Press Releases

Three large-scale productions have already been scheduled for the third year of the Ruhrtriennale under the direction of Heiner Goebbels. In a six-hour screening, American artist Matthew Barney will present his latest work River of Fundament, a collaboration with the composer Jonathan Bepler, at Essen’s Lichtburg. In 2014, French choreographer Boris Charmatz will present his first world premiere at Bochum’s Jahrhunderthalle. In a new work for 14 dancers and five children, Charmatz explores a subject that is both timeless and yet very current: food. This past October, Heiner Goebbels already announced his forthcoming production of Louis Andriessen’s opera De Materie, which will open the Ruhrtriennale on August 15, 2014 at Duisburg’s Kraftzentrale. Ticket vouchers for the 2014 season are now available online at www.ruhrtriennale.de. They can be redeemed at the start of advanced ticket sales this spring.  

Ruhrtriennale 2014 will begin on August 15 and end on September 28. It will be Heiner Goebbels’ last season as artistic director of the Ruhrtriennale.  

"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."
(Heiner Goebbels in the Editorial of the 2013 programme book)

Heiner Goebbels, Artistic Director of the Ruhrtriennale 2012/2013/2014 and Lukas Crepaz, Managing Director of Kultur Ruhr GmbH, present their provisional assessment of the Ruhrtriennale 2013 today in Bochum. The Ruhrtriennale comes to an end this weekend, 5th/6th October 2013, with the presentation of the Children's Choice Awards in Duisburg, the dance piece Vortex Temporum by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Le Sacre du Printemps in a concert production by MusicAeterna from Perm/Russia under conductor Teodor Currentzis in the Jahrhunderthalle Bochum.
In the second year under the artistic direction of the composer and theatremaker Heiner Goebbels there was a marked increase in audience numbers. 90% of tickets were sold, the highest percentage since the foundation of the festival. Approx. 49,400 tickets were taken up for the 2013 productions. A further 23,000 visitors saw the installation test pattern by Ryoji Ikeda, some 12,000 the video installation by Douglas Gordon in the Mischanlage of the Kokerei Zollverein and altogether (the piece is still running until 6th October) around 8,300 spectators the Unguided Tour by Stifters Dinge in the Kraftzentrale Duisburg. These audience numbers do not include the many visitors to the installations Tower / Instant Structure for Schacht XII by the group of artists rAndom International, produced by Urbane Künste Ruhr, Agora/Arena by Mischa Kuball and the wall window workshop 2013 by Dan Perjovschi in and around the Jahrhunderthalle Bochum.

The Carl Orff Foundation from Dießen am Ammersee presents this year's Carl Orff Prize award ceremony in Dampfgebläsehaus, Jahrhunderthalle Bochum. The prize 2013 goes to Heiner Goebbels, Lemi Ponifasio and Peter Rundel for their Prometheusproduction from Ruhrtriennale 2012. Wilfried Hiller, Director of the Foundation, gives the honorific speech and hands over the prize.

A few days before the opening of the Ruhrtriennale on August 23, artistic director
Heiner Goebbels and his team present final preparations at Dampfgebläsehaus, Jahrhunderthalle, Bochum.

Heiner Goebbels is pleased to welcome his guests: Tim Etchells from Forced Entertainment and Lebanese sound artist Tarek Atoui, who begin rehearsals this week for the The Last Adventures at Gladbeck's Maschinenhalle Zweckel, and Dan Perjovschi. The Romanian artist will transform the foyer of Jahrhunderthalle with his large-scale wall drawings into a temporary museum, inviting the audience to complete his installation, wall window workshop 2013, with their own drawings and texts. Heiner Goebbels himself has been rehearsing daily at Jahrhunderthalle with his team and the ensemble musikFabrik for the opening and European premiere of Delusion of the Fury, an opera by American composer Harry Partch.

Although many performances are already completely sold out, there are still tickets available for most of this year's productions, including the additional performance of Massive Attack V Adam Curtis on September 1. The following productions are completely sold out: CRACKz by Bruno Beltrão, Partita 2, with Boris Charmatz and Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, and Ikon of Light with ChorWerk Ruhr at Zeche Zollern. Each day, new performances of Rimini Protokoll's Situation Rooms will open, an unusual theater format for 20 participants. This year's advance sales were similarly successful to those of last year. In addition, this year there are numerous installations accessible to all free of admission: Douglas Gordon's new video work Silence, Exile, Deceit and Tower by rAndom International at Zollverein, Ryoji Ikeda's 100 meter long test pattern and later the Unguided Tour of Stifters Dinge in Duisburg or Mischa Kuball's Agora/Arena transform the former industrial sites into vibrant sites of public gathering and communication.

Due to high demand for tickets Ruhrtriennale added another concert date: The fourth Massive Attack V Adam Curtisshow will take place on Sunday, September 1 at 8 pm at Kraftzentrale, Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord, Ruhr/Germany.

Instead, the 100 piece orchestra MusicAeterna from Perm under conductor Teodor Currentzis will present a special concert. The Ruhrtriennale 2013's closing production Le Sacre du Printemps has to take place without the Italian director Romeo Castellucci. Despite the strenuous efforts of all the partners involved, the project cannot be realised in the form in which it was announced. The production, which should have premiered last weekend as part of the Manchester International Festival, was definitively cancelled there.

This year once again, the Ruhrtriennale will be raffling off 50 festival passes to students under 27 years of age. To participate, students need to send an email to .de by June 28, 2013. The winners will be announced in early July.

In its second year under the artistic direction of Heiner Goebbels, the Ruhrtriennale (August 23–October 6, 2013) once again features major artists from around the world in world premieres and new productions and continues to expand its dialog with the visual arts.

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, which is 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 our 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.”

January 24, 2013 - The second season of the Ruhrtriennale under the artistic direction of
Heiner Goebbels will open on August 23, 2013 at Bochum's Jahrhunderthalle with Harry
Partch's masterpiece Delusion of the Fury (1965/66). Especially for this production directed
by Heiner Goebbels, an orchestra of the musical instruments Partch himself invented will
be built and the members of the Ensemble musikFabrik will learn to play them. American
composer Harry Partch (1901-74) is considered one of the most original artists and
musicians of the twentieth century. The opening premiere will also be the European
premiere of the opera.

Two additional large-scale productions will take place during the Ruhrtriennale at the
Kraftzentrale in Duisburg's Landschaftspark ...