Wortsport 26 – Festival for Young Spoken Word Art

GRIPS Theater Rediscovers the Word

Since 1969, the GRIPS Theater in Hansaviertel has been one of Berlin's defining children's and youth theatre stages. With Wortsport 26, the venue is launching a new festival format in 2026 – a three-day festival for young spoken word art that brings together the full spectrum of the spoken word: from wordplay and song lyrics to poetry, storytelling, human beatbox, freestyle rap, and sign language. The venue is the GRIPS Podewil at Klosterstraße 68 in the Mitte district – the theatre's second performance space, an 18th-century Renaissance city palace with a courtyard and several rooms.

15 Artists from Generation Z

The curatorial profile is clear: all invited artists were born after 2000 – Generation Z, who shape the late capitalist language culture and have long developed their own forms via social media. Among them are Austrian rapper Yasmo, beatboxer King EXXX, author and storyteller Kirsten Fuchs, and Nya Ditt, the reigning German-speaking U20 Poetry Slam champion. The setting is programmatic: here, the rapper is meant to meet the poet, the beatboxer encounter storytelling, and sign language meet freestyle rap.

8 Workshops, 5 Stage Evenings

The program is divided into two clearly distinct strands: during the day, there are eight workshops with the invited artists, where participants can get actively involved – writing workshops, beatbox coaching, performance training, slam preparation. The workshops are free for young participants under 25. In the evenings, there are five stage evenings with show formats where the artists present their work. Tickets for the stage evenings cost €12 (€8 reduced).

Language as Sound Art

Wortsport clearly positions itself against the reading-oriented poetry scene: language, according to the festival's statement, can "sound, groove, surprise, touch" – the multisensory dimension of language beyond the written text is the focus. Berlin, as a multilingual city with a dense slam, rap, and spoken word scene, is the right backdrop for this. The festival is designed as a recurring format – the first edition in 2026 is intended to be the start of an annual series.