BERLIN was founded in 2003 by current artistic directors Yves Degryse, Bart Baele and Caroline Rochlitz. BERLIN's work is often at the intersection of documentary and theatre. For each creation, they start from reality: a city, a fait divers or a testimony. They immerse themselves in a situation and unravel various storylines there. In elaboration, they do not limit themselves to one discipline. The content determines how a story is told: with images, live music, technology, text theatre, as an installation, etc. From this philosophy, BERLIN highlights the humanity of those portrayed, the functioning of [micro]societies, the universal within the everyday.
The company is currently working on two project cycles: Holocene [the geological era], where the starting point is each time in a city or village somewhere in the world, and Horror Vacui [the fear of emptiness] where remarkable, true stories are exposed. The first five projects within Horror Vacui are Tagfish, Land's End [selection Het TheaterFestival BE - 2015], Perhaps All The Dragons..., Remember The Dragons... and True Copy [selection Het TheaterFestival BE - 2019]. The making of Berlin will be the final piece of the Holocene cycle which also includes Jerusalem, Iqaluit, Bonanza [Total Theatre Award at the Edinburgh Festival], Moscow and Zvizdal [selection Het TheaterFestival NL - 2017]. In August 2016, BERLIN was awarded the Flemish Culture Prize for Performing Arts for its oeuvre.
In June 2021, Ramble Song sees the light, after the smaller-scale Who grows old... [2019] the first full-length BERLIN project not covered by either cycle. In this show, [live] music - a driving underlay in previous work - was catapulted to the forefront along with film. Ramble Song has a different form from previous work but is vintage BERLIN in ingeniously puzzling with [presentation] forms to arrive at a powerful whole. The company is currently working towards the final performance within the Holoceencylcus: The making of Berlin. Premiere May 2022 at DE SINGEL [Antwerp, BE].