight through the gap in the curtains will come back to us. Let's have a guess what the artists from seven European countries could bring us: a muddy mountain path in Slovakia; a quiet intersection in a Spanish village; an old farm on the border of Romania; a hot stone on a Greek beach; a wide, white field in the north of Sweden; a busy ferry on the coast of Estonia; a crammed Späti in Neukölln-Britz. Let's tell each other about Our Lives.

With Billy Kissa (Greece), Leon Düvel (Germany), Lukáš Tandara (Slovakia), Monica Anastase (Romania), Per Gottfredsson (Sweden), Rahel Otsa (Estonia), Raquel Racionero (Spain). Artistic Director: Christoph Jungmann (Germany).

In English.

Political or geographical, linguistic or ideological, visible or invisible, borders are shaping us: each freedom is limited by a borderline. From imagination to concrete reality, we build walls to label our divisions. Our Lives could be told by naming buildings and by demolishing these walls. Our homes, our churches and our schools reside inside those walls. Other walls loom between our countries, our cultures. In between those walls, what are our actual contours?

Cast: Antonia Vulpio (Italy), Heather Urquhart (UK), Julie Doyelle (France), Kaspars Breidaks (Latvia), Malcolm Galea (Malta), Roko Crnić (Croatia), Zsuzsi Várady (Hungary). Artistic Director: Matthieu Loos (France).

In English.

We asked the 28 colleagues invited to the festival to "bring along" an artist from their country, i. E. to introduce us to him or her - be it a painter or a lyricist or a folk band. How the colleagues do this is entirely up to them - whether they are playing a tape of a recorded concert or reciting a poem or showing a painting in a book or reading aloud from a novel - the only condition is that this artist for them has very personal, special meaning. In the creative atmosphere offered by the Pfefferberg's venue, seven from the Our Lives cast will each present their role model.
11 am: France, Italy, England, Malta, Croatia, Hungary, Latvia.
12.30 pm: Greece, Belgium, Slovakia, Estonia, Denmark, Austria, Cyprus.
2 pm: Romania, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Spain, Czech Republic, Poland, Sweden.
15.30: Portugal, Ireland, Finland, Slovenia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Germany.

Admission at the four specified times.

In English.