While many Berlin clubs and galleries are shuttered this month for their well-earned summer breaks, the superb international dance festival Tanz im August fills the cultural void with a two-week program of diverse contemporary dance. The festival's social heart is at the Podewil Palast near Alexanderplatz (not far from the Miniloft apartments), where you can mingle with dance-world movers and shakers at the Sommer.Bar.

Thirty-eight productions from nineteen countries will be staged in venues all over the city, loosely based around the themes of human rights and dance history. The festival opens informally tonight with 'Parcours in Podewil', a night of performance including a five-hour installation by Berlin artists AADK.

Tanz im August
Various venues, see website
Aug 19-Sep 3