VOICES – Performing Arts Festival

The VOICES Performing Arts Festival is an independent platform in support of artists who have had to leave their homelands and are seeking new ways to make their voices heard. 2024 marks the second year of the festival, which explores how artistic identity can transcend geographical boundaries, as well as how displaced artists can both redefine themselves in a new cultural environment and enrich it.

This year's programme focusses on the most recent movements of migration from post-Soviet states, introducing audiences to exceptional artistic trends and voices of emerging artists. From 2 to 29 November, VOICES stages new music, dance and theatre productions at various locations around Berlin, which centre around the complexity of cultural and political turmoil on one hand and the possibilities and effects of modern technology on the other. The perspective of the ‘other’ thereby develops into a universal metaphor—a lens through which we can better understand the world around us.

The VOICES festival also features the world premiere of dancer/choreographer Igor Shyshko’s performance ‘SPELL’ at Radialsystem. In addition, the Berlin ensemble PHØNIX16 presents a spatial sound installation featuring works by artists such as Vinko Globokar, Maxim Kolomiiets, Samir TimajChi and Katalin Ladik, who explore the relationship between sound and migration. Other highlights include pianist Pavlos Antoniadis’s ‘ALGOS’, an extensive concert programme in which movements are transformed into sound through a combination of video, artificial intelligence and live music, as well as the Berlin premiere of Ivan Estegneev's solo performance ‘The Demon's Mourning’, which offers a deep and intimate insight into his experience of exile.