* Show takes place in former power plant in Berlin wasteland
* Berlin ballet created show with DJs from techno club
* Clubs say such experimental spirit threatened by rising
costs
By Sarah Marsh
BERLIN, May 7 (Reuters) – Berlin’s state ballet has teamed
up with a leading techno night club to produce a dark,
avant-garde show with bondage masks and a bus wreck set in a
former power plant that showcases the city’s vibrant alternative
cultural scene.
“Masse” (mass) features three performances by choreographers
scored by DJs who regularly play at the Berghain in a wasteland
in the city’s ex-communist east which grew out of a gay, fetish
joint and is known for its booming sound and hedonistic parties.
The show, staged in the hitherto derelict main hall of the
power plant behind the club, epitomises the city’s experimental
spirit which many fear is under threat from gentrification and
rising rents and costs.
“The menacing atmosphere of the Berghain was an
inspiration,” said choreographer Tim Plegge, whose piece
features ballerinas wearing bondage masks and one dancer
smothering the rest with smoke.
Electronic music resonates around the 17-metre (55 ft) high
brick and cement walls of a hall that has been transformed into
a techno temple and opened to the public for the first time.
The barren set, featuring a bus wreck and twisted steel, is
also the debut stage design of German artist Norbert Bisky.
“I wanted to create a contrast with the beauty of the
dancers’ movements,” said Bisky, whose works feature in a
variety of collections including at New York’s Museum of Modern
Art (MOMA). “Firstly, the world is not just perfection and
beauty, secondly the hall is a very raw, forbidding place.”
Bisky said he wanted to draw on the “catastrophic mood of
recent years” and growing scepticism about unbridled urban
growth.
CHANGING CITY LANDSCAPE
Berghain is one of the many clubs or alternative culture
venues in Berlin located in industrial buildings that were long
derelict due to the city’s tortuous 20th century history,
destroyed by World War Two and then divided by the Berlin Wall.
“It’s a very special place, an unrestored industrial
building with morbid architecture typical of Berlin,” said
spectator Fritz Stahlberg, 57, after the premiere of the show,
which runs till May 25 but is already sold out.
Berghain and ballet fans who failed to get tickets have
tried to sneak into the plant in the day and wait for the show.
“You couldn’t have a classical ballet here, just as a
contemporary ballet like this wouldn’t necessarily fit into your
usual opera house,” said Stahlberg.
The Berlin state ballet company, one of the largest in
Europe, said the show was also a chance to reach a new public.
“It’s a possibility to both reach a new public that wouldn’t
usually be interested in ballet and to bring opera-goers to a
techno club they would otherwise never step foot in,” said
Nadine Jaeger, spokeswoman for the ballet company.
In its wild heyday following reunification in 1990, Berlin
attracted hoards of artists and became known for its
graffiti-covered squats and wild parties and cultural happenings
in warehouses, swimming pools and factories.
But in the last few years, property prices have jumped in
the city that its mayor once branded “poor but sexy” and
investors have reclaimed real estate once left to squatters,
forcing many alternative culture venues to close or move on.
On top of gentrification, clubs are facing a higher tax rate
as well as a new system of royalty payments squeezing profit
margins, forcing many clubs to shut, a phenomenon known by
locals as “Clubsterben” or “club death”.
But Berghain is pushing ahead with ts experimental edge and
becoming more ambitious in scope. The club’s publicity-shy
owners in 2010 bought the plant built in neoclassical style as
part of east Germany’s post-war reconstruction programme.
While the club attracts techno enthusiasts from all over the
world, it has also branched out into high-brow culture,
displaying artworks by famous artists such as Wolfgang Tillmans
and hosting small classical concerts and shows.
The club said its original plans to fully convert the plant’s
main hall into a venue for major productions have been thwarted
by the higher taxes and royalties. “Masse” takes place in one
corner and risks being a one-off show.
“We should be doing more co-productions like this,” said
Berlin state ballet’s artistic director and first soloist
Vladimir Malakhov.
(Reporting By Sarah Marsh, editing by Gareth Jones and Belinda
Goldsmith)
