FUNDING NEWS — February 2025
Between 2020 and 2024, with the support of the Berlin Senat, LAKE was able to offer over 50 paid residencies to Berlin-based artists. Unfortunately, we did not receive a renewal of this funding for 2025. However, we remain committed to supporting dance and performance artists through ongoing programs, self-directed residencies, open calls, as well as with our studio and technical resources.
We are very grateful for the 2025 funding that we did finally receive in January. We received production space funding for 1 year to support the regular running costs of the studio, as well as funding from the Spartenoffene Förderung, which supports the SUBMERGE summer festival. We recognize the ongoing uncertainty surrounding the future of funding for the arts in Berlin, and we remain dedicated to joining with fellow dancers, artists, and #berlinistkultur to advocate for a thriving local cultural sector.
Further information and regular updates on protests and activities to save the cultural sector of Berlin can be found at: berlinistkultur.de
as well as on Facebook @Berlin ist Kultur and Instagram @berlinistkultur
We stand in solidarity!
Tanzbüro Berlin is the heart and connective tissue of the independent dance scene of this city. Tanzbüro is just as important and central a building block as Tanzforumberlin: which includes the video documentation team and their online archive of video documentations of dance/performance. The website contains trailers and documentation of over 1000 dance premieres from the last 15 years which have been made for the artists free of cost. If these two organisations go under, the independent scene will lose two of its most important pillars and networks. Both these examples are just two of many which illustrate how thoughtlessly funding cuts are being handled – we stand in solidarity with all those affected by the cuts and call on the Senator for Culture and all other politicians to reconsider what is at stake here. Such short-term, uninformed and drastic cuts to elementary networking organisations of the independent scene are neither economically nor socially justifiable!
We stand in solidarity with Tanzbüro Berlin PRESS RELEASE
BERLIN IS CULTURE! PREVENT CULTURAL DECLINE!
Artist-run spaces for dance and choreography enable and maintain the self-determination of the dance scene – and that is integral to the development of dance itself.
Without timely funding results, these spaces cannot survive.
LAKE Studios Berlin is a unique artist-run production space and residency for contemporary dance and choreography in Berlin-Friedrichshagen. For 11 years, the studios have offered over 1000 Berlin and international dance artists the opportunity to develop their ideas and productions in all areas – from conception, rehearsals, costumes, stage design, video and technology to performance – independently and/or in collaboration with other artists. Furthermore, many performances take place at LAKE Studios, which are a great enrichment not only for dance and art professionals themselves, but also for the district of Treptow-Köpenick.
We and many other Berlin Arts Spaces need SECURITY & CONTINUITY or we will not be able to pay our rent from January 2025.
Without space no movement, without movement no dance, without dance no culture, without culture no society….
Let art remain visible!
We need to support each other and come together now!
Please sign the petition (link in Bio) to protect Berlin’s culture in the budget crisis
https://weact.campact.de/petitions/graben-sie-der-kultur-berlins-nicht-das-wasser-ab-berlin-lebt-von-der-kultur
#berlinistkultur
Support for Berlin from Beyond Berlin — letter from Impulstanz
Dear Mayor Kai Wegner, Dear City Government,
While we Viennese are of course very proud of our reputation as a cultural capital, even we have to admit that Berlin has siphoned off a lot of great people over the last 20 years … and made their city what it is now: the place where young people and culture enthusiasts from all over the world want to go, for a weekend, for a period of their lives, or for a lifetime.
However, all this value creation is not based on buildings or other everlasting things, but on the cultural people who are active there. Although we have Schönbrunn and Klimt here, we know that Vienna has only been truly interesting since it has had a contemporary culture; its clubs, festivals, art fairs, trendy venues and public workshops. That is why we are convinced that it is fundamentally important for Berlin, as a major city in general, to stand up for a vital independent art scene, for a diverse cultural ecosystem, and to keep all the thousands of artists who bring millions of people there.
As a dance festival we are in constant exchange, and summer-long cooperation, with our partner festival Tanz im August, the HAU, our EU project partner UferStudios, the HZT – Hochschulübergreifendes Zentraum für Tanz, LAKE Studios Berlin and above all, the many hundreds of dancers and choreographers. As fans of Berlin, we are broadly concerned about the attractiveness of your vital city – even if we are happy about the creative influx from the near North: Europe’s strength and attractiveness results from the democratic, cosmopolitan coexistence in its cities, and for this it needs many different ones, but all with their respective strengths – please cultivate yours!
Warm regards from Vienna,
Karl Regensburger & Rio Rutzinger