These are Relaxed Performances. This means all forms of attention are welcome. Different seating/lying options, such as bean bags, cushions, chairs are provided. Audience can move, lie down and make noise. They can enter and leave the performances at any time. Content notes and sensory stimuli for each performative ritual can be found in the description.. 

There is a care person throughout the whole installation, who is also a death doula and available to talk to or support anyone who feels the need. There is a retreat space with different seating/lying options, ear plugs and stim toys. This is not a quiet space. Sounds from the installation/performances can be heard. For more information about Care & Support, click here.

• There are guided somatic exercises that involve themes of death.
• Audiences are invited to hug a branch, followed by an invitation to hug each other.
• An image is shown to the audience, and they are invited to pass the image on to others.
• The ritual contains references to violence, including murder and harm against queer people.
• Audiences are invited to imagine the death of a loved one and to imagine burying them.
• Audiences are invited to hold a branch together as a group.
• There is direct eye contact with the audience.
• The ritual concludes with a communal walk.

• The performer uses a microphone.
• There is a deep, vibrating soundscape.
• A percussive element imitates a heartbeat.
• Bird sounds are present during the ritual.
• Lights come from the side

“Don’t you understand? The grapes ripen when the sun sets. The wolf’s fur thickens when winter comes. The treetops become lighter when the autumn wind blows through them. The cartilage ossifies, the riverbed dries up and the flesh decays.” (translated from Der Traum ist der Flug, 1989)

Memories are fluid. Our body consists of up to 90% water. A gateway that connects life and death. We all swim in the river of our memories. They nourish us and connect us to our roots.

In my ritual, I want to create a space where I/we can meet the deceased who are important to us. It is a living source that keeps me in touch with them beyond death. I will remember five people whose life and death are closely connected to me. And on behalf of all those not named.

“that they are // a speck of dust in the rays of one of the suns // resound with” (quote from unknown)

✴︎ Dedicated to my father Tilmann Steinert, Angelika Ducamin, Fe Reichelt, Robert Rutman, Stefan Zednik and all the people not mentioned here by name who have died.
✴︎ Special thanks to Bettina Plesser, who sewed my wedding dress from my grandmother’s sheets, which I wear in my ritual.

• Language: German and English

• Images are shown to the audience, some of which contain nudity.
• Audiences will be asked to participate by holding a broken cup together.
• A rock will be given to someone in the audience.
• Audience members are invited to close their eyes and dance with their arms.
• The performer leaves the ritual quietly.

• There is the sound of water throughout the ritual.
• An ephemeral, atmospheric sound is present in the background.
• The performer rips paper apart and crumples it.
• The performer speaks through a microphone.

This year, I experienced the death of someone very dear to me. I realised that I had no personal rituals to deal with this loss. As a diasporic Singaporean Chinese who grew up with a western-influenced, English-speaking upbringing, I was not familiar with many Chinese cultural rituals. He was German and an Evangelical Christian, I consider myself a nominal, non-practicing Taoist. I currently live here in Berlin with little memory of Taoist mourning rituals. I am also unfamiliar to Christian death rituals practiced in Germany.

My ritual is a ritual of contingency: One borne out of my fragmented knowledge and memories of the various cultures I am living in currently, as well as a sincere desire to find closure and connect with him even though he has left this earthly dimension. It foregrounds fire and the act of burning, two elements that are central to Taoism as a way to communicate with people in the afterlife and to bring closure.

I want my ritual to honour his life and our cross-cultural relationship. One that allows me to navigate my unfamiliarity with mourning practices in a foreign land, as well as the cultural incongruity of my diasporic Chinese identity. For those of you who also wish to have a space to contemplate someone or something you have lost, I warmly invite you to join me, as I share my ritual with you.

✴︎ Dedicated to Michael Mücke.

• Language: English
• Content note: This ritual involves the burning of incense.

• The performer prepares the space at the beginning of the ritual.
• Incense is shared with the audience.
• The audience are asked to share incense with one another.
• The ritual contains content related to cancer, specifically pancreatic cancer, including themes of the death of a loved one and loneliness, as well as descriptions of funeral rituals.
• Visa regulations and immigration are addressed.
• The ritual includes comments on cross-cultural communication.

• A German song is played at the beginning of the ritual.
• Up to four sandalwood incense sticks are burned simultaneously, creating a strong smell and smoke.
• A candle is lit during the ritual.
• The light is dimmed at times.
• At the end, audience members are invited to light incense, creating a strong smell and smoke.
• The ritual concludes with an invitation to the audience to burn a piece of paper.
• The performer speaks through a microphone.

When the sun goes down and the day dies, the dark night awakens the sorrowful soul and the troubled heart. Many German evening songs not only sing about the sorrow and restlessness of the day’s ending, but also about the dreaded closeness to death at night and in sleep. Some of these evening songs are still known today as lullabies. They soothe our worries and help us find peace without fear of death.

In my ritual, I lament all the pain that catches up with me, which can happen any time, not just before I go to sleep. I mourn everything in me that had to die involuntarily because it was taken from me. I say goodbye to all the parts in me that I have to let die. Because I can only survive without them. I sing evening songs to calm myself down. I give myself comfort and cradle myself in safety and love. I breathe out to let go of the pain and lay it to rest in peace. I breathe in to let new life flow into me and to be able to move on fearlessly into the unknown.

I am offering a ritual that invites you to experience the vibration of my voice. A ritual where we can set our own pains in motion and be comforted by the songs. Together we breathe in and out, and let go of what is ready to die.

✴︎ Dedicated to my brothers, Thoren and Ansgar.
✴︎ Special thanks to Irena Z. Tomažin and Cavana Hazelton

• Language: English (songs in German)
• Content note: This ritual involves loud sounds.

• The performer sings old German goodnight songs.
• The ritual includes wailing, intense breathing, crying, weeping, and screaming.
• The performer leaves the ritual quietly..

• The ritual features a combination of voice, breath, and singing.
• The audience is invited to breathe together with the performer.
• The performer wears a plastic robe that makes sounds when she moves.
• There is a possibility of the audience being touched by the plastic robe.
• The performer changes places while singing several times.
• The performer speaks through a microphone.

My death ritual is born out of key questions in my death research: can we experience dying as a living body? Can we really foresee this turning point that we all have to take at some point? Can we touch the moment of dying that is always lying in wait for every one of us? Can we sense the living and the dead cells in our body all at once? Through our common dying, can we feel connected to everything and everyone around us?

In my ritual, I want the light to be so bright that we can see with our own eyes how death is happening right now, in the present moment. I want us to actually see ourselves dying, at the rate of forty thousand cells per minute. To see the edge of our skin – the border between us and the rest of the world – disappear into dust. When the body becomes space. 

✴︎ Dedicated to my grandfather, Felix, and everyone involved in the SMRTЪ dance piece and Death Lab.

• Language: English
• Content note: This ritual involves bright light and dust. 

• The performer sweeps the floor as the audience enters and continues sweeping for the entire duration of the ritual, possibly sweeping under audience members’ chairs.
• The ritual begins with a voice-over that includes a somatic exercise about dead cells on the skin.
• The performer invites the audience to move in the space.
• Audience members are invited to look at and touch their own hands.
• One audience member is asked to hold the broom towards the end of the ritual.
• At the very end, the performer takes off their shirt, standing with their back to the audience while wearing a sports bra.

• The ritual contains a lot of dust, which swirls into the air.
• The sound of a broom sweeping is present throughout.
• There are several strong light spots in the space.
• A strong sound is made at the end when a shirt hits the floor, creating a swirling dust effect.

My ritual is dedicated to the small and large circles in life, their repetitions and meaningful variations. It is dedicated to the friction that dissolves the big into the small, and to the force that assembles the many small things into a big picture. It honours the dust of the planets in the universe, as well as the same dust that is in our earthly objects and actions of everyday life.

In the ritual, I use shards as a metaphor for life, that will always remain incomplete, rough and fragile. A wide variety of stories can be read and images can be recognised in a pile of shards. Through the beauty in the shard’s imperfection, I want my ritual to reveal and celebrate the fragility, the provisional and the incompleteness of life. And also of death. I invite us to embrace the laughing and crying of the shards and to let go of our expectations. 

✴︎ Dedicated to my grandmother. 

• Language: German and English
• Content note: This ritual involves loud sounds.

• The performer shakes boxes containing porcelain shards.
• The performer quietly sorts through the porcelain shards for some time.
• The performer reads from their diary, recounting a conversation with their grandmother about preparation for death and reflecting on the death of their grandfather.
• The performer engages in long eye contact with audience members and gives them a shard to hold.
• The audience is invited to come closer and share shards with each other.
• The audience is encouraged to make eye contact with other members.
• The performer leaves the ritual quietly.

• There is a loud noise from the shards being shaken in metal boxes for a prolonged time.
• The performer walks through the audience, shaking the boxes.
• The performer drops the porcelain shards on the floor.
• The performer uses a microphone throughout the ritual.

I am a female dervish and whirling is my practice. Dervishes whirl in communion with the universe. They whirl to let their ego die and dissolve into emptiness. Stripping down layers of identity to arrive at the truth, and therewith one’s own true self. This is then the death of any relation to and separation from an “other”. It is being no-thing and everything at the same time – a medium for transformation.

With Ha’this I invite you to a ritual in which I aim to fully lose control of myself. The title is a wordplay of “coming into this”: into this reality, this space, this time. The here and now. The present moment. It is about breaking down my habits, behaviours and desires to open up to the pure essence of “me”. Who is this “me”, when my ego disappears?

Through the repetitive movement of whirling, I intend to create a shared experience, where we can come together to reflect on our true selves. Ha’this is a reminder that we all originated from the same source and that with our death, we return to it.

✴︎ Dedicated to all sentient beings.

• Language: None
• Content note: This ritual uses dim lighting for a prolonged period of time.

• The performer prepares the space and interacts with the audience at the beginning.
• The performer spins in a circular motion for an extended period of time.
• The dance and music may be trance-inducing for both the performer and the audience.
• The performer leaves the ritual quietly.

• The performer uses a microphone at the beginning of the ritual.
• The audience space is dimly lit.
• The performer is illuminated by a spotlight in the middle of the space.
• There is a faint, ethereal whistling sound in the background, accompanied by a prominent drumbeat.
• The drum starts with a steady, moderate rhythm, gradually increasing in both tempo and intensity as the ritual progresses.

(In collaboration with Veronika Heisig, Lee Mun Wai, Birte Opitz, Vera Shchelkina, Hilla Steinert, Lisa Stertz, hugo-huga x tibiriçá)

“Day by day the blossoms fall,
Year by year the people go.
Where the dust blows through these heights,
There once shone a silent sea.”
–  Hánshān / 寒山 (Cold Mountain)

When I read these words, I feel comforted in an inexplicable way. Surrounded by the uncertainties of life, the certainty and ubiquity of death actually help give me grounding. It tenderly reminds me that all will pass, and even when everything and everyone is gone, the world will still be achingly beautiful and magnificent. All I need to do is be thankful that I have the chance to experience and be part of it, even if it’s just for a brief moment.

As the final and closing ritual to the 8-day journey, I invite all the seven performers to join in a collective act of gratitude. We thank each other for the kindness, openness and generosity shown throughout the whole process. And for holding a space that dignifies our grief, pains and vulnerabilities. As we say goodbye and drift away, we wish each other gentle strength and clear light for our individual journeys ahead.

✴︎ Dedicated to everyone who has gone on this journey with me.

• Language: English

• The ritual is a loosely structured improvisation.
• There are seven performers on stage, and several actions happen simultaneously in different locations.
• Performers rip apart eulogies written by visitors for most of the ritual.
• The audience is likely to be invited to participate in ripping the eulogies.
• Performers blow the ripped paper through the space.
• Performers use their clothes to create wind.
• Audience members may be touched and may be invited to move through the space.

• A bell sound is heard at the beginning and end of the ritual.
• The ritual starts with intimate lighting, which gradually changes to normal light.
• The sound of paper being ripped is heard from different places at the same time during most of the ritual.
• The sound of paper being scrunched may be present.
• There is the sound of performers blowing paper on the floor.
• Wind is created by performers using their clothes to blow the paper away.
• There may be sounds of moaning, giggling, whispering and  conversations among the performers during the ritual.