Videos | iHeartBerlin.de

We Sing For You: A Short Film Celebrating the Emotional Power of the Human Voice

On the occasion of the 200 year anniversary of the choir of Staatsoper Berlin, we from iHeartBerlin got a really special assignment. We asked five Berliners if they would come to the big stage of the Opera for a musical experiment. We didn’t tell them what would happen…

Can you remember the last time somebody sang for you like maybe your parents did when you were little? I don’t mean a big concert where Beyoncé or Lady Gaga performs, even though after two years of a pandemic, this would be fun. I mean the personal experience of having somebody stand close to you and sing a song – a song that enters your body and mind through your ears, your skin. Something you can’t see, but only feel with every ounce of your body?

After another winter and spring where most cultural activities were closed to the public, together with Staatsoper Berlin we thought about how we could celebrate the art of singing in a choir and the power of the human voice in one unique film.

10 Amazing New Music Videos from Berlin Artists

by Burak | Music, Videos

Berlin has produced so many musical bigwigs and this city is brimming with secret gems here and there that are trying to find their place in the spotlight. A band you regularly see playing at Mauerpark on Sundays might be the next international breakthrough and your favorite U-Bahn musician might become a global sensation one day. I personally can name at least ten friends who are DJs. They are all working hard to reach the success they wish for and we don’t want to spare the support. This is why we took it upon ourselves to give you the newest and the best music videos from Berlin to save you from those dreary and repetitive playlists.

This Berlin Short Film Speaks for Womxn Who Are Tired of Being Harassed

by Michalina | Videos

We’ve just celebrated International Women’s Day when it is customary for our social media feeds to start filling with messages of female empowerment. But obviously, celebrating being a woman should not happen merely on an annual basis. And what is more, the joy over how far we’ve come should not eclipse the work that still has to be done. We need more awareness about issues of intersectional feminism in our day-to-day lives. One such issue is the fact that womxn still cannot always feel safe in the streets of Berlin. “I’M BORED”, a short film by Chelsea Herbert and Alex Newton, is an honest and ultimately hopeful reflection on street harassment by a girl who’s grown tired of it.

These Projects & Events Celebrate Femininity on International Women’s Day

by Adri | Events, Videos

Last year, Berlin became the first German state to make Women’s Day a public holiday. Having been originally proposed by German women’s rights activist and Marxist theorist Clara Zetkin at the 1910 International Socialist Women’s Conference in Copenhagen, women have celebrated the holiday in March for over a century. In 2019, the Berlin Senate voted 87 to 60 in favor of the bill to make Women’s Day a city-wide holiday. Instead of simply enjoying the day off this year, check out some of these projects and events celebrating womxnhood and the feminine experience in Berlin.

16 Amazing Creative Responses to the Pandemic from Berlin

by Frank | Art, Photos, Stories, Videos

This year was quite different, wasn’t it? There was a lot of crazy stuff happening, but we can all agree on what the most significant thing was: the pandemic. If you would have told me a year ago that this would happen, I probably would not have believed you. But here we are, 9 months into a global outbreak of an airborne viral disease that has turned the world upside down.

Of course, this pandemic brought us a lot of negative things, but I don’t want to focus on those – you can simply turn on the news for that. I want to focus on the things that were good, specifically on how people responded to the crisis in positive ways. While a lot of us were struggling with our lives, our work, and our mental health, some people gathered their creative energies to come up with great things to brighten the days of everyone else and show some optimistic spirit.

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The Black Universe of Esther Perbandt – An Interview with the Iconic Berlin Fashion Designer

by Frank | Fashion, People, Videos

One of the major highlights for me this year was watching our good friend Esther Perbandt, the iconic Berlin fashion designer, succeed on the new designer competition show Making the Cut by Heidi Klum and Tim Gunn. It was the first time for me to see someone I personally know on a hit TV show and it was such a thrill to follow her through the lens of American reality TV.

Those of you who have been following us now for a long time, know that Esther is very closely connected to us as we organized one of her early runway shows with our sister project Designer Scouts back in 2010 and co-hosted the two aftershow parties of her spectacular Volksbühne fashion shows in 2014 and 2017. She also curated one of our city guides for us showing her favorite places in Berlin. It is always so amazing for us to become part of her black avantgarde universe and we feel so proud of all of her accomplishments as a designer in all those years.

No Culture. No Future. – A Film About the Importance of Arts & Culture

by Frank | Art, Pandemic, Videos

A few months ago I published a story about how the lockdown has seemed to have created a new dogma of system relevance that discriminates against arts and culture workers. This was a story very close to my heart and close to what matters to all of us at iHeartBerlin.

While some cultural institutions were able to re-open since then, although under challenging circumstances, the overall situation has not improved for the majority of the scene. Especially in the alternative and underground scenes, it’s still quite dramatic. While publicly funded institutions don’t really have to worry about going under, it’s those independent arts and culture makers that really have to fear for their livelihoods. Rents and bills still need to be paid, but to produce shows and events is still often not possible, and support programs by the government have so many blind spots and leave a lot of people behind or are simply not enough. For many, the situation is really serious. And considering we are only at the beginning of the second (most likely bigger) wave that will bring new challenges and restrictions you don’t even want to begin to imagine how much worse it could get.

No World Without Music – Celebrating Berlin’s Oldest Orchestra in a Magical Short Film

by Claudio | Music, Videos

Jiyoon Lee – the first female concert master of Staatskapelle Berlin.

The life of a classical musician is formed by a pathway of hard work and sacrifice just to get a place in a great orchestra. But becoming an orchestra musician is neither about fame nor about becoming rich. It is really just about the privilege to create unique music for your audience. A work of art that only can exist through the power of the ensemble. Through the organic interfering of the different instruments to one voice, to one sound.

This sound had to stop for the last six months. Orchestras like many other artistic ensembles could not perform in public to keep each other and the audience safe from possible infections. Despite all hardships, one orchestra kept their spirit alive like no other.

The Staatsballett Berlin is Dancing Outside

by Frank | Pandemic, Theater, Videos

photo: Jubal Battisti.

At the end of August, the operas and theaters of Berlin will be able to reopen again after the lockdown. We are really happy about this but it’s not going to be the same with a lot of restrictions on stage and behind the scenes, as well as way fewer seats in the audience room. A lot of the new productions we were looking forward to were scrapped because they either didn’t comply with distance rules or could simply not be rehearsed due to the restrictions.

For a few months now the dancers of Staatsballett Berlin were not able to perform nor practice together. In an earlier stage of the lockdown, we already shared a really wonderful video initiated and edited by Principal Dancer Ksenia Ovsyanick that showed the dancers performing in their homes and gardens during self-isolation. Now, a few months later, the dancers were able to leave their houses and practice again, but still not together like they were used to. Following the big success of the first video, they now released two more videos that we want to share with you here.

Someone Turned Daniel-Ryan Spaulding’s Viral Mauerpark Orgy into a Techno Song and it’s a Banger!

by Frank | Music, Pandemic, Videos

Sassy Berlin stand-up comedian Daniel-Ryan Spaulding has really lifted our spirits during the last weeks of the quarantine as he has been coming up with new hilarious videos on a daily basis about all things corona. You would think this would quickly grow old but in fact, he’s been continuously serving some of his best comedy videos ever. Who would have thought it would get better than his “It’s Berlin” videos that put him on the map in the first place (at least for audiences here).

In his videos, Daniel’s character “Da’Niel” has been mostly sulking and passive-aggressively commenting on the lockdown and all lack of nightlife and sex club activity that he so dearly misses right now. Most notably you could see him throw a tantrum in front of Berghain when it closed down, crawling somewhere through the bushes of Hasenheide to announce the comeback of cruising, or how he fantasized a huge gay orgy in Mauerpark by disobedient horny gay guys who wouldn’t stay in quarantine.

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