Concerts
The music programme at the Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, led by Marlene Engel, presents sound-based and performative projects veering between live concert, club music, performance art and installation.
The programme’s focus is on settings, when established formats destabilise into more fluid forms. Drawing inspiration from Berlin’s vibrant international music and art scenes, it seeks to integrate the most diverse approaches: experimental composition, electronic music, pop and club culture, performance, dance and visual arts. Historical positions and pioneering trends, established icons and artists from more informal scenes in clubs or digital spaces all get their moment. What matters is not so much genre, but the role of sound in shaping perception, movement and social situations.
This question holds special significance in and for Berlin. For decades, the city has been a central hub of contemporary club culture, blending subcultural styles, migration, nightlife, improvised music scenes with the most diverse forms of music. Now these spaces are either disappearing or coming under increasing economic pressure. All the more important are, in this context, places where these music trends are not merely archived or re-presented, but actually driven forward: as vital artistic practices with close links to contemporary art, performance and all facets of theatrical creativity.
Programmatic openness is key, but by no means a neutral task. Volksbühne encourages artistic practices that challenge existing orders and arrangements – whether aesthetic, social or technological – and focus on collaborative programming that incorporates diverse curatorial perspectives and external curators to resist traditional power dynamics in the selection process. Commissioned productions also play a vital part in strengthening ties and cooperation with artists across disciplines, often evolving in long-term processes.
At the same time, the programme does not follow a linear history of music, but traces invisible lines, unwritten scenes, and influences outside of any established canon. Many of the works programmed play the tension between (so-called) high culture and pop, club scene and institution, presence and reference, physical experience and digital circulation.
A show may well begin in a focused, minimalist fashion and, hours later, end in collective overdrive. What remains is seldom a straightforward story, but rather the memory of intense moments, images, states and shapes, or rumours of subwoofers in the foyer, and, with any luck, stage fog filling the Roter Salon, and a voice that lingers.
The music programme at Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz is curated by Marlene Engel.