The Velvet Creepers

Three solo disciplines, assembled in 2018

The Velvet Creepers were formed in Berlin in 2018 by three performers who each brought a different solo skill rather than a shared training. Lilly Mortis sings jazz and runs the room as compère. Fifi Fantôme came out of circus and burlesque and carries the aerial material. Dunja von K works hula hoops — she holds a Guinness world record in the discipline — and hangs from her own hair. None of the three was a cabaret producer first; the company is what they built around three acts that already existed.

Their home is Ballhaus Berlin at Chausseestraße 102 in Mitte, a dance hall in operation since 1905 and still fitted out as a ballroom. The company has produced a regular show there for about five years, and that residency, rather than a record or a filmed special, is where the body of work sits. The line the company uses on itself is "like Weimar Cabaret on acid" — 1920s framing, current Berlin club material, and a stated interest in body positivity and queer visibility rather than period costume for its own sake. On the contemporary half of that mix, the company has said that "a lot of beautiful art is coming out of Berlin club culture right now". The 1920s half is handled as a lineage claim rather than a tribute: the room itself predates Weimar cabaret and has outlasted it.

What is actually on the bill

A Ballhaus night is a sequence of solo turns held together by Mortis at the microphone. The December 2024 edition opened with Dunja von K suspended by her hair, moved into her hula-hoop routine, then gave the stage to Fifi Fantôme for an aerial piece titled "my bones will be dust"; later in the running order Fifi performed a nude number played as a statement rather than a punchline, with Mortis's songs and patter carrying the links. The reviewer who sat through it called the result "provocative, sharp, and hysterically funny" and "exquisitely crafted and wildly entertaining", and noted that at under €50 the ticket was underpriced.

Guest artists are structural rather than occasional. The Darvish, a queer Syrian belly dancer, was on the November 2023 run at Ballhaus. The aerial dancer Oskar Mauricio joined the May 2024 dates. One edition was named for its guest outright — THE BIRTH OF VENUX, with VENUX on the bill, on 8 and 9 February 2025. A later Ballhaus edition, billed as ME AND THE DEVIL and priced €25 to €55, brought in the circus performer Michiel Tange van Leeuwen. The effect is that the trio's own material stays recognisable from edition to edition while the shape of the evening changes with whoever is booked into it.

Editions, not records

There is no discography to follow. The output is released as named editions that run two or three nights at Ballhaus and are then retired. Winter Spectacular went up in November 2023. A two-night run on 11 and 12 May 2024 ran from 19:00 to 02:00, with tickets from €25 to €60. THE BIRTH OF VENUX took February 2025. NOCTURNE, subtitled "a circus for creatures who only exist after dark", played 17 and 18 April 2026 with the room open from 19:00 until 01:00. Maison Clit is the current title.

A parallel strand runs under canvas. At Zirkus Mond in Friedrichshain the company plays a longer and more conventional circus bill — two hours with a twenty-minute interval, doors at 18:00 and curtain at 19:30, performed in English and German, €30 in advance and €35 on the door, with the three of them billed as the whole line-up and the material pitched at circus nostalgia rather than club culture. Beyond Berlin the credits are festival and variety-house dates rather than tours: Fusion Festival, the Stuttgart poetry festival, Le Consulat in Paris, UNTOLD, and Central Kabarett in Leipzig.

Where things stand now

The most recent work outside Germany was a co-production in Paris. On 9 October 2026 the company shared Le Carreau du Temple with the Parisian band La Bouche for a bill called Cabaret Paris–Berlin, presented as a queer and activist evening of protest songs, circus and costume. La Bouche fielded Soa de Muse, Mascare, Bili Bellegarde and Grand Soir; the Creepers sent Fifi Fantôme and Dunja von K. The evening ran from 19:30 to 22:30, and tickets were €22 to €32 with a workshop included, €22 being the rate for holders of the venue's membership card.

Three Berlin dates are on sale. The Shadow Ball holds Ballhaus on 31 October 2026 from 21:00 until 04:00 — a Halloween party rather than a seated show, with the performances and the dance floor deliberately run together instead of separated by an interval. Maison Clit follows on 20 and 21 November 2026, 19:00 to 23:30 on both nights, back in the seated format. In between, the company plays Central Kabarett Leipzig at the King Albert House on Markt 9 on 14 November 2026, an 18:00 start in a two-hour slot. Nothing is listed beyond November.

The show as it runs today

Length depends on which strand. The Ballhaus show has been run at about ninety minutes, with doors an hour before curtain and the bar and floor open long after the last act; the tent version at Zirkus Mond is the longer one at two hours plus an interval. Ticket bands have sat between €25 and €60 depending on edition and seat.

Coverage has been consistent on two points: the craft is tighter than the billing suggests, and the material goes further than a first-time audience expects. Fifi Fantôme has put the second point plainly — "sometimes the audience is a bit surprised by some of the more extreme things we do, but they always love it". The December 2024 write-up landed on "this isn't just a show; it's an experience", and was specific about why: three performers with genuinely separate specialisms, each given room to do the hard version of their act rather than a shortened one.

Access, language and who turns up

The company handles access itself rather than through a box office: the venues are described as fully wheelchair accessible, a complimentary ticket for an assisting companion is available on request, and enquiries go to the company's own email address. The tent show carries a mature-audience advisory and is performed in both English and German, which matters for a Berlin audience that is substantially not German-speaking. The Halloween ball is the one date where the structure changes rather than the content: it is programmed as a party with performance inside it, not a show with a party afterwards.