Dates: Tuesday June 24th & Wednesday June 25th – 20:00h
Location: Neue Bühne Friedrichshain | Boxhagener Str. 18 | 10245 Berlin
Ticket info:
The ticket prices are on a sliding scale from 10eur to 20eur, and you are free to support the show with a higher donation if you want and can do so. Please buy your ticket in advance, until Monday, June 23rd, 2025 at 20h. After that time we might not be able to process your payment. A small number of tickets might be available at the entrance.
PLEASE NOTE: You should receive your confirmation of a booked ticket via email. If you did not receive it in 5 working days, or have any questions, please write to spykee.vind@gmail.com with the subject “BodyConBerlin”. Please stay patient if the response doesn’t come right away! Thank you in advance!
About the piece:
Body Confessions premiered in Belgrade, on May 17th, 2021. The process was supported by the Council of Europe Office in Belgrade for the IDAHOBIT day in the Center for Cultural Decontamination. After the premiere, the piece was shown in multiple cities and theaters in Serbia between 2022 and 2024, and toured to Timisoara (Romania) for the i n v z b l Festival, where Zain also gave a masterclass. The documentation of Body Confessions was exhibited in 2024/25 in the Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb (Croatia) during the exhibition by Nomad Dance Academy – (Non)Aligned Movements, and is recognized as one of the important pieces with queer thematics in the Balkan dance scene.
Body Confessions is an intimate confession of an artist’s relation to his own body, as well as other things in life that are touched or influenced in any way by that relation. Through three parts of the piece, we can see the contrast of body relation that has been indicated to us through society, and relation to one’s own body that is personal and self-knowing.
Creating the quality of contrasted relations in the first two parts of the show (shame-strength, fault acceptance, confusion-understanding, chaotic-calm, personal-public, etc.), I want to show how society treats the body, and not just a trans body like mine, how the body is influenced, and how it can cope with it, pinpointing the fact our body is stronger than we believe it to be. The piece ends with the artist’s body becoming the canvas for his intimate confession, explaining ’the road he had to travel’, being a trans man who is a dancer and an artist, and what that meant for his relation to his own physical body.
I believe that the human body is much stronger than we believe it to be. I believe that every border body faces is movable. Move it a bit by bit, every day, as much/if you can. Today, as in recent times, I’m just interested in taking the body as such as my subject.
Body as a tool.
Body as pain.
Body as strength.
Body as the only natural personal belonging that I believe we have, and that none can take from me.
Body as mine.
Body, as I strongly believe that someone must feel with their body the same as I do.
**The show contains nudity**
About the author:
Aleksander Zain (b. 1992, Belgrade) is a Berlin-based dancer, choreographer, and visual/new media artist. His work is rooted in the belief that the human body is much stronger than we were thought to believe. He trained at MAPA (Netherlands), Station’s Puzzle program (Belgrade), and Tanzfabrik (Berlin), and studied philosophy at the University of Belgrade. His dance solo Body Confessions (2021) was shown multiple times in the Balkans, and received recognition as a queer-themed piece. Since the season 2022/23 Zain has been involved with the Heartefact House theater in Belgrade for the piece Before We Begin. Zain has also performed in numerous independent productions and received awards for his roles. In parallel, his performance art practice includes collaborations with VestAndPage and multiple appearances at the Venice International Performance Art Week, multiple long-durational pieces, reperforming for Marina Abramović’s retrospective The Cleaner, as well as the 10-day walk-based work ACTA DISTANTIAE (2023), realized within the IMPORT/EXPORT platform, which he co-founded. His video work has been shown in the Museum of Contemporary Art Belgrade and other galleries. Zain was an artist in residence with art institutions and organizations in Finland (Nelimarkka Museum), Romania (invzbl festival/Basca Theater), and Germany (Academie Schloss Solitude, upcoming). Together with a colleague, Isidora Poledica, he is a co-author of the podcast From Body To Body which deals with training, nutrition, injury prevention, and working conditions of the dancers in the Balkans and beyond. Actively engaged with LGBTIQ+ and TIGV communities, Zain creates dedicated programs and workshops for trans and queer youth. He also brings over a decade of experience in event production, theater tech, and lighting design across major festivals and independent projects.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT AND SEE YOU AT THE SHOW!