Breathing Rivers Festival

Located on the Spree River, Radialsystem was originally one of Berlin's first pumping stations, diverting wastewater from the rapidly growing city in the late 19th century. As part of the summer festival “Breathing Rivers,” today's Radialsystem explores our relationship to life and water from 20–23 July 2023 with works by choreographers Amanda Piña, Lina Gómez and Luísa Saraiva.

“Breathing Rivers” aims to open spaces of experience in which we collectively remember the continuity of all that is living, which has experienced ruptures through the thought and action of European modernity. Disruptions between human and nature, body and mind, or through cleaving categorizations such as gender and race, behind which exploitation, violence and injustice find their justification. A re-consideration of the inseparable embeddedness of the human being in a larger context begins here with the body as a place of experience and knowledge production. Instead of a notion of a universality of knowledge, Breathing Rivers proposes a multiplicity of possibilities of knowledge production that emerges with and from the reality of differently situated bodies.

Through a variety of formats, the festival draws on 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 Americas, she addresses the question of how the relationship between humans and nature can be experienced as a relationship of entangled bodies, beyond a modern, extractivist thinking that considers humans detached from their environment. This weekend, Radialsystem shows her performance “Frontera/Procesión – Un Ritual de Agua” as well as the video installation “Agua es Futuro!”.

In addition, new work by choreographer Lina Gómez is premiered: “Vagarosas” is inspired by the mountain world as a metaphor for strength and movement as well as 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 the 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 programme is complemented by a series of discursive encounters curated by Amanda Piña. The “River Talks” gather experts from scientific, artistic, local and indigenous knowledges.