With "Our People", Indian-American pianist Kunal Lahiry and Grammy Award-winning tenor Frederick Ballentine are creating a space and a song program at the Konzerthaus for the Berlin voguing community, an important subculture for Black and LGBTQ communities. Marginalized by society, queer black and Latino New Yorkers developed “voguing” in the 1970s and 80s as a dance style and a way of expressing themselves artistically as well es finding themselves. In the so-called “ballrooms”, the stage becomes not only a platform for good music and dance, but also an emotional catwalk for conquering respect, recognition and belonging.

Led by Lahiry and Ballentine, the programme this evening ranges from classical songs to traditional spirituals and the “AIDS Quilt Songbook” to Nina Simone: a unique concert, a bridge between two worlds and a moment to understand as well as remember the lost generation of black and LGBTQ people and to give the current generation a voice and a stage. It illustrates, according to Frederick Ballentine, “our separation from the whole, our constant oppression, our lost loves and souls - but, most beautifully, our resilience”