Under Pressure

The title of the BUNDESTREFFEN25 of the Independent Performing Arts holds steadily throughout the two-day event and far beyond – with a firmly established place in the collective pop culture memory and almost infinite potential for association: “The Show Must Go On” may have been a catchphrase for centuries, but it was the 1991 song by the band Queen that really made it take off, at the time a kind of defiant assertion in the face of the imminent death of singer Freddie Mercury. Its lyrics are omnipresent during the event. And they are rich, even when stressed heavily in many speeches, they are flexible and rewarding, providing a basis for wisdom, hope, pathos, comedy and finally for a touching children's choir of the next generation: Drama, baby!

On September 25 and 26, 2025, several hundred stakeholders from the independent performing arts scene, as well as people from civil society, cultural policy and cultural administration, met at the HAU Hebbel am Ufer in Berlin. The fact that their roles within or in relation to the independent scene are diverse and involve very different experiences, needs and demands is an essential part of the event. Artists, curators, artistic directors, facilitators, supporters and framework setters came together in welcoming speeches, statements, panel discussions and workshops to discuss the state of the independent performing arts and to look to the future with concern, hope and vision: What is working in our current reality? What could work differently or better?

Difference or community, or both at the same time

Before Queen recoined the phrase “The Show Must Go On” for the present day, it had long been associated with the theater. In the 18th century, it became common in the circus world in situations where something went wrong or even threatened to be dangerous: as a means of appeasement, to calm and reassure audiences and performers. At BUNDESTREFFEN25, too, there are challenges that many attendees perceive as a threat to culture and the arts. What was not a given for a long time, but was able to develop steadily, has now been thrown into turmoil: sections of politics and society are questioning the definition, role and significance of culture. Polarization, ideologization and instrumentalization often mean more than just a battle for funding. It’s about everything: freedom and critical potential, what is allowed and what is necessary.

The BUNDESTREFFEN25 questions the status quo on the one hand by exploring differences and on the other by asserting community. The need for a strong collective voice is always accompanied by the fact that the great potential of the independent performing arts lies in their heterogeneity, in diversity, difference and otherness, beyond the expected, the existing, the average – visionary, progressive, looking and thinking toward the future, effective and productive, but also autonomous and open-ended. The arts may well pursue goals, but these must not be imposed from outside; they must be set from within. BUNDESTREFFEN25 repeatedly asks: How political can, may and should the arts be? And: Can they even be apolitical? 

Annemie Vanackere, artistic director of HAU Hebbel am Ufer, first asks about the missing question mark: Shouldn't it remain open whether or not the show should go on? This is not meant to be coy, but rather reflects the willingness of the independent scene to question established structures, attitudes and approaches. “Which show should actually go on?” Vanackere asks very fundamentally, singing the first line of the Queen song and thus opening the round of numerous quotations: “Empty spaces, what are we living for?” A two-minute film trailer by the Fonds confidently brings together impressions from existing practice: The independent performing arts as blockbusters for the big screen. It hints at genres, potentials, attitudes, values and strategies – and provisionally answers Vanackere's question about the question mark: “The show must go on. The show will go on. The wow goes on.”

“Of course we can also do overwhelming theater,” comments Holger Bergmann, managing director of the Fonds Darstellende Künste, dryly, but then points out how much collective effort the scene puts into such a colorful overall impression – and also into the will to be resilient and to keep going. According to Bergmann, constant questioning is part of it, as is creating contradictions and pushing the boundaries of freedom. However, all these strategies are not confined to the arts. Rather, politics is also increasingly working with staging and cleverly constructed narratives, using the performative with the aim of restricting freedoms. In view of the increasing political generalizations, the joint negotiation in large gatherings such as BUNDESTREFFEN25 is important in order to create and allow for countless nuances between black and white.

Mercury, Bowie, show and pressure

Konrad Schmidt-Werthern, department head under the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, also emphasizes the importance of sensuality, moments and reflection in his welcoming address. He points to the significant increase in the Fonds’ budget in 2025 and expresses hope for the coming year. Above all, however, he refers to the coalition agreement and its clear commitment to arts and culture. The fact that Schmidt-Werthern at some point confuses Freddie Mercury and David Bowie in his thoughts about the motto “The Show Must Go On” immediately provides the next catchy tune. After all, Mercury and Bowie once had a hit together with the song title “Under Pressure.” Many other welcoming addresses, speeches and statements during BUNDESTREFFEN25 focus on the pressure on the arts, culture and society – the success of populist parties in Germany, whose culture war on everything that stands for diversity, progress and critical questioning, and the global rise of authoritarianism with corresponding bans and repression are rightly causing great concern among those present.

Nancy Faeser, former Minister of the Interior and Social Democrat (SPD) member of the Bundestag's Committee on Culture and Media, states clearly: “Art needs democracy and democracy needs art.” She is firmly opposed to controlling or influencing content and demands that, in the spirit of artistic freedom, no conditions should ever be attached to cultural funding. “We must do everything we can to ensure that we can continue to talk to one another, that debate works,” says Faeser – and describes the independent scene as a social resonance chamber that enables low-threshold access to culture and cultural education and does reliable work to stabilize democracy. To strengthen this, Faeser says, it is necessary, among other things, to find viable alternatives to project financing. And then she becomes emphatic: “Our culture is the foundation of our freedom. We must now fill this statement with life. And as a cultural politician, I promise you: with the appropriate budgetary resources.”

Extremism, populism, patience and resistance

Wolfgang Schneider, chairman of the Fonds, in his speech on the Tabori Prize 2025, which is being awarded to the children's and youth theater collective pulk fiktion as part of BUNDESTREFFEN25, also warns: “Right-wing populist politicians want to revise everything that the independent performing arts have worked for over the years – we will not allow the legally guaranteed freedom of the independent theater to be taken away.” Theater maker George Tabori was, after all, always a free spirit, committed to breaking with convention and embracing experimentation. The Tabori Prize is the most prestigious award for the independent performing arts in Germany and, in its 16th year, is being awarded for the first time to a group involved in children's and youth theater. “Thank you for taking us seriously,” comments Lisa Zehetner from pulk fiktion, while her colleague Hannah Biedermann says: “Children and young people have a right to their own art.” And 17-year-old Fynn Gregorius, who is involved in the current production “Unsere Grube,” places the award within the context of the debate on democracy: “We need this kind of youth culture to counteract extremist tendencies.” 

Moderator Tobi Müller also asks his panel guests about the arts’ opportunities to respond to social change. Carena Schlewitt, artistic director of HELLERAU – Europäisches Zentrum der Künste in Dresden, has been working since 2018 in a city that has been shaped like few others by the Pegida movement, one of the pioneers of the growing right-wing populism. Today, the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) is the party with the most seats on Dresden's city council. As early as 2019, it claimed that the “agitprop art” in HELLERAU was contrary to the “Saxon homeland identity.” Nevertheless, according to Schlewitt, the challenge remains to open the center to both experimentation and the general public and to engage with audiences through as many different formats as possible: “It's about taking small steps, about explaining again and again what the independent performing arts could be.”

Language and self-effectiveness, need and raison d'être

Author and theater director Nino Haratischwili, who has experienced censorship in her home country of Georgia, calls for a more global view of the issue: “The West/East divide no longer works; the laws in Western Europe and the US have been abolished.” Ideological wars are no longer just local or regional, she says. Cultural anthropologist and curator Julian Warner draws attention to the way arts and culture are discussed – and to the language associated with them. He points to a gap between highly sophisticated, intellectual formulations, which are often necessary to justify projects internally or externally, and invitations to the arts and culture that everyone understands and can access. Warner tells the story of a little boy who came to the OSTEN festival in Bitterfeld every day just for the water slide built by raumlaborberlin: “When I made something like that, I felt self-effective.” At the same time, he is certain: “If the language used to describe the situation is as far removed from the situation itself as possible, then something is wrong.”

Warner also laments the fact that politicians are not really interested in the intrinsic value of art and too often instrumentalize it for effects such as participation. This is also due to a lack of expertise: “There are almost no cultural politicians left.” Müller presses further, asking whether it is already a functionalization of the arts when politicians expect them to strengthen democracy. Haratischwili, on the other hand, does not understand the regularly recurring debates about theater’s raison d'être, which don’t exist when it comes to literature: “We should trust in the fact that it has already existed for millennia – obviously there’s a need for stories, that's justification enough.” Does that strengthen democracy? “Side effects are of course wonderful,” says Haratischwili. She adds that every dictatorship suppresses culture right from the start: “Why would they bother, if it's all irrelevant?” Moreover, art is always political; even a romantic Hollywood comedy tells us something about desires – and thus about the views of society.

New systems and new collaborations, attitudes and debates

Schlewitt sees a lot of potential for change when it comes to the debate about theater’s social relevance: “The German theater system should have been working on new and more diverse structures for a long time.” The municipal theater model is stuck in a rut; it's time for joint think tanks with independent theaters. Schlewitt is certain: “If we want to maintain this density, we have to do something different over the next 10 years.” Warner also sees collaboration as an opportunity for greater relevance: “It's about a commitment to space, about getting involved in places and then finding partners there who will support cultural projects together.” 

Reflecting on debates, conflicts and the resulting actions, a panel discussion moderated by Janis El-Bira follows on almost seamlessly from these kinds of statements. Political scientist Julia Reuschenbach contributes theories from her book “Defekte Debatten – Warum wir als Gesellschaft besser streiten müssen” (Flawed debates – why we as a society need to argue better), which she published together with Korbinian Frenzel. Performance artist Cesy Leonard, founder of the Radikale Töchter collective, shares ideas from her book “MACHEN MACHT MUT – Gegen die Gleichgültigkeit” (DOING MAKES COURAGE – against indifference). Leonard says that art is ultimately about inspiring people to have an impact on their surroundings – which is inevitably political. It's about art taking responsibility.

Confusion and polemics, defects and tools

Reuschenbach also considers the autonomy of art to be an ideal type: “In the culture of debate, art can no longer escape the demand to take a position.” Being forced to make a commitment can become a problem: “How legitimate is it to not have a position at first, to still have to find one?” Leonard counters: “Not having a position yet is also a position.” It’s not always about the search for big solutions: “Then a lot of people quickly lose the courage to start.” For Reuschenbach problems in the culture of debate are partly caused by the fact that the world has become more confusing: “There’s a big longing for order and clarity.” This is what makes polemics so successful, he says, decrying the discourse: “We’re unable to reflect the complexity of things in the world in the complexity of debates.” Reuschenbach's good news: “Flawed debates can be repaired.”

Leonard reminds us: “There are areas where you cannot afford not to have an opinion – there, those who are loud and spread hatred take over.” Here, the main task of art is to moderate and break down indifference: “Sometimes we prefer anger.” From a political science perspective, polarization is highly desirable, Reuschenbach interjects: “The problem is affective polarization, which works with collective thinking patterns instead of differentiation and denies others the legitimacy to engage in discourse.” Leonard argues that there’s a lack of tools for dealing with conflicts productively. It’s about making people believe that they can change something. She adds: “In some rural areas, there are people who have been doing theater against right-wing ideologies for 20 years, but they’ve never received any attention – we must value these people and make them visible.”

Wishes, effectiveness and forward thinking as workshop results

In three open and three closed workshops, all the participants at BUNDESTREFFEN25 had the opportunity to actively engage in an exchange about effectiveness, scope for action, needs, potential and visions from their own individual perspectives, roles and attitudes. The open workshops clearly revealed a longing for fair distribution and the sharing of scope for action in order to counteract competition, a desire for a general appreciation of art as art, a rejection of symbolic debates and a demand to strengthen and preserve art as a social force. Felizitas Stilleke, curator of the workshops, sums things up: “The show must not only go on, but surpass itself.” 

For the closed workshop on new narratives and formats in art, Heinrich Horwitz concludes by calling for open yet stable framework conditions and dynamic funding, for “cultural policymakers who bring expertise and love,” for protection from political appropriation and for culture to be understood not as a commodity but as a common good. In their summary of the closed workshop on interest groups, Anne Steinkamp and Helge-Björn Meyer express a desire for legitimacy and participation on an equal footing and with transparency, for creative competence and agility, for learning organizations instead of rigid institutions, for the balancing of imbalances and for sustainable development. Annemie Vanackere summarizes the closed workshop for and with festival and theater directors by stating a desire for trust and consistency, for an end to project logic, for joint work on long-term perspectives and for internationality. “We must develop strong structures and offer them to the politicians,” she says – adding that the initial focus is not so much on results, but on demonstrating the ability to act.

Cultural policy, culture wars, resources and strong commitments

All the wishes and demands, visions and manifestos that emerge from the workshops within a short period of time are difficult to grasp in their creative entirety at a glance. Martin Rabanus, cultural policy spokesperson for the SPD parliamentary group in the Bundestag, shows interest and, in his closing statement at BUNDESTREFFEN25, expresses his wish to have these results made available to him afterwards. He himself calls for resilient institutions, especially in times when the cultural scene and democratic society are under massive pressure. According to Rabanus, the right poses a major threat to the independent arts and culture, which is why all the democratic forces must stand together. He is proud that the current government has begun to reverse the cuts to the Fonds Darstellende Künste, thereby strengthening the independent scene once again. And he reiterates: “Cultural policy is about creating framework conditions, not determining content.” 

Ottilie Klein, cultural policy spokesperson for the Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) parliamentary group in the Bundestag, also emphasizes: “Artistic freedom is one of our fundamental values.” She adds: “The Minister of State for Culture is very clear on this.” She advocates for predictability and flexibility in funding. She, too, is pleased about the significant increase in funding for the Fonds. Finally, Sven Lehmann, cultural policy spokesperson for the Greens and chairman of the Bundestag's Committee on Culture and Media, expresses his concern that the current cultural policy debate is being narrowed down to high culture and beacons. Instead, he would like to see a combination of artistic excellence and cultural education – while unconditionally preserving the independence of the arts. He welcomes the ability of the independent arts in particular to subvert structures and mechanisms and deplores attacks on culture from the far right. “We now need a minister who will protect culture and media – not a culture warrior, but someone who fights for culture.” Lehmann concludes by emphasizing: “Culture can be political, but it doesn't have to be.”

Do we really know what we are living for?

Holger Bergmann greets the clear commitments made by the politicians working on cultural policy: “We can all rest assured that there are people sitting on the committees who are fighting for the independent arts.” He looks back on BUNDESTREFFEN25 with satisfaction: “It's good that we all thought about our position together, discussed differences and formulated different interests, priorities and tasks.” After taking a critical look at our own roles, he says, it’s now time to look for common ground, “to talk to people we haven't talked to before, to form alliances that are bigger than ourselves.” It’s essential, he says, not to always reproduce ourselves within the scene and not to tell the story of independent production as a generational story: “What will happen when we no longer play a role?” And, of course, a quote from Queen's “The Show Must Go On” has to be included: “Do we really know what we are living for?” Bergmann ends on an optimistic and poetic note: “The arts can give us an answer to this question, while we can’t really find it in life.”