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 organized Drag-King events, tours and festivals between 1994 - 2002.
With Diane Torr she co-curated the first go drag! festival - women celebrate cross dressing in Berlin in 2002.
20 years later 2022 together with Nancy Lund + Olive Baldwin - Bridge Markland co-curated in Berlin
the second international go drag! festival celebrating women, trans, non-binary artists.
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.
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 - since 2016
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
acting, art-/ photo model
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.
