Series + Festivals
2023
NOW REALLY?
The FFT nourishes longstanding connections to artists in Düsseldorf, in Germany, and throughout the world. But how does a new work enter the repertoire? The west off and Freischwimmen programmes play an important part in this. west off lends support to new groups from North Rhine-Westphalia just starting out on the independent scene. The network provided by Freischwimmen works in a very similar way – on an international level, and it has been doing that for the past 20 years.
Welcome, Meine Damen und Herren
The FFT and the inclusive Hamburg theater group Meine Damen und Herren have been friends for many years. Now the FFT has moved to a new location and Meine Damen und Herren have transformed into a collective. It’s time to take our friendship to a new level! With the 2023/24 season, we will begin a two-year collaboration: visiting and learning from each other.
Peer to Peer
Nature and technology are often considered to be opposites. Their actual relationship turns out to be much more complex. Together with medienwerk.nrw, we inaugurate the Peer to Peer event series. The entanglements between landscape and technology, urban planning and nature, the effects of digitisation and the relations between the human and other species will be negotiated in performances, installations, workshops, and talks. The series will move on afterwards, providing insight into North Rhine-Westphalia’s diverse media art landscape in Cologne, Havixbeck near Münster, and Essen.
IMPULSE THEATER FESTIVAL 2023
The Impulse Theatre Festival has been the most important platform for the independent performing arts in the German-speaking countries for more than 30 years. We will be hosting the SHOWCASE this year, presenting the productions selected by the jury at the FFT and at various other locales throughout Düsseldorf.
RE-IMAGINING PUBLIC LIFE
Paradise– Park–, the Hochschule Düsseldorf (HSD) broadcast van and the FFT invite you to excursions into the Düsseldorf cityscape. Urban redevelopment carries with it a change in the forms of public life, on squares and in public spaces. Starting from the Kö-Bogen II areal, Re-Imagining Public Life explores connections between privatisation and investment, city marketing and design, sustainability and urban development.
ON/LIVE 2023
ON/LIVE has been negotiating current questions of digital life since 2016 – issues such as net accessibility, media literacy, or gamification. This year’s edition is mainly dedicated to playful forms of gathering. In 2020 and 2021, ON/LIVE happened purely in the digital realm.
Re_Generation
Re_Generation is a festival for pleasure, solidarity & healing. International artists, activists, and scientists will gather at the FFT for twelve days to introduce and try out practices that answer to a world that is exhausted in so many ways.
PLAY FULL
PLAY FULL is all about performative practices and exploratory approaches in theatre aimed at a young audience. During the compact festival, children, youths, artists, and pedagogues meet. The second edition focusses entirely on ghosts.
west off meets Freischwimmen
west off ist die qualifizierende Plattform für den künstlerischen Nachwuchs aus NRW, getragen von den Produktionshäusern Theater im Ballsaal Bonn, FFT Düsseldorf und studiobühneköln. Dieses Jahr verknüpft sich west off mit dem internationalen Netzwerk Freischwimmen und zeigt die nächste Generation von Theatermacher*innen.
Spielarten 2022
SPIELARTEN Festival will again show the great scope in productions and the range in topics and play forms in independent theatre for a young audience in North Rhine-Westphalia. Classes and families are invited to experience exciting stories, dance, theatre, and new circus for different age groups at the FFT.
PLACE INTERNATIONALE
PLACE INTERNATIONALE is a space for artistic, urban and activist practices that link the memory of past uprisings and the imagination of upcoming ones. Stadtlabor accompanies the FFT’s move to KAP1 at Düsseldorf’s main train station and frames the 2021/22 season.
Schwanger werden können
How we think and talk about pregnancy shapes how we live society: Why are being pregnant and being (able to be) pregnant so rarely a topic in philosophy, art and politics? Around the productions „Virtual Wombs“ by Anna Fries and Malu Peeters and „Mater Dolorosa Bleed“ by The Agency we would like to get into conversation about a topic that is omnipresent and yet rarely discussed on the big stage.
POLITICS OF INVITATION
POLITICS OF INVITATION is a series of events that invites to interventions, performances, concerts and parties in the foyer of the FFT. Together with allied female artists, a different politics of invitation is to be designed and practiced.
WEST OFF
west off is the qualifying platform for young artists from North Rhine-Westphalia, supported by the production houses Theater im Ballsaal Bonn, FFT Düsseldorf and studiobühneköln. This year west off will be supplemented by Saskia Rudat’s production from the international production platform Freischwimmen. äöü recently took part in the Favoriten Festival with their west off production Aus dem Innenleben eines Staubsaugerbeutels.