From September 10–14, 2025, we invite you to a new edition of our renowned festival under the title “Vocal Affairs” curated by Mila Pavićević and Felicitas Zeeden. The feminist voice takes center stage as an artistic and political positioning within a deeply patriarchal society.

To address the precarious funding conditions of the independent scene in Berlin, Tanznacht places a strong focus on supporting and giving visibility to DIY, self-funded projects. Building on this, the knowledge-sharing format SIJELO (pronounced see-yeh-lo) creates a space where collective practices can be experienced and the relationship between the visible and invisible in artistic production processes can be renegotiated.

In collaboration with SAVVY Contemporary, the PSR collective and the Leipzig-based literary collective MONAliesA, a festival network is taking shape that spans multiple locations across Berlin’s Wedding district. At the heart of the festival is the feminist library curated by MONAliesA, located in Studio 12 of Uferstudios. With a focus on feminist literature from East Germany and the GDR, the library becomes a space for discourse, gathering, and a living archive.

We open the festival on September 10 with the Otucha Collective: a nine-member FLINTA+ vocal ensemble will create a rich, raw sonic performance in the courtyard of Uferstudios. Under the title “Polyphonic Ancestral Disco,” the collective weaves together traditional Eastern European wedding songs with elements of Disco Polo, rural polyphony, and experimental vocal techniques. The performers understand their voices as tools of self-empowerment: sound becomes a site of resistance, remembrance, and collective transformation. Matrilineal knowledge, embodied in old songs, becomes a living archive that transforms shame into strength and tradition into radical presence.

Tanznacht Berlin. Vocal Affairs. WITH: Jule Flierl & Irena Z. Tomažin, Agata Siniarska, Ana Lessing Menjibar, Sergiu Matis, MONAliesA, Open Group, Kasia Wolinska, Olympia Bukkakis & Maria F. Scaroni, Otucha Choir, Sheena McGrandles, Lee Méir, Ana Dubljević, Anali Goldberg, Claire Vivianne Sobottke, Co2, Doriane Mbenoun, Elena Polzer, Flamingo e.V., Gangganggang, Harun Morrison, Jarita Freydank, Justin Kennedey / Bodysnatch, mma Kgosi , Morana Miljanović, Naledi Majola, Olivia Hyunsin Kim, Oozing Gloop, Sebastian Bailey, Sina Saberi, The Incredible Edible Akynos, Valeria Graziano, Alja Gudžević, Mima Simić & Ivana Sajko