Berghain diaries

January 24, 2025

A personal archive of Berghain nights, from and for my Tänzer.

Berghain is a legendary and beautiful space. I feel very fortunate to have been able to experience it during my time in Berlin, as no one knows how much longer the city’s techno scene will maintain its vibrancy and spirit¹. I am grateful I got to experience Berlin, and let it become a slice of my youth, while it still has the character of anarchy.

Europe is a giant history museum, but Berlin especially is a city shaped by its past; the entire city was destroyed during the final throes of WWII and painstakingly rebuilt, and the scars of division still cross the city. Berghain opened in 2004 in an abandoned power plant, just blocks from the former “death strip” that separated East and West Berlin from the end of WWII until the end of the Cold War. This past December marked its 20th anniversary. The entire Berlin techno scene was born from the spiritual and societal chaos during Reunification; in the wake of the GDR’s collapse, transitory spaces opened for new forms of expression. The illicit pop-up parties in abandoned Soviet-era buildings, the non-stop Love Parade, and the nature of the music itself – starkly rhythmic, mostly unmelodic, all-consuming – became the structural foundation for the anarchy of techno. Even thirty years later Berlin clubs still feel wild by design: barely-renovated skeletons of East Berlin factories; raw concrete columns and ceilings; overwhelming, dark, unrelenting sound; crowds dancing for no one but themselves.

I feel that my most expressive self lived within Berghain’s walls. I immediately felt not just comfortable with, but deeply appreciative of, the club’s wild sexuality, fashion, and music. I was deeply moved by the authenticity and intensity of expression that I saw every night. Berghain pushed me to explore my curiosity, to question self-consciousness and prudish limitations, to embrace the intensity of the feeling regardless of what it “looked like”. I learned to relax and let the pure sensations – being completely surrounded by the music, becoming a physical instrument for the rhythm, feeling the room and moment stretching out infinitely – completely fill my mind. Though I studied classical dance for my whole childhood, in Berghain I found a love for rawer physical expression, the pure joy of movement, the glee of experimentation. I’ve always loved fun fashion, but I got really into wearing my hair in space buns, and Adrian and I bought black rubber sneakers with massive platforms to dance in comfort. I spent a lot of time on the elevated stages, and I went topless once, encouraged by a glitter-covered regular I befriended. In Berghain, within the communal suspension of “normalcy”, nothing is weird except not being weird enough.

A Slovenian couple, Berghain semi-regulars, once told me that Berghain is about love. Certainly Berghain is full of flirtations², but the space’s collective love is what makes it so powerful. Berghain’s regulars show up for their space and community every weekend; you can feel the love floating in the air. Maybe it’s the quality of people selected by the bouncers, or the unadulterated joy of music and movement, or even just the high of “getting in”, but everyone I met in Berghain interacted with incredible baseline acceptance. People put forward their kindest and purest selves within the walls, and completely trust that the club will receive their energy. Strangers came up to me to tell me I had beautiful energy. Over the weeks, I made friends with regulars of 10+ years (including a man who would always do techno-ballet with me), weekend tourists, and everyone in between, simply by sharing floor space, water, smiles, and dances. I think Berghain’s greatest asset is the feeling of communal, loving anarchy; the energy on the dance floor is created by the friction and freedom of the collective. I might never get over the beauty of feeling the crowd move.

 

Other writing

• Post-Ritual Space: on the physical and mental architecture of Berghain
• Berlin Calling: the history and anarchy of Berlin techno
• Träum Weiter — Berlin, die 90er: photos from Berlin’s dreams and reality of the 90s

 

Music

 

Primary sources

i literally have not felt more like myself ever up until berghain. that place stripped me down to my core

the music is a force that commands you to dance and pulls you in from the sidelines. once you get “on board” you are at the mercy of the rhythm and the drop. the beat is reliable, unrelenting, the backdrop for a surreal trance and addictive movements. being exhausted, physically spent, in pain, but still feeling the urge to dance. dancing becomes compulsory

community is so important, people at berghain show up and show out every week, tipping, dancing together, bringing water. the amount of love floating through the air. your love and empathy are set by the baseline around you

the crowd matters so much. it’s like a transfer of energy something genuinely intangible but connects us all as one to the beat of the track. there is literally no words to describe that feeling. the way we move as one but in our own way. when everyone is dancing together in that dark sexy and wild way it literally makes me feel like I’m ascending into another fucking universe. omg the feeling is so fucking deep i never wanna forget it.

i wish i had the physical vocabulary to express the music fully

i just felt such love and joy and admiration for the space and for all the people around, the music felt all encompassing and i loved to twist and sway and let it flow through my body

i love watching the floor pulsate under the lights, people throw around their shoulders and bounce their bodies, all facing each other and dancing together, muscles moving as far as the eye can see, light dancing off skin

moments to remember: getting nervous without fail right before the door, even after a dozen times. walking in through the bag check, the abendkasse, the garderobe, getting a taste of the night to come from the echoes of music and the people milling about. sitting in eisbar sharing an apfel-schorle with my friends, hearing the music from below. white light flashing, casting the room in 20fps stop-motion. the cables twisting down from the ceiling. sitting in Saule between the red lights and concrete columns. dancing to the point of discomfort, dripping in sweat and bordering on physical pain. floating on the sparkly, colorful notes in pano. waking up the next day with ringing ears and aching legs. stretching my arms up, hearing the crowd whistle, as the DJ navigates the tension of the peak.

pano — fun, disco, vibrant, vibey, twirls and shimmy; berghain — wild, animalistic, violent, head banging, bass pulsing through the core