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The Cuntemporary Kiki Ball by Dante Telfar & Joana Juicy Couture

The Wilhelm Hallen saw their first ballroom take over last weekend for their Berlin Art Week kick-off and the art was shaking on the walls! The Cuntemporary Mini Kiki Ball hosted by Father Dante Telfar and Princess Joana Juicy Couture was a testament that ballroom and voguing are a true art form. Of course, we were present at the function to capture the hottest moments on the runway. Enjoy!

If you were performing at the ball and want to check if I snapped your moment here is the complete set with lots more photos than here as a download. Make sure to tag us when you post the photos.

The Earthly Delights Mini Ball by Ambrosia & LaQuefa

by Frank | Photos

Last month was already such a blessing with all the ballroom events around Pride, this month the action continued with an extra special ball happening during the Long Night of Museums in the beautiful hall of the Museum for Communications. Embedded into a very diverse and very queer-friendly program that also included a performance show by Fifi Fantome and her crew the Earthly Delights Mini Ball hosted by Ambrosia and LaQuefa 007 went down. It was all very mini, very demure, very mindful toward the holy halls and floors of the museum.

Love is Stronger – Rave the Planet 2024

by Frank | Party, Photos

The message ‘Love Is Stronger’ could not me more important right now as we live in a time where we have to watch videos of Nazi salutes and police violence against peaceful protestors on social media on the daily. It’s the motto of this year’s edition of Rave the Planet – the reincarnation of the iconic Love Parade from the 90s – and the love could really be felt in the street between Siegessäule and Brandenburger Tor this weekend. It’s our third time joining the parade and capturing some of its visitors for you and we really had a great time there once again. The energy and the vibe is just so infectious.

The Colors of Pride Kiki Ball by Gina Angels & Papi 007

by Frank | Photos, Tanz

Following our big photo series of the Superheroes Ball from Friday we are already back with another ballroom set from the Colors of Pride Kiki Ball hosted by Gina Angels and Papi 007 at the Social Hub on Saturday.

I was a bit late to the function, but nonetheless I managed to capture some killer performances. The energy was really high, the performers were on fire. Having seen many of these young ballroom members compete over the last couple of years it was great to see their progress – they are more talented and beautiful than ever. It’s great to see how people really grow into themselves with so much grace and confidence. It was also fun to see The Social Hub being transformed into a ballroom arena – the vibe was such a good match to the space.

I’m really proud of this photo set – it’s done with a different much smaller camera from the Superheroes ball and therefore has a different aesthetic but I think it really brought out some other aspects and details of a ball than my usual photos. I hope you enjoy it!

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The Superheroes Ball 2 by David Elle

by Frank | Photos

This past weekend was not only the Berlin Pride weekend, but also a big happening for the Ballroom Community with 3 balls and several smaller events going on. A big highlight was the Major Ball hosted by father David Elle on Friday at Säälchen with support by IFA. We were especially excited about this one as it’s the first one he hosted there since the Ocean, Pride and Superheroes ball in 2019 and 2020 that we all covered here as well. It’s been a while since we saw such a big turn-up from ballroom community here in Berlin and I have to say: everyone looked more gorgeous than ever! It was a great pleasure to capture the ball and all the amazing performers. And I was happy to hear that the ball managed to raise 6000 EUR for the Riccardo Simonetti Initiative

Stay tuned for another photo set for the Colors of Pride Kiki Ball by Gina Angels and Papi 007 that will follow shortly…

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Pansy Presents Halloween 2023 at SO36

by Frank | Party, Photos

After doing her thing in the far West of Berlin for the past year, PANSY is back at it again in Kreuzberg at the iconic SO36 – a club with such a rich history reaching all the way back into the days of David Bowie and Iggy Pop. This month she is doing not one but two events there – the first one being her big Halloween spectacle that happened earlier this week and brought back some of her favorite drag performers and friends to the stage for some bloody fun.

PANSY’s Halloween events are truly legendary. Of course a lot of events and parties slap the word Halloween into their title these days, but let’s be honest, most of them will not diverge much from their regular program and not a lot of guests will really dress up for the occasion. It’s also not really in the spirit of Halloween to move the event conveniently to the weekend. It is, after all, a holiday on the 31st of October – for a reason.

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10s Across the Board: A Ballroom Showdown for the Trophy

by Frank | Party, Photos

photos: Frank R. Schröder.

The Berlin Ballroom Scene has been cooking something up over the past months that finally came to light this past weekend. With the event “10s Across the Board: A Ballroom Showdown for the Trophy” the local scene took a new format to the stage of Theater des Westens that has never been done before in Berlin. It proposes an alternative to classic Balls with their competitions and battles on the runway, elevating Ballroom from the underground to the limelight of the big theater stages of the city.

Two Ballroom Legends are behind this spectacle: Mother Leo from the House of Saint Laurent and Mother Ambrosia from the House of Gorgeous Gucci. They teamed up with Tingel Tangel – the new program at Theater des Westens – to create something truly unique and fantastic.

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Queer Joy at the Berlin Pride Parade

by Frank | Events, Party, Photos

The last weekend was full of queer joy for us with several pride parades and queer parties going on. It felt a bit like Christmas for the LGBTQIA+ community and there was something going on for every sub-group. This year, we not only visited the main pride on Saturday but also the Dyke* March on Friday and the Internationalist Pride that happened on Saturday evening at Hermannplatz. Both of these were pretty much in contrast to the main Pride parade, but nonetheless what stood out was the smiling faces and happiness of all the queer people who joined. And that makes us very happy. Because queer joy matters so much – it’s the rebellion, the antidote, the protest against discrimination, hate, prejudice, prosecution, and inequality.

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Rave the Planet: Together Again in the Streets of Berlin

by Frank | Events, Party, Photos

After a few years of preparation, and another year of delay due to covid, the first edition of the Rave the Planet parade finally took place last Saturday bringing back the magic of the iconic Love Parade to the streets of Berlin. Around 200.000 ravers from young to old came together along the track of the parade that lead from Ku’damm over Nollendorfplatz, Potsdamer Straße, Brandenburger Gate all the way over to the Siegessäule in Tiergarten. A caravan of 18 trucks filled with DJs, performers, and ravers made its way through town filling the air with the finest techno the city has to offer.

It was pretty incredible to witness this first edition, especially since I never went to the original Love Parade that took place in Berlin from 1989 to 2006. The energy in the city was incredible, the people were so ecstatic and it felt like seeing Berlin back to its old strength that we almost thought lost due to the last years.

For the first time, we also had the privilege to experience a parade from the perspective of a truck as our friends from Das Techno Team invited us onto their float. It was a really special pleasure to celebrate this event with their crew and performers. It also gave me the opportunity to capture the event in ways I never could before during big street parades. Check out our Instagram and Tiktok for our video recap. And below you’ll find out photo impressions.

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Portraits of a Street: 100 Inhabitants of Eisenacher Straße

by Frank | People, Photos, Stories

We’ve had so many wonderful portrait series about Berliners here on iHeartBerlin in our last 15 years: The naked Berliners, creative Berliners in their homes, Berliners of the U8, Berliners through their windows during quarantine, couples of Berlin… And there are just a few that came to mind.

Today we want to introduce you to a brand new portrait series titled “Eisenacher Hundert“, and this time the concept is giving us the double whammy. Not only are all the people portrayed in this series inhabitants of the same street, they also represent all different ages between 1 and 100. So this might be the most intergenerational series we’ve featured so far.