S/N

Performing Arts Season 2026/2027

S/N – Screening – Eine Person geht über eine Bühne, unter ihr eine Projektion mit blauen und roten Kreisen.

The title of Dumb Type’s landmark performance work S/N is based on the audio engineering term “signal-to-noise ratio”. Amid exchanges reminiscent of a comedy interplay, identities are humorously put to the test: “male, Japanese, deaf, homosexual,” “male, Japanese, HIV+, homosexual,” and “male, American, Black, homosexual.” A beeping signal tone (SIGNAL) and the flashing strobe lights (NOISE) that synchronize with it create an intermittent rhythm, gradually accelerating until the performance races across the wall and unfolds in a flood of sound and light. Presented on both a sensorial and linguistic level, S/N remains in constant variation as it builds toward a powerful crescendo.

Centered on questions of gender, AIDS and sexuality – issues that Dumb Type members have experienced themselves – this 1994 work treats these as matters of the utmost urgency. Even today, more than 30 years later, issues such as racism, discrimination and sexism remain compelling social challenges that must be addressed. The conceptual author, director and performer of the work, Teiji Furuhashi, who came out on stage as homosexual and HIV-positive and died of AIDS-related septicemia on 29 October 1995, characterized S/N as “struggle.”

 

Artistic Team S/N

Teiji Furuhashi – Creation, Direction

Dumb Type – Production

Kenjiro Ishibashi, Izumi Kagita, Toru Koyamada, Peter Golightly, Noriko Sunayama, Shiro Takatani, Yoko Takatani, Tadasu Takamine, Mayumi Tanaka, Hiromasa Tomari, Tomohiro Ueshiba, Noritoshi Nakagawa, Alfred Birnbaum, Takayuki Fujimoto, Teiji Furuhashi, Misako Yabuuchi, Toru Yamanaka – Project Members

Artistic Team Recordings

WOWOW-Japan Satellite Broadcasting at SPIRAL, Tokyo in 1995 – Filming

Shiro Takatani – Editor

Next date:

• Date Sunday, 17/January/2027 16:00
• Venue Haus der Berliner Festspiele - Oberes Foyer
• Address Schaperstraße 24, 10719 Berlin-Wilmersdorf