Opening of Ruhrtriennale - International Festival of the Arts on August 17, 2012

One week before the opening of the Ruhrtriennale on August 17, Heiner Goebbels and his team gave an inside look at final preparations at Dampfgebläsehaus, Jahrhunderthalle Bochum.

With Klaus Schäfer, state secretary in the Ministry for Family, Children, Youth, Culture and Sport of North Rhine Westphalia, on hand at the press conference, Heiner Goebbels reported on the continuing rehearsals for the opening premiere Europeras 1&2.

For the first time, the artists Michal Rovner and Lemi Ponifasio presented the state of their preparations for Ruhrtriennale. The Israeli-American artist Michal Rovner will be showing Current, a new large scale video installation developed exclusively for Ruhrtriennale at Essen’s Mischanlage / Kokerei Zollverein. The Samoan choreographer Lemi Ponifasio will present his production of Carl Orff’s Prometheus, conducted by Peter Rundel at Kraftzentrale in Duisburg’s Landschaftspark, featuring many stage extras from the region.

Many of the over 900 invited artists are currently arriving in the Ruhr region, from New Zealand, New York, Tel Aviv, Brussels, Warsaw, or Maribor. Some, like Michal Rovner or Lemi Ponifasio, have already begun to rehearse or to set up their exhibitions at venues of industrial culture. Romeo Castellucci will begin rehearsals next week in Duisburg, while Jan Lauwers und Robert Wilson are currently working in Brussels and New York on their productions.

Visitors to Ruhrtriennale can experience the artists on the stage and in numerous conversations and discussion, for example the tumbletalks, a Sunday conversation series at Museum Folkwang, where Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker und Jérôme Bel, Romeo Castellucci, Jan Lauwers, Tarek Atoui und Christian Marclay will discuss their work.

Klaus Schäfer, secretary in the Ministry for Family, Children, Youth, Culture and Sport of North Rhine Westphalia:

“Heiner Goebbels and his team are a great gain for the Triennale and culture and art in the Ruhr region. They place a great importance on art outreach. This is attested to not only by the No Education program and the many public artist conversations to be held, but also the opening productions Europeras 1&2, the dance piece enfant with numerous children, and the Bordeoms open air concert at Halde Haniel. Ruhrtriennale has already met with great interest among the public and the media. Many of the productions are already sold out. This underscores that Ruhrtriennale has a place as one of the most important festivals in Europe in NRW.”

 A Densely Packed Program for the First Ten Days

Ruhrtriennale opens on August 17 with John Cage’s Europeras 1&2; the Live Art exhibition 12 Rooms will open at 12pm at Essen’s Museum Folkwang, and a tumbletalk featuring the curators Klaus Biesenbach and Hans Ulrich Obrist will be held at 3pm. Later that evening, visitors at Westpark can participate in the light installation Pulse Park by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, a project by Urbane Künste Ruhr for Ruhrtriennale.

On Saturday, August 18, the video installation Current by Michal Rovner will open at Kokerei Zollverein in Essen. That afternoon at 5pm, the opening of Our CenturY will be held in front of Jahrhunderthalle, and at 7pm the dance piece enfant by French choreographer Boris Charmatz will premiere, and the Japanese group Boredoms will play the long sold-out Bergarena of Halde Haniel. On Sunday, August 19 at 12pm, Michal Rovner will be a guest at a tumbletalk with Michael Morris at Museum Folkwang.

On Monday, August 20, the concert series at Maschinenhaus at Zeche Carl will begin with Guy Braunstein. With Robert Wilson, a start of the avant-garde theater will be our guest starting Tuesday, and on August 22 he will perform John Cage’s Lecture on Nothing. On Thursday evening, PACT Zollverein will again serve as a venue: Jérôme Bel and Theater HORA will play the subsequent evenings with the production Disabled Theater.

The weekend from August 24–26 will be dominated by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s production En Atendant at sundown and Cesena at 5am at sunup with a breakfast to follow. This will be followed by the premiere of FOLK., the new theater work by Romeo Castellucci, at Gebläsehalle at Duisburger Landschaftspark. At a tumbletalk that Sunday, we will discuss Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Jérôme Bel. On Friday, August 24 at 6pm, we present Boris Charmatz and the participating children at the Education Workshop Links at Museum Folkwang.

This will also kick off the Children's Choice Awards, which will travel as an independent festival jury from performance to performance, a production of the Ruhrtriennale in cooperation with Mammalian Diving Reflex.

Ruhrtriennale in the first year under the artistic direction of Heiner Goebbels will be bringing numerous artists from around the world to the Ruhr metropolitan region from August 17 to September 30, 2012. Over 30 productions, including 20 world premieres, new productions, and German premieres as well as numerous concerts and guest performances will transform the outstanding industrial monuments of the region to spectacular performance sites for music, fine art, theater, dance, and performance.