Berlin is a metropolis and melting pot of a new kind of music theater. A theater between drama and performance, between storytelling and immersive experience. A theater that, above all, constantly explores new ways of relating music to language and stage action. Nowhere else is a larger number of artists dedicated to exploring all of this than in Berlin‘s independent music theater scene. BAM! is the festival of this scene. It has set itself the task of raising awareness for this “new” music theater beyond opera and for the special role that Berlin takes in it.

Where do we go from here? is what BAM! wants to ask this year. Our world is changing at breakneck speed. Music theater responds quickly and intensively to this change and, with each edition, BAM! remains an indicator of social issues and social change. What kind of future are we headed for? What kind of future do we want? How can music theater contribute to it?

Where do we go from here? – by this, however, we also mean to ask: What different paths and narrative styles do we find today within these new forms of music theater? Where is music theater headed itself?

Each project at this festival takes a different direction, and we want to encourage our audience not just to attend this or that performance, but to experience BAM! as a whole, as a space full of constant surprises. To this end, we offer a generous discount system for the purchase of multiple tickets as well as projects that are free to attend. To this end, first and foremost, the festival is limited to four theater-filled days and a narrowly defined festival area—we want our audience to be able to drift from one performance to the next, to meet and meet again, engage in exchange, conversation, and discussion.

While BAM!‘s urban territory serves as a site for experiencing music theater, music theater, conversely, serves as means to experience urban territory. After three editions in Berlin-Mitte, the festival is moving this year to the vibrant and contrasting milieu of Neukölln. Many hidden gems are waiting to be discovered there.

Where do we go from here? In European countries, independent music theater has developed from out of own respective traditions and production conditions resulting in quite different artistic approaches. As part of its special program series “Mapping Music Theater,” BAM! offers with each edition a look beyond Berlin (and Germany). After the Netherlands and Switzerland, this year‘s guest country is Poland—a country whose decisive influence on the former theater avant-garde can still be sensed in the invited music theater productions.

We are looking forward to seeing you!