Ruhrtriennale 2012: A Great Success. Harry Partch’s Delusion of the Fury: Opening Production 2013

28 September 2012

Heiner Goebbels, the artistic director of the Ruhrtriennale 2012/2013/2014 and Lukas Crepaz, managing director, Kultur Ruhr GmbH, take stock of Ruhrtriennale 2012, which ended this past weekend, September 29/30, 2012 with the Children’s Choice Awards and Ryuichi Sakamoto and Alva Noto’s audio-visual concert utp_ at Bochum’s Jahrhunderthalle. In the first year under the direction of the composer and director Heiner Goebbels, Ruhrtriennale brought 900 artists from around the world to the Ruhrtriennale from August 17 to September 30, 2012.

Over 30 productions, including around 20 world premieres, new productions and German premieres, and many more concerts and guest performances transformed the outstanding industrial monuments of the region into spectacular venues for music, art, theater, dance, and performance.

Around 50,000 guests attended the productions in 2012, while around 7000 came to see the live art exhibition 12 Rooms. Overall, festival events were 85 percent booked. In addition, 13,000 visitors provided their heartbeat for the light installation Pulse Park. Still not counted: the numerous visitors to Our CenturY, an installation around Jahrhunderthalle Bochum.

Many performances were sold out, including the opening production Europeras 1&2, enfant by Boris Charmatz, the concerts of the Boredoms, utp_, and Mandelring Quartett, En Atendant, Sacré Sacre du Printemps, and Disabled Theater, as well as individual performances FOLK., Prolog, and Soapéra. The most visited production in 2012 was Carl Orff’s Prometheus, staged by Lemi Ponifasio at Duisburg’s Kraftzentrale, with over 4,500 tickets sold.

Ruhrtriennale 2013: Opening with Harry Partch’s Delusion of the Fury

To kick off the 2013 season, Ruhrtriennale will present Harry Partch’s key work Delusion of the Fury (1965–66) as a European premiere.

Harry Partch was one of the most original artists and musicians of the twentieth century and one of the first composers to work almost exclusively with microtonality, developing an unusual music that with a poetic subtlety, rhythmic pulse, and non-academic sense of humor that recalls music from another unknown culture.

Not only did he develop a highly complex sound system, he also designed and constructed during the course of his life an extensive array of instruments of idiosyncratic beauty to perform this music. The partner of the Ruhrtriennale is the ensemble musikFabrik. For this new production staged by Heiner Goebbels, the instruments will be rebuilt and members of Ensemble musikFabrik will learn to play them.

Ruhrtriennale 2013 will begin on August 23 and end on October 6, 2013.

Additional Information and Facts 2012

New Formats / New Venues: Exhibitions/Installations

During the first ten days of Ruhrtriennale, 7,000 visitors attended the live art exhibition 12 Rooms at Essen’s Museum Folkwang, which this year for the first time served as a venue for Ruhrtriennale. The video installation Current by Michal Rovner at the Mischanlage at Kokerei Zollverein was seen by 5,500 visitors as well as numerous uncounted visitors to Stiftung Zollverein. More than 200 volunteers together with the artists Folke Köbberling and Martin Kaltwasser transformed the terrain around Jahrhunderthalle into an urban landscape. The demolition of Our CenturY will begin on Monday, October 1, with a large joint final jubilee.

Students come to International festivalcampus

The offerings for students met with great success, contributing a great deal to the laid back atmosphere of the festival. 50 students received a festival pass financed by Freundeskreis der Ruhrtriennale free admission to productions. The 50 percent discount for students was very popular as well. In cooperation with the Allianz Kulturstiftung, for the first time this year International Festivalcampus was realized.

In three blocks, 150 students from 12 European art academies and theater departments visits the Ruhrtriennale and took part in accompanying seminars, artist conversations, and workshops.

 

Numerous Participants from the Ruhr Region

More than 700 participants from the Ruhr Region contributed to the success of Ruhrtriennale: as assistants and the orchestra in Europeras or extras in FOLK., as members of the choruses and orchestras performing, including the Bochum Symphoniker and Bergkapelle Niederrhein, as extras in Prometheus, as performers in 12 Rooms or the production by Nature Theater of Oklahoma, as builders of Our CenturY, or as member of the official festival jury.

An audience of international experts from over 20 countries

The festival received special attention from the professionals: directors, producers, and artists came to the Ruhr Region from over 20 countries, including the US, Lebanon, Argentina, China, Taiwan, Australia, Israel, Canada, Turkey, Switzerland, Austria, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Poland, Greece, Italy, Spain, Slovenia, the UK, Luxembourg, Sweden.

More than 350 journalists from Germany and around the world were accredited at the festival.

Alongside the numerous previews and reviews of the productions, a special focus was placed on the No Education projects and Heiner Goebbels’ receiving the International Ibsen Award 

Ruhrtriennale Triennale Productions on Tour

When the Mountain Changed its Clothing

October 12–13, 2012, Steirischer Herbst, Graz

October 16, 2012, Maribor Theater Festival, Slovenia

October 25, 26, 27, 2012, Festival D’Automne, Paris

May 4, 5, 6, 2013, Kunstenfestival, Brussels

May 10,11, 2013 Grand Theatre, Luxembourg

June 21–22, 2013, Kunstfestspiele Herrenhausen, Hannover

June 25–26, 2013 Holland Festival, Amsterdam

Lecture on Nothing: Robert Wilson Reads John Cage

September 3, 2012, Akademie der Künste, Berlin

September 25, 2012, Teatro San Martín, Buenos Aires

September 30, 2012, Festival musica, Strassburg

Many additional co-productions of Ruhrtriennale 2012 will be performed around the world over the coming months.

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