“I like my theatre with a pulse.”

Dear friends, future friends, and healthy skeptics,

I like my theatre with a pulse. I want it to seduce me, surprise me, make me laugh at the wrong moment – and occasionally leave me wondering what on earth just happened.

As the new Artistic Director of the Ruhrtriennale, I would like to invite you into exactly that kind of experience. And I want to be a very good host, with all my heart.

There is an idea I keep returning to as we imagine our seasons together: “the fatness.” A word that is difficult to translate into German and that, for me, means far more than mere abundance. By this I mean a generosity of spirit, an insatiable appetite for life and art, the pleasure of sharing and the joy of always making a little more room. I think of a table where there is always space for one more chair, where someone has brought something you have never tasted before and the conversation can become gloriously unruly. Everyone contributes something; nobody leaves hungry.

For me, a festival should have exactly that fatness. It should overflow with encounters, with different artistic languages, with people who might otherwise never find themselves in the same room. I want to bring an ecstatic heterogeneity to the Ruhrtriennale: voices, bodies, sounds, stories, and temperaments rubbing up against one another, making unexpected alliances, producing sparks. There should be room for tenderness and bad behaviour, immense beauty and equally glorious absurdity – and for the surprise of discovering an appetite for something you never even knew you might enjoy.

Perhaps it is precisely this appetite for the unexpected that brought me, an American director, to Germany and keeps drawing me back to the theatre. I still find it extraordinary that we can build entire worlds together, only to make them disappear again a few hours later. I want to share this joy in the impossible with you.

In 2027, the Ruhrtriennale celebrates its 25th anniversary. Even a quarter of a century after its founding by Gérard Mortier, I admire the courage with which this festival tore down the boundaries between artistic disciplines and transformed former industrial halls into new artistic worlds. We want not only to celebrate this legacy, but to explore new paths with curiosity and pleasure.

And can there be a better setting for the idea of fatness than this festival?

The Ruhrtriennale has spaces that can swallow an opera house whole. They have witnessed labour, ingenuity, exhaustion, and upheaval. Their histories demand our attention; their sheer scale practically dares us to be magnificently immodest. These are places where artistic fantasies can grow into unforgettable experiences.

Being a host here also means being a guest: listening to the people who know this region, learning its rhythms, and discovering what we can offer one another. The Ruhr region already contains a wealth of languages, histories, and ways of living. I want our festival to enter enthusiastically into that company, to welcome people across its thresholds and give them reasons to return.

Expect work with appetite. Music that gets under your skin. Images that follow you home. Evenings over which we can disagree passionately. The feeling of being welcome and wanting to stay.

You do not need a degree, a dress code, or an approved opinion to experience any of this. Bring your curiosity. Bring someone who thinks they hate cultural events. Bring your doubts; I have a few myself.

We are already setting the table. I cannot wait to welcome you here.

Lydia Steier
Artistic Director of the Ruhrtriennale 2027–2029