Helmut Lachenmann
Photo: Astrid Karger
In its second year under the artistic direction of Heiner Goebbels, the German Festival ‘Ruhrtriennale’ (August 23–October 6, 2013) features major artists from around the world in world premieres and new productions and continues to expand its dialog with the visual arts. Over 150 events, 43 productions, including 20 premieres, as well as concerts and artist discussions transform the industrial monuments of the North-Rhine Westphalia region into unique venues for music, visual art, theater, film, dance, and performance.A total of 800 artists from around the world – Germany, Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Estonia, France, UK, Italy, Japan, Canada, Lebanon, the Netherlands, Austria, Romania, Russia, Spain and the US – will be participating in this year’s festival.
Unusual constellations and combinations run throughout the program. American director Robert Wilson is staging a production of Helmut Lachenmann’s rarely performed opera ‘Das Mädchen mit den Schwefelhölzern’, featuring the actress Angela Winkler and ‘hr-Sinfonieorchester’ in a uniquely sculptural sound and space design. Internationally renowned choreographers Boris Charmatz and Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker are collaborating for their new production ‘Partita No. 2’, being created especially for the stage of Bochum’s ‘Jahrhunderthalle’. The theater collective ‘Rimini Protokoll’ will present their most elaborate production to date, ‘Situation Rooms’, and ‘Forced Entertainment’s The Last Adventures’ will explore various facets of a new theatrical language. Music and film are presented side by side in a series of ‘ciné-concerts’. At Duisburg’s Kraftzentrale, ‘Massive Attack’ will present their only German performance in 2013, featuring the work of BBC documentary filmmaker Adam Curtis. Robert Del Naja has called the performance “a collective hallucination.”
In particular, at this year’s ‘Ruhrtriennale’ several installations will place the spectators at the center of attention and allow them the autonomy to make their own decisions: the Scottish artist Douglas Gordon is filming and staging a new work especially created for the ‘Mischanlage’, ‘Kokerei Zollverein’. In the Folkwang Museum’s central hall, William Forsythe will present the large-scale installation ‘Nowhere and Everywhere’, along with other works where the visitors themselves become performers and contribute to the success of the performance. Ryoji Ikeda’s test pattern [100m version] is a pulsating environment created especially for the ‘Kraftzentrale’, and London’s ‘Studio rAndom International’ will build an impressive accessible water tower as a contribution to ‘Urbane Künste Ruhr’ under the direction of Katja Aßmann. Mischa Kuball and Dan Perjovschi have been invited to set visible signs in public space in ‘Westpark’ and in the lobby of ‘Jahrhunderthalle’.
Several of the world’s most sought after will be creating large format installations that remain in place for the entire festival. At the huge ‘Kraftzentrale’ in Duisburg, Heiner Goebbels will present the work ‘Stifters Dinge’, which has been celebrated around the world, in a new version as an ‘unguided tour’, an invitiation to the visitors to engage in an individual experience with no limits.
Artistic Director Heiner Goebbels says: « Perception and experience are very personal things, they are different for each and every one of us and, even in the theatre, at the moments when we are most powerfully moved, we are alone. Possibly for this reason we have placed more emphasis in our programme on self-selected encounters, where one may decide for oneself when one enters a space, how long one wishes to spend there, how quickly one leaves and whether one will return.” »
Among the highlighs of the festival are the opening production of Harry Partch’s ‘Delusion of the Fury’ staged by Heiner Goebbels in collaboration with ‘musikFabrik’, and the festival finale, Romeo Castellucci’s version of Stravinsky’s ‘Le Sacre du Printemps’, performed together with the charismatic conductor Teodor Currentzis and the Russian ensemble ‘MusicAeterna’.
Numerous events in 2013 will focus on dance. Boris Charmatz and his ensemble of twenty-four dancers will take over Bottrop’s spectacular open-air arena ‘Halde Haniel’ in ‘Levée des conflits’. For the premiere of a choreographed performance of ‘Vortex Temporum’, a late work of French composer Gérard Grisey, two exceptional ensembles will join efforts in Bochum’s ‘Jahrhunderhalle’: Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s company ‘ROSAS’ and ‘Ictus Ensemble’.
Beside ‘hr-Sinfonieorchester’ in Lachenmanns ‘Das Mädchen mit den Schwefelhölzern,’ two other large ensembles from North Rhine-Westphalia will be featured in this year’s festival: ‘Bochumer Symphoniker’ play Gavin Bryar’s masterpiece ‘The Sinking of the Titanic’ and Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet’, and WDR Sinfonieorchester will perform Jonathan Harvey’s ‘Glasgow Trilogy’ and Alban Berg’s Violin Concerto, featuring the famous soloist Alina Ibragimova.
The wonderful acoustics of Dortmund’s art nouveau ‘Maschinenhalle’, ‘Zeche Zollern’, offer the ideal setting for the sacred music of Estonian composer Arvo Pärt and British composer Sir John Taverner. ‘ChorWerk Ruhr’, under the direction of Florian Helgath and ‘Ensemble Resonanz’, will present their concert ‘Ikon of Light’ in the first ever use of this wonderful example of industrial architecture for the ‘Ruhrtriennale’.
Once more this year, in the program ‘No Education’ artists will work with young people to explore spaces for aesthetic and unbiased experiences. Bochum’s ‘Westpark’ will again be the site of a festival campus this year: students from 14 European art and theater schools will visit productions of the ‘Ruhrtriennale’ and take part in seminars and workshops that accompany the festival.
For more information: www.ruhrtriennale.de
