HOUSE OF HOPES, VOLKSBAD & More to Open Volksbühne Berlin's October Season

The October schedule for the Volksbühne at Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz is out now and online. After ten years of closure, the Prater on Kastanienallee is reopening as a venue. Advance ticket sales have begun.

To mark the start of Matthias Lilienthal's tenure as Artistic Director, Rimini Protokoll invite audiences on a tour through the Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz. At a time when it is no longer clear whether democracy in Germany is coming to an end, they revisit the watershed year of 1989 from ten international perspectives and through the lens of the present. At the Prater on Kastanienallee – now again part of the Volksbühne venues – Anta Recke engages with Vincenzo Latronico's novel The Perfection to explore the future of Berlin. Working in Berlin for the first time, Satoko Ichihara brings together Japanese puppet theatre, expressive performance, and the kinetic sculptures of visual artist Mire Lee in an exorcism of evil spirits (Japanese: 'Mononoke'). With Davi Pontes and Wallace Ferreira, political resistance and dance connect to craft a choreography of self-defense. The duo introduces the School of Self-Defense – a response to racism and queerphobia in Brazil – to Berlin. Here, our programming builds on the traditional political commitment of the Volksbühne and strives to further internationalise it.

Germany is facing societal changes with unforeseeable implications. If the far-right party AfD comes to power in any federal states, it will bring about decisive changes to people's lives starting on day one. Now is the time to defend the theatre's crucial role as a source of independent reporting to document these changes. Our new series of events featuring Jean Peters/CORRECTIV and Tobias Haberkorn/Berlin Review are dedicated to boost our capacity to act against these developments when our present is threatened by far-right extremism.

Ahead of the start of the theatre season, the Volksbühne transforms into a pop-up outdoor swimming pool including a 25-metre swim lane between 7 August and 1 Oktober: look forward to VOLKSBAD am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz. The project draws attention to the declining state of Berlin's social and cultural infrastructure whilst inviting the people in the capital to enjoy a summer day out together. Free time-slot tickets are available starting 4 August 2026.

The idea for VOLKSBAD goes back to Florentina Holzinger's production Ophelia's Got Talent, which featured performers swimming in a pool onstage. The show is part of the current repertoire, alongside A Year without Summer, and René Pollesch's pieces Der Schnittchenkauf, Ich weiß nicht, was ein Ort ist, ich kenne nur seinen Preis (Manzini Studies) and ja nichts ist ok. Tickets for the shows A Year without Summer*, ja nichts ist ok, Der Schnittchenkauf and Philippe Quesne's Spooky Paradise are now on sale.

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October Premieres At A Glance

House of Hopes

Rimini Protokoll: Stefan Kaegi, Daniel Wetzel

World premiere on 1 October 2026
Großes Haus

In House of Hopes, ten groups of 60 spectators each make their way through the insides of the Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, in search of the lost hopes for a better tomorrow. The building's architecture makes the setting for ten biographically-based accounts from Berlin-based experts originating from Afghanistan, China, Chile, Iran, Namibia, Poland, South Korea and Hungary, alongside new cast members from Washington, USA, and Rostock, Germany. They look back on the year the Berlin Wall fell from an international perspective.
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Perfection

Anta Recke

Based on the novel by Vincenzo Latronico

World premiere on 2 October 2026

Prater an der Kastanienallee

The Prater venue has reopened, and the audience now finds itself in an arena where, in Vincenzo Latronico's Perfection and amid Berlin's polling period in autumn, the city's future and opportunities for social and political participation are negotiated. The Prater on Kastanienallee, with a history as popular theatre and as object of a fierce property dispute, is just the right meta-setting for this particular production, creating its own references.

A museum object telling of a bygone world. Anta Recke came to prominence by recreating a “Black copy” of Josef Bierbichler's novel Mittelreich in a production with an all-Black cast. Her work is every bit as close to essay writing and conceptual art as it is to stagecraft.

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Mononoke

Satoko Ichihara

World premiere on 3 October 2026

Großes Haus

Satoko Ichihara's Mononoke takes traditional Japanese Bunraku puppet theatre into the present day. Mononoke refers to spirits that attach themselves to people implanting curses into them. The set design is created by the Berlin-based Korean artist Mire Lee, whose kinetic sculptures appear to take on a monstrous life of their own. Ichihara's stories portray characters read as women, who carry the history of patriarchal oppression in them and constantly struggle with this legacy. They use exaggeration bordering on the fetishistic, as well as kawaii (cuteness) as survival strategies.

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Mata Leão / School of Self-Defense

Davi Pontes, Wallace Ferreira

World premiere on 29 October 2026
Großes Haus

Festival School of Self-Defense 29 October–1 November 2026

Responding to the global rise of right-wing threats, Brazilian choreographers Davi Pontes and Wallace Ferreira have joined forces with Berlin-based artists to set up a School of Self-Defense offering voguing classes, theory and workshops. Their new production, in which they share the stage with six dancers from Berlin and across Europe, transforms the Volksbühne on Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz into a stage for political activism and choreographic intervention. Using posing, intensity, candour and humour, they create a space of shared responsibility that's both thought-provoking and inspiring.

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Concerts, reading events, dialogue and debate, community dancing

Roter Salon and Großes Haus

Investigative research with Jean Peters from CORRECTIV; sharing small plates with left-wing rappers and writers, alongside Ayşegül and Valentin of don't read theory; mapping right-wing impacts on cultural policies; debating free speech with Tobias Haberkorn from Berlin Review; concerts, literary readings and so much more.

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