Magical Spaces

A fresh breeze wafts through Berlin’s Theater at Potsdamer Platz. The stage of this entertainment venue, reserved annually for the Berlinale festival, has been transformed into a kind of fairytale forest. Mighty trunks and branches sprout from the portal. Shadows of the leaves seem to sway in the wind. A first, subtle hint of how, in the show, tangible objects and later even human bodies will enter into dialogue with phenomena created solely by light—or rather, its absence. The directorial duo Valentine Losseau and Raphaël Navarro use the neologism "Acromagic"—merging "acrobatics" and "magic"—to describe their artistic and technological approach. Both developed the show and, with their ensemble (43 artists from 21 countries), the 25-person creative team and a dozen black-clad stage and ...