Live Performance: Poetry Meets
A night of live music, poetry, and film, featuring an all-women lineup
Image credit: © Marc Meinke
Shaking up the scene since 2014, Poetry Meets is a creative space initiated and curated by Jumoke Adeyanju which brings together poets, musicians, dancers, filmmakers, and lyrically endowed artists from Berlin and the world.
For this special edition at Fotografiska Berlin, Poetry Meets presents a women-only lineup*, centering women*, femmes, and gender-nonconforming voices.
Expect a diverse evening combining intimate poetry performances, powerful live music, exciting short film screenings, and groovy sounds to send you into the night.
Additionally selected authors will read from Poetry Meets’ debut anthology book Togetherness, too (available at the Museum Shop from 14 March).
Furthermore, you get to see a curated retrospective showcase with highlights and stand-out moments from women* and gender-expansive headlining acts who have shaped over a decade of Poetry Meets.
Everyone is welcome to this multi-lingual experience: the poets speak in German while Gotopo is performing in Spanish. The rest will be in English with bits of Tigrinya and Yorùbá.
Book your ticket and be inspired!
Enjoy free access to visit all exhibitions on the same day. Last entry 22:00.
Line-Up
• Mario quest Blue (Saxophone)
• Oluwatoniloba (Poetry)
• Toshín (Music)
• Gotopo (Music)
• Adalet (Poetry, Saz)
• Sarah Tsehaye (Music, Guitar)
• Shagali by Naafia Naaheema (Film)
• Hawa by Mona Namér/Sanna Holm (Film)
• Gotopo by Juan Jiménez (Film)
Program
19:00 – Doors Open
20:00 – Opening: Mario quest Blue
20:10 – Screening I: Shagali
20:15 – Introduction
20:20 – Act I: Adalet + Saz
20:35 – Act II: Oluwatoniloba
20:45 – Screening II: Hawa
21:00 – Act III: Sarah Tsehaye & Mitch
21:20 – Screening III: Gotopo
21:35 – Act IV: Gotopo
22:00 – Act V: Toshín
22:15 – Closing Remarks
22:30 – End
About the host
Shaking up the scene since 2014, Poetry Meets is a creative space for local and international artists grounded in love, peace, and togetherness. Initiated and curated by artist Jumoke Adeyanju, Poetry Meets is a multilingual, genre-blending community event that brings together poets, musicians, dancers, filmmakers, and lyrically endowed artists from Berlin and around the world.
About the artists
MARIO QUEST BLUE
Mario quest Blue is a Japanese musician, composer, and Berlin-based saxophonist/ flutist. Focusing on soul, r&b, jazz, hiphop, she creates a soulful, emotional, and mellow sound.
OLUWATONILOBA
Oluwatoniloba Dreher-Adenuga is a model, content creator, poet, and host with a passion for inspiring and uplifting her community. Growing up in Stuttgart, she found her love for poetry and fashion. Through her work in fashion, media, and live events, she not only shares her lifestyle and creative vision but also weaves her Christian faith naturally into her storytelling – whether through social media posts or her video series Bible Tea with Toni, which brings biblical truths to people in a modern and relatable way. In an industry where speaking openly about belief can be challenging, she uses her platform to authentically credit her achievements to Jesus – showing that faith and creativity can thrive together, even in the most unexpected spaces.
GOTOPO
Gotopo is a multi-talented singer, composer, producer, and provocative performer who sees the future in her South American past. She’s skilled in folkloric stringed instruments and writes techno-inspired jams that reveal an Afro-indigenous legacy.
Born in Venezuela and based in Berlin, she embodies the collision of worlds: the sacred and the synthetic, the ancestral and the futuristic, the fierce and the tender. Her sound fuses tribal rhythms, classical training, electronic production, and poetic rebellion – a genre-defying journey rooted in ritual and raised in the rave. At the heart of Gotopo’s work is the dance between rage and joy. Her lyrics speak to political exhaustion, diasporic memory, love, survival, and power – but always with a beat that moves the body and a spirit that uplifts the soul. She calls it Ancestral Futurism meets Club Resistance – music as protest, as celebration, as ceremony.
Gotopo is a voice between worlds: a Latina in Germany, a daughter of forgotten stories, a rebel with deep love for life. Whether she’s performing on a festival stage or creating sonic spells in the studio, she invites you into a space where vulnerability becomes strength, and where rhythm becomes resistance.
TOSHÍN
Toshín is a Nigerian-born, Irish-raised artist known for her powerhouse vocals and electrifying stage presence. Blending soul, R&B, Afro-pop, Rock and theatrical storytelling, she creates immersive performances that captivate audiences with raw emotion, vibrant energy, and authenticity.
A staple in Ireland’s live music scene, Toshín has performed at festivals like Electric Picnic and All Together Now, sharing the stage with iconic artists such as Macy Gray, Gregory Porter, Madness, and Tank and The Bangas.
Her artistry is driven by a passion for storytelling and empowerment, using music to connect deeply with her audience. Whether in intimate venues or on large stages, Toshín’s ability to deliver unforgettable experiences has solidified her as a rising star in today’s music scene.
ADALET
The political it girl Adalet makes herself loud, both on stage and off stage. In her art, she processes experiences from the past and the everyday life of a Kurdish/Alevi trans woman of color.
She has performed at various platforms, for example with the comedian Jilet Ayse, in a radio show for Radioeins or for events like Iç-Içe, PxP Festival, Women Writing Berlin Lab and addresses topics such as the assimilation of Kurdish-Alevi people, sexism and the intersectionality of queer hostility and racism.
She is not just a psychology student, but also a model for wir sind uns, took part in the Missy Magazine 2024, the calendar of Kaltblut Magazine 2023 and shared a short impression of her life in Liebe ist Halal 2025. Although she is happy for the audience to listen to her performances, she wants to empower them to step out of their silence and stand up for themselves.
SARAH TSEHAYE
Sarah Tsehaye is a singer and songwriter from Cologne with Eritrean roots and a voice that carries. Her songs tell stories of healing, self-empowerment, and the search for identity – personal, vulnerable, and resilient.
With her debut album Life Has Just Begun, she opens a new chapter: a moment of pause, a fresh start, and a rediscovery of the self. Her music creates spaces where emotions are allowed to exist – somewhere between soul, urban sounds, and honest storytelling.
About the films
SHAGALI
A short film by Naafia Naaheema
In SHAGALI (2021), Naafia Naahemaa’s artistry captures the indomitable spirit of Yaa Asantewaa, portrayed through generations of women. The film now opens with The Sacred Imprint (2025), a moving image workcentered on a recorded act of libation in which elders address ancestors, territorial spirits, and deities to seek guidance and protection. This ritual invocation establishes the spiritual threshold through which the film unfolds.
HAWA
('Air' in Darija) A film by Mona Namér and Sanna Holm (Morocco, Sweden)
On a journey through memories of identity and a longing for belonging, we get to follow a personal portrait of Mona moving through the island of Gotland. In an inner dialogue with her mother Fatima, the mother's voice takes her back to Morocco; the nostalgic blues, the circles of community, the feeling of the half and whole and the divine connection with nature.
GOTOPO: The sound of my destiny
Short biopic on Gotopo’s life as a musician by Juan Jiménez
The award-winning documentary gives an intimate glimpse of Gotopo’s early days as an expat, searching for a creative hub and artistic breakthroughs, while being thousands of miles away from home. Despite having no friends, family or connections in Berlin, Gotopo consciously opted for an isolated environment where she could flourish as an artist.