Children’s Choice Awards
Once again this year, children and young people will walk down the red carpet at our Ruhrtriennale premieres and take their place in the first row, the best seats in the house. At the same time, the entire audience is invited to see the concerts, dance, music, and theater performances from a child’s perspective, with the same curiosity. The participants in the Children’s Choice Awards are our official festival jury: entirely unbiased, they subject the entire festival program to critical inspection, confidently taking part in the subsequent artist conversations with questions and objections. “The show where I laughed the most,” “The most embarrassing costume,” “The best sound,” “The cutest guy,” “The best team,” or “The show that I almost left because I hated it so much”—these were only a few of the prize categories developed by the jury in 2012: a lively subversion of the festival that at the same time paid homage to contemporary art. An art that does not want to humble, but stands for a direct, unprejudiced experience.
The Children’s Choice Awards are an initiative of the prize-wining Canadian research and performance group Mammalian Diving Reflex. Since 1993, in their projects for and with young people they have been exploring new spaces for aesthetic experience, exchange and experimentation. The focus of their artistic practice is the notion of a competent child and an egalitarian relationship between children and adults. This is also the starting point for their workshops with the teachers of the participating classes. The artistic director of Mammalian Diving Reflex Darren O’Donnell questions our attitudes of expectation and power relations in the teacher-pupil relationship, revealing other forms of approach.
Small Talk in Daft Hell: New Work in Development
This year, the members of last year’s festival jury start off an unusual adventure. With the title Small Talk in Daft Hell, rituals, rules, and roles will be up for examination. Who are you? Who are we? And how can we get rid of all our collected mistakes and lonely fears?
