Archives of Feelings

A party is over. Glasses are empty, the music has faded, and fatigue settles over the room. Eight people remain—relatives, friends, and casual acquaintances. What began as a wedding ritual transforms into an unstable social fabric. Closeness becomes an imposition; care becomes a matter of power. This is where Gisèle Vienne’s new work begins.

The production, a co-production of the Berliner Festspiele, marks the first collaboration between the French-Austrian choreographer and director and the French author Marie NDiaye. The artists are united by a precise gaze on the inconspicuous, often invisible forms of violence and control that are inscribed in language, gestures, and relationships.

Where NDiaye exposes psychological shifts, familial dependencies, and social role models with literary precision, Vienne translates these tensions into the body, time, and choreographic condensation. Together, they create a stage experience that does not assert power but makes it palpable. The music by Icelandic cellist and Oscar winner Hildur Guðnadóttir creates a sensory yet precise soundscape to complement this.

The work is structured as a kind of portrait gallery. Each character tells their own story—and is at the same time part of a fabric shaped by mutual dependencies. The present, memory, and the future overlap. Themes such as eco-anxiety, racism, sexuality, social background, and the concept of “passing”—passing as someone else—permeate the work as latent forces. Identity does not appear as a stable core, but rather as something that is constantly renegotiated under social pressure.

As part of the Berlin Festival’s 2026/27 Performing Arts Season, dedicated to myths and rituals, this stage production itself becomes a contemporary ritual: not as a place of reconciliation, but as a precise experimental setup. It reveals how community is formed, how power operates—and how fragile the promises of closeness, protection, and belonging have become.

Gisèle Vienne is one of the defining voices of the international performance and theater scene. Her works—including *Jerk*, *Crowd*, *L’Etang*, and most recently *Extra Life*—are known for their experimental approach to time, their uncanny precision, and their portrayal of latent violence beneath the surface of seemingly familiar situations. In collaboration with Marie NDiaye, whose writing is characterized by radical ambivalence and a relentless analysis of familial and societal power dynamics, this exploration takes on a new linguistic sharpness and a powerful theatrical form.

Artistic Team

• Gisèle Vienne – Concept, Choreography, Direction, Set Design, Costumes
• Sophie Demeyer, Angélique Flaugère, Adèle Haenel, Julien Louisy, Theo Livesey, Audrey Merilus, Katia Petrowick, Julie Shanahan – Performers, Collaboration on Development
• Hildur – Original music
• Adrien Michel – Sound Design
• Gisèle Vienne, Nicolas Boudier – Lighting
• Marie NDiaye – Text
• Sara Ruiz – Technical Coordination, Stage Management
• Adrien Michel, Géraldine Foucault Voglimacci – Sound Engineering
• Iannis Japiot – Lighting Technology
• Paola Gilles (DACM) – Production, Tour
• Cloé Haas, Clémentine Papandrea – Administration