Bettina Masuch

Bettina Masuch

Director of Dance in August (Tanz im August)
2013 marks the 25th holding of Berlin’s international dance festival Dance in August (Tanz im August) to be held this year from August 16 to 31 with major theaters around the city, including HAU, Sophiensaele, Haus der Berliner Festspiele and Volksbühne as its main venues. This festival was launched in 1988, two years before the reunification of East and West Germany. At the time, the Berlin Wall isolated West Berlin as an island of the West within the borders of East Germany, which made it virtually impossible to invite foreign companies to the city. The naming of [West] Berlin as a European “Capital of Culture” in 1988 led to the reopening of the city’s Hebbel Theater (which had been closed due to financial difficulties since 1978). Today it is run along with two other theaters as Hebbel am Ufer (HAU) and it was the initial artistic director, Nele Hertling, who launched the Dance in August festival with the aim of opening a “window to the world” by inviting internationally renowned contemporary dance companies to Berlin (subsequently the festival would be jointly run by HAU and TanzWerkstatt Berlin).