© Daniel Sadrowski

Ruhrtriennale 2019 starts on August 21

In the middle of next week, this year's Ruhrtriennale will start its six-week festival of the arts with a large number of first and world premieres. Artistic director Stefanie Carp: "I'm looking forward to new aesthetic experiences, to the exchange with the audience and to interesting encounters."

The festival will open with the premiere of Christoph Marthaler's Nach den letzten Tagen. Ein Spätabend on August 21 at the Audimax of the Ruhr University in Bochum. In Christoph Marthaler's creation, the futuristic lecture hall is both stage and auditorium. The visitors find themselves in an imaginary parliament. The music of composers such as Viktor Ullmann, Jósef Koffler, Szymon Laks, Pavel Haas, Fritz Kreisler and Erwin Schulhoff, who were deported, murdered or forced into emigration during the Nazi regime, is heard in this parliament. The ensemble, including actors Josef Ostendorf and Bettina Stucky and singer Tora Augestad, weaves text and music into a dystopian vision of the future that raises awareness of the current political situation in Europe.

In addition to these new creations, the Ruhrtriennale will again offer various formats that are open to the public free of charge. On August 23, for example, the Third Space opens on the forecourt of the Jahrhunderthalle Bochum. raumlaborberlin has completely rearranged the parts of the Transall aircraft to create a place for art and encounters. A diverse program consisting of workshops, performances, concerts, readings and parties will take place in the Third Space throughout the festival, inviting exchange and discourse. The unifying theme is dialogue and food, which can be experienced in particular in the culinary format Dialog am Schneidebrett with various artists and guests. On the first weekend of the festival, raumlaborberlin will answer questions, Eva Meyer-Keller will show her performance Death is Certain and Tango Argentino will be danced. Another highlight is the Cabin Crew Night at the end of September, in which young artists from North Rhine-Westphalia show their performances.

For the Ruhrtriennale 2019, more than 800 participating artists from around 35 countries will come to the Ruhr region to present 35 productions and projects - including 14 premieres - in 14 different venues in Bochum, Duisburg, Essen and Gladbeck.