“Records of love” by Binha Haase

2026 · DE · colour · Ar, En, It/en · 14’ · World premiere · In competition

In the experimental film Records of Love, two drag performers and a classical opera singer en travesti transform an abandoned theatre into a stage where Arabic electro, experimental soul, and opera intertwine, exploring queer love, identity, and belonging.

In the experimental film RECORDS OF LOVE, two drag* performers and an opera singer en travesti perform across a split screen in an abandoned theatre. Each presents a song—from experimental soul, Arabic electro, and a cross-gender opera aria—addressing queer love, identity, and constraint while confronting power structures across cultural and political contexts. Separated yet connected, they respond through movement, dance, and lip-sync, becoming resonant bodies for one another.

Mozart’s aria reflects the confusion of emerging queer desire within a socially subversive opera framework. Queer Falafels “RDMRDM” explores queer love under religious and postcolonial pressures, while Mandhla Ndubiwas “Soaked in Sin” engages soul music’s civil rights legacy. Subtle desynchronizations between voice and lip-sync reveal interruption and temporal lag. By performing each other’s songs, the performers embody relational becoming, thus creating a solidaric dialogue across identities.

The artist

Binha Haase is an interdisciplinary artist and violinist working across film, music and live performance. Central to their work is the human voice—particularly that of queer and female-read bodies—as a sonic and political presence in relation to spatial, social and performative structures. Working from a musical background, they approach voice and music as carriers of cultural memory and political articulation across historical and contemporary contexts. Their practice encompasses video installation, experimental film, interdisciplinary live performances and music theatre.

Binha’s work has been presented at venues and festivals including the Museum of Art Lucerne, Melina Mercouri Cultural Centre Athens, Sonic Matters Zurich, paradoks – Festival for Video Art Leipzig, Oper Halle, the European Media Art Festival Osnabrück and Vienna Shorts. They were awarded the soundzz.z.zzz…z Prize (Museum of Art Lucerne & Lucerne Festival, 2016) for the interdisciplinary video performance conductress (with Silke Strahl), and have received scholarships from Akademie der Künste Berlin and Kunstfonds Bonn.

The music theatre piece DRAG SPIRITS: The Poet and the Sun (co-created with composer Adrian Laugsch; direction, stage and video by Binha) won the NOperas! Competition 2026 and will be produced at Theatre Münster and Staatstheater Saarbrücken in 2027.

Binha studied Time-Based Arts at Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle and violin at the Lucerne School of Music. They took part in the Professional Media Masterclass Werkleitz (2022) and the Oberhausen Seminar (2023).

Alongside their artistic work, Binha performs as a violinist across classical, pop and contemporary contexts, working with ensembles, bands and orchestras, and appearing as a stage musician in opera.