Zu sehen sind auf dem Foto die Musiker des Ensembles
Foto © Maren Lueg

[Translate to English:] Impulse Theater Festival

Vom 02. bis 13.06. in Köln, Düsseldorf, Mülheim an der Ruhr und online

The NRW KULTURsekretariat's "Impulse Theatre Festival" has been the most important platform for the independent performing arts in German-speaking countries for decades.

With the 2024 edition of the festival, Haiko Pfost is once again focusing on a three-part programme in the seventh and final year of his artistic direction, with a focus on "Showcase", "City Project" and "Academy". From 29 May to 9 June 2024, the next "Impulse" will present around ten outstanding and challenging works that have been produced outside of the traditional municipal theatre apparatus and bear witness to the special aesthetic quality, artistic innovation and explosive content and socio-political relevance of the independent performing arts.

In the city project in collaboration with the Ringlokschuppen Ruhr in Mülheim, this time "Impulse" is focussing on the loss of public meeting spaces using the example of the lack of outdoor swimming pools in Mülheim an der Ruhr. Together with local and international artists and in close dialogue with local initiatives and the people of Mülheim, "Schwimm City - geht Mülheim baden?" - a project in the public space for critical reflection on social issues, societal functions and current conflict potentials.

The Academy as a forum for the aesthetic and cultural-political self-understanding of the independent performing arts community will take place in 2024 in cooperation with the FFT in Düsseldorf. Together with the Bundesverband and Landesbüro Freie Darstellende Künste, the Fonds Darstellende Künste and the Festival Friends network, the festival will look at topics from the last seven years and take stock of them. It examines production and working conditions, questions of classism in the independent theatre scene and the pressure that the political right is trying to exert on the arts.

The "Impulse Theatre Festival" is organised and supported by NRWKS, together with the cities of Cologne, Düsseldorf and Mülheim an der Ruhr, in cooperation with studiobühneköln, FFT Düsseldorf and Ringlokschuppen Ruhr. The festival is funded by the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of NRW, the Kunststiftung NRW and the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, among others.

In 2025, the festival will be organised with a new artistic director.

The "Archiv des Freien Theaters" (Archive of Independent Theatre), which was launched in 2013 on the initiative of Impulse Theatre Festival and NRWKS, will be further expanded to explore the history, present and future of independent theatre. Since 2023, the project has also been funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.