RICARDO SARMIENTO RAMÍREZ
Director. Playwright. Transdisciplinary Theatre-Maker.
Born in Cuba, 1994. Based in Berlin. All pronouns.
rsarmiento940601@gmail.com . +49 152 37919775 . rsarmiento940601.wixsite.com/website
Director, playwright and transdisciplinary theatre-maker working across dramatic writing, performance, spatial practice and research-based dramaturgy. Their work explores migration, queer embodiment, political violence, ecological transformation and suppressed histories. They create intimate and site-responsive theatrical forms in which documentary materials, poetic writing and performers’ embodied knowledge intersect.
SELECTED DIRECTING AND ORIGINAL STAGE WORK
Qué Bolero o En tiempos de inseguridad nacional — Co-creator, playwright and performer · 2022–2024. Collectively developed with Colectivo Malasangre. A performance confronting Cuban popular culture, exile and revolt with Ravel’s “Boléro”. Presented in Marseille, Paris, Lille, Brussels and at Tanztage Berlin/Sophiensæle.
Tropical Island — Creator and director. 2022. Site-responsive performance and spatial intervention exploring migration, artificial landscapes and colonial fantasies. Floating University Berlin.
Berlin Calling Havana: Iteration of Acuario — Creator, director and performer. 2019. Performative conference examining the relationship between Berlin, Havana, migration and political imagination. Presented at Studio Я, Maxim Gorki Theater, Berlin.
Diaries of Fear — Creator, playwright and performer. 2019–2021. Research-based performance investigating fear, state power and collective apathy. Havana, Madrid, Zürich.
Acuario — Creator, playwright, director and performer. 2018. Site-specific performance on migration, captivity and the political construction of territory. Developed at the National Aquarium of Cuba and along Havana’s coastline.
Ten Ways to Call a Dead Dog — Playwright, director and performer. 2018. Performance addressing memory, migration and suppressed histories through the 1994 sinking of the tugboat “13 de Marzo”.
SELECTED DRAMATURGICAL AND ARTISTIC COLLABORATIONS
TRAPICANA, Joana Tischkau / Malpaso Dance Company — Dramaturgical and Regie collaboration, 2026.
Granma. Trombones from Havana, Rimini Protokoll / Stefan Kaegi — Dramaturgical researcher and assistant director, 2019.
Colectivo Malasangre — Co-founder, since 2020. Cuban performance collective working across choreography, theatre, music and political research.
EDUCATION
MA Spatial Strategies. weißensee kunsthochschule berlin. 2021–2024. Supervisors: Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung and Nasan Tur
BA Dramaturgy and Performing Arts. Universidad de las Artes (ISA), Havana. 2013–2018
SELECTED AWARDS, RESIDENCIES AND PROFESSIONAL PROGRAMMES
Guterstoff Artistic Residency, Bürgewald, Germany, 2026
Performing Exiles Summer School, Berliner Festspiele, Berlin, 2025
Les Inaccoutumés / La Ménagerie de Verre, Paris, 2023. Artistic development and performance context with Colectivo Malasangre.
Can Serrat International Art Residency, Barcelona, 2021
Casa de Teatro International Playwriting Prize, Dominican Republic, 2020. First Prize for “No dirás la verdad”.
Watch & Talk, Zürcher Theater Spektakel, 2019
International Forum – Theatertreffen, Berliner Festspiele, 2018
Panorama Sur – International Playwriting Seminar, Buenos Aires, 2017. Full Goethe-Institut grant.
Royal Court Theatre Playwriting Workshop, Havana, 2016
TEACHING AND RESEARCH
Universität der Künste Berlin – Studium Generale. 2026–2027. Lecturer for Rehearsing Futures: A Critical History of Theatre and Performance.
Universidad de las Artes, Havana. 2015–2018. Assistant lecturer in dramaturgy and performing arts.
Mundauf.net , Berlin. Co-developer of a platform researching and addressing the conditions of migrant sex workers in Berlin.