The RuhrTriennale – A festival of the arts in the heart of Europe

Over the first three years, the idea of linking an international arts festival with the industrial heritage of the Ruhr District has been enthusiastically received. Founder and first director Gerard Mortier succeeded in putting together a programme of such quality that the very first RuhrTriennale in 2002-2004 established the festival as one of the most outstanding in Europe.

The Triennale is redeveloping the Ruhr District's great monuments to the age of industry and establishing a network of individual venues as an incomparable cultural location in the heart of Europe. As part of this process the festival is also opening up new space for new directions in the arts: theatre directors present new dramatic and musical interpretations of song-cycles; jazz musicians produce opera; and in former machine halls and coking plants spoken drama, fine arts, pop music and the avant-garde are all melded into new forms, into new creations.

It is this concept that has made the RuhrTriennale famous far beyond the borders of North Rhine-Westphalia and into what the New York Times has called a laboratory for new artistic developments that is unique throughout the world.

Much in the same way as memory works by letting time run backwards, the changing focus of the RuhrTriennale 2005-07 describes a chronicle in reverse. One of the main focuses of the 2005 season dealt with the simultaneous development of the Romantic movement and the industrial revolution. Writers, directors, musicians and visual artists were invited to embark on a time journey back to the early 19th century. At the centre of the 2006 season was Baroque Man. The programme spaned a period from the religious wars of the 17th century, through the world visions of great artists such as Rubens, Calderón, Monteverdi and Shakespeare, right up to the present-day debates on human rights and globalisation. The programme for the 2007 season focused on the myths of the Middle Ages.