Westwind Festival 2025 – 41st Theatre Festival for Young Audiences NRW

The WESTWIND festival is one of Germany's most renowned theatre festivals for young audiences and is hosted by a different theatre in North Rhine-Westphalia each year. In addition to selected productions from NRW, it presents international touring performances as part of a collab-oration with “Exit the room”, an international festival network, as well as a comprehensive accom-panying programme consisting of workshops, discussions and talks. 

The relocation in 2025 of Junges Schauspiel to Central at Düsseldorf's main railway station was created a cultural mile that goes from the FFT (Forum Freies Theater) via the Junges Schauspiel to tanzhaus nrw. As a result, the 41st edition of the Westwind Festival was organised by three theatres jointly, the venues made up of the well-connected international department of a large, subsidised theatre, a key player in the independent theatre and performance scene, and a regional and international dance venue. The motto of the festival's accompanying programme was “Arts for Change” which, in the form of a wide-ranging artistic exchange, engages with child poverty and how stagecraft can affect social change. Highlights included the presentation of a comparative study by two representatives from the New Victory Theater in New York entitled “Intrinsic Impact of Performing Arts on Children”, the 10children.org project, presented by its founders, as well as the annual international youth congress.

On top of the festival events, the visitors’ programme included additional meetings with experts and organisers from the children's and young people’s theatre sector in NRW as well as in-depth discussions with participating artists and the organisers of WESTWIND 2025.