The Berlin performer Bridge Markland is a virtuoso of roleplay and transformation. An artist who effortlessly crosses boundaries between dance, theatre, performance, cabaret and puppet theatre.
Her speciality are gender-performances in which the audience can experience the change of woman to man (or vice versa).
Markland is a pioneer of drag and gender performance in Germany and has organized Drag-King events, tours and festivals since 1994.
In the year 2000 Bridge and Diane Torr (Grand Daddy of Drag Kings) created the go drag! festival concept.
Bridge + Diane co-curated the first go drag! festival - women celebrate cross dressing in Berlin in 2002.
Also in Berlin in 2022 Bridge Markland co-curated the second international go drag! festival - celebrating women, trans, non-binary artists with Nancy Lund + Olive Baldwin.
2024 Bridge Markland + Munich Drag Artist Ruby Tuesday co-curate go drag! munich festival.
Bridge toured her short and long productions in Germany, Europe, USA, Canada and Australia.
Presently her main focus are collages of classical German theatre pieces with pop music – performed as lip-synced solo shows using role change and puppets: faust in the box (German), faust in the box (English) after Goethes Faust (part 1), räuber in the box (German) after Friedrich Schiller: The Robbers, robbers in the box (english) after Friedrich Schiller: The Robbers / Die Räuber. leonce + lena in the box (German) after Georg Büchner: Leonce and Lena, nathan in the box (German) after Gotthold Epraim Lessing: Nathan the Wise, woyzeck in the box (German) after Georg Büchner: Woyzeck
Other focus points of her work are:
Short performances --> silent movie expression, drag shows, gender transformations, erotic comedy, audience interactions, dance.
Performer, dancer, actress with other companies:
Performer in Le Pustra's Kabarett der Namenlosen 1920's inspired Berlin Cabaret Show - 2016 - 2023
Performer with Bearded Ladies Cabaret / Philadelphia / USA in Do You Want a Cookie? Project / 2018
Actress + Clown with: Platypus Theater childrens and young peoples theatre company - 2003 - 2019 www.platypus-theater.de
among others
dance-theater-cabaret-gender performance
puppet performance
transformation artist
actor
go drag! festival - founder + co-artistic director
Bridge Markland was born in (West-) Berlin in 1961
- 1973 - 1979 active in the school theatre company - 1979 - Abitur (High School Diploma) at Martin-Buber Oberschule in Berlin
- 1981 - 1984 Gymnastics-teacher-education - dance-studies with former Mary Wigman-student Gisela Colpe
- 1985 - 1991 intensive studies of contact-improvisation, new-dance and many other dance forms
- 1991 - 1994 studied Body-Mind-Centering with Bonnie Bainbridge-Cohen in Massachusetts/USA- 1991 – 1996 (on and off) time spend in New York City researching in dance-, club- and transgender scenes and performing in many different venues. The times spend in New York were a great inspiration for her artistic work.
