May 27, 2025
From May 31st to June 21st, ‘Sportfest’ at Ballhaus Ost invites audiences to rethink the connections between bodily performance and political practice, engaging with the role of sports as a cultural praxis in society and its construction as distinct from artistic cultural output. For three weeks, the Berlin venue becomes an experimental arena where bodies move, exert themselves, compete and, most importantly, collaborate on stage, on the court and in conversation. Together with performers, researchers and interdisciplinary artists, the collaborative aim will be to turn physical exertion into a critical tool.
‘Fight Night,’ Sportfest at Ballhaus Ost // Courtesy of Ballhaus Ost
The festival opens on May 31st with the live event ‘Fight Night and Party,’ setting the tone for an intensive program structured around the five interwoven strands of training, performance, installations, discourse and tournaments. Each of these elements drives participants to inquire about what it means to be in one’s body in relation to rules, visibility and resistance. These participatory sessions range from table tennis tournaments and streetball games to FLINTA+ self-defense classes (‘Self Defence. No Offence’) and queer functional training (‘Softer Hards’).
‘Auf Pferden’ // Copyright Corinna Mehl
Alongside these training sessions aimed at disrupting the competitive norms of mainstream sports culture, ‘Sportfest’ features a series of performances that seeks to investigate how sport shapes the desires and social scripts that drive our bodies. Norwin Tharayil’s ‘Growing Pains’ takes bodily change and expectation as its core, while ‘On Horses – Sports Edition’ by Eva Hintermaier and Simon Kalus stages a surreal dialogue between two performers and a life-sized, wooden horse. In ‘All Day I Dream About Soccer,’ the culture and history of the soccer jersey is reworked through the performer’s ‘Fußballtanzpraxis’ (soccer-dance-practice). Throughout the program, performers draw on the aesthetics and rituals of sport to confront its often-overlooked emotional and political dimensions. Beyond these performances, installation works like a betting office called ‘Ballhaus Odds’ and ‘The Lactate’ insert physical objects, sounds and other symbolic traces into the space and turn it into another, alternative playing field.
‘Fat Camp’ // Copyright Feelings
Throughout the layered program, ‘Sportfest’ invites us to reconsider what kinds of movement can lead to new forms of solidarity, protest and play. Accordingly, the festival’s ‘discourse’ strand opens its ambit into another significant domain. Panels, talks and live podcasts will address the politics of sport and its role in nationalism, community formation and gendered exclusionary patterns. With titles like ‘The Rise of Sporty Fascism,’ these formats provide both context and counterweight to the embodied action on-site.
Ballhaus Ost
‘Sportfest—Festival with Training, Performance, Installations, Discourse and Tournaments’
Opening Reception & Fight Night: Saturday, May 31st; 7pm
Festival: May 31–June 21, 2025
ballhausost.de
Pappelallee 15, 10437 Berlin, click here for map
