Jlin (Jerrilynn Patton from Gary, Indiana) added two significant milestones to the development of electronic music with her first album «Dark Energy» in 2015 and the follow-up «Black Origami» in 2017. Rooted in the Chicago-based footwork genre, Jlin has developed her own musical language that sets her apart from all other electronic producers. Her hyper-rhythmic, breakneck tracks between aggression and euphoria are unmistakable. She later created the music for the dance piece «Autobiography» by the famous English choreographer Wayne McGregor and her recently released album «Akoma» contains collaborations with such diverse musical revolutionaries as Björk, Philip Glass and the Kronos Quartet.

Blackhaine aka Tom Heyes’ artistic work is a hybrid interplay of drill and noise music, experimental rap, movement and scenography. All of this is the result of a highly radical approach that is shaped by life in the north of England on the one hand and inspired by the Theatre of Cruelty on the other – a term that goes back to the poet and actor Antonin Arnaud and refers to a form of theatre that does not follow the classic dramatic rules, but becomes a physical and emotional experience for the actors and audience. Blackhaine’s physically demanding performances are both intimate and confrontational.

Heyes’ signature of unconventional versatility and methodical rigour has been incorporated into the direction and production for Playboi Carti, the bespoke performance Berg at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the site-specific show Paith at last year’s Berlin Atonal. Blackhaine has also presented works at the Venice Biennale and the Tate Modern.

At the EXPOP Festival, the artist will present the piece «Blackhaine : Consumer» – a performance specifically designed for the Dampfzentrale spaces and thus a world premiere.

Artist and performance maker Eve Stainton releases her new choreographic commission «Impact Driver». Featuring live welding, movement and live sound, set to music by Leisha Thomas and Mica Levi.

«Impact Driver» is interested in methods of constructing thriller-like suspense. How can tension be maintained as the main event without a climax or traditional resolution? Following the logic of a welding workshop, Stainton foregrounds activities that require lively negotiation and decision making; visualising how scenes and objects take shape and continue to move through meanings. Atmospheres, garments, feelings and materials, generative and in tension.

Stainton works with time-based terms such as ‘caught in the act’ and ‘in trouble’, exploring how tension as a simmering undercurrent has the potential to disrupt lesbian and transmasculine identities. Distressing, time-stretching, absurd.

“Welding is potent for me in so many ways- its strong alchemical presence, its extreme theatricality, its capacity for danger/excitement/drama/power/thrill, its sensuality, its brashness.’“- Eve Stainton

Featuring an ensemble of diverse creative backgrounds who do not normally work in dance, this research continues Stainton’s work to celebrate the experience of gender non-conforming lesbians and trans men, of which there are many, and what the emphasis on these identities means for the white Western canon of contemporary dance.

Stix Omar was born in Oslo and studied at the Malmö Art Academy before moving to Berlin to become a pop star. Together with producer Maximilian Boss, Omar founded the multidisciplinary project EASTER (they played Full Of Lava 2023), a genre-bending band with five albums released, which has toured large parts of the world and created the online soap opera «Sadness is an Evil Gas Inside of Me». For Stix Omar, collaborative work in music, performance, fashion and film is an important part of her*his artistic practice. «Romantic Comedy», on the other hand, is an experimental solo project that alternates between poetry, stand-up comedy and singing. It promises authentic intimacy with homages to Truckdriver, Pussy and Prayer.

The Norwegian duo Smerz, consisting of Catharina Stoltenberg and Henriette Motzfeldt and praised by both critics and the scene for their hypnotising and experimental R&B, pop and minimalist club productions since their formation in 2017, is back! At the beginning of February this year, Smerz released the new, highly conceptual EP ALLINA on their own label Shopping Records. It traces the rapid rise (and fall) of the fictional pop star Allina. ALLINA contains almost 15 minutes of dance music, pop/rock, minimal electronic and R&B tracks and pays homage to the current state of pop music – a genre caught somewhere between upswing and decline. ALLINA is Smerz’s fifth release after three highly acclaimed releases on XL Recordings and an album on Shopping Records. At the EXPOP Festival on Friday, the duo will play a DJ set before presenting their conceptual live show accompanying the album on Saturday.

Mayara Yamada aka Marara Kelly is a visual artist, performer and DJ who was born in Belém do Pará in the Brazilian Amazon and lives in Switzerland. At EXPOP Festival, she will be presenting a hybrid DJ format together with DJ Cigarra on both days, which will include parts of her Marara Kelly Art Show – a self-mythology that mixes aspects of Brazilian and Amazonian culture with religious and everyday congenialities and is led by Marara Kelly as an enchanted being of party, joy and childhood dreams.

William Basinski, born in 1958, lives in Los Angeles and is a classically trained musician and composer. He has made a name for himself with his epic yet melancholic, ambient soundscapes, which he has created using outdated technology and analogue tape loops. His much-discussed masterpiece The Disintegration Loops, which he composed as a legacy to 9/11, helped him achieve his international breakthrough after more than 20 years of artistic work. Basinski’s voluptuous, repetitive musical oeuvre, which is most closely linked to the minimalism of Steve Reich or Brian Eno, and his dandyesque, exalted appearance represent a refreshing contradiction and make him a pop music phenomenon that is rarely seen on European stages.

The Norwegian duo Smerz, consisting of Catharina Stoltenberg and Henriette Motzfeldt and praised by both critics and the scene for their hypnotising and experimental R&B, pop and minimalist club productions since their formation in 2017, is back! At the beginning of February this year, Smerz released the new, highly conceptual EP ALLINA on their own label Shopping Records. It traces the rapid rise (and fall) of the fictional pop star Allina. ALLINA contains almost 15 minutes of dance music, pop/rock, minimal electronic and R&B tracks and pays homage to the current state of pop music – a genre caught somewhere between upswing and decline. ALLINA is Smerz’s fifth release after three highly acclaimed releases on XL Recordings and an album on Shopping Records. At the EXPOP Festival, the duo will present the conceptual live show accompanying the album.

Bully Fae Collins, an artist from California stranded in Berlin, is not easy to define. The proportions of performance artist, musician/producer and stand-up comedian are roughly equal. The phenomenal album Defy A Thing To Be was the reason why Bully was a guest at the Saint Ghetto Festival 2022. During EXPOP, another facet of Bully’s work can now be experienced. “In this work, I want to embody a lounge singer who performs a karaoke track consisting of internet monologues that I have collected in comment sections and forums. The music will consist of horror film soundtracks and midi karaoke tracks of well-known songs, and I will improvise the melodies and dramatic interpretations of the lyrics.” We are looking forward to this world premiere.

The sets of the Berlin-based Zambian-Dutch DJ and producer Happy are always full of atmospheric and emotional music that transcends genres and combines them in new ways. Having performed behind the decks at venues such as Panorama Bar, Tresor, OHM, Garage Noord, La Station Gare des Mines and collaborations with LSDXOXO, Croatian Amor, Juliana Huxtable, LYZZA, De Schuurman and Roly Porter, her artistic vision also flows into the curation of music compilations for the CTM Festival, among others.

Mayara Yamada aka Marara Kelly is a visual artist, performer and DJ who was born in Belém do Pará in the Brazilian Amazon and lives in Switzerland. At the EXPOP Festival, she will be presenting a hybrid DJ format together with DJ Cigarra on both days, which will include parts of her Marara Kelly Art Show – a self-mythology that mixes aspects of Brazilian and Amazonian culture with religious and everyday congenialities and is led by Marara Kelly as an enchanted being of party, joy and childhood dreams.