Spectacular venues
The sheer size of the Ruhrtriennale venues can be overwhelming. This Festival of the Arts fills monuments of industrial heritage with artistic parallel worlds, time travels into the past and visions for the future.
The Maschinenhalle Zweckel in Gladbeck also used to be a swimming pool. Although it is no longer wet, you can immerse yourself in before and after nature with Chorwerk Ruhr by internationally renowned avant-garde composer David Lang. Accompanied by the visual worlds created by Tal Rosner, the Maschinenhalle Zweckel comes to life with video projections animating its grey walls. In Rave-L Party, the French ensemble Les Apaches ! invites you to dance to the music of Maurice Ravel. Large projected dancers show how it's done.
Although not an industrial hall, the Evangelische Kirche am Markt Katernberg (also known as the cathedral of the miners) is closely linked to the industrial heritage of the Ruhr area. It was built for the many believers who came to work at the Zollverein colliery. 124 years later, the Wilhelm Sauer organ washes its history out of the brick walls in 124 Years of Reverb, a composition by Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood.
The Jahrhunderthalle Bochum is transformed every year anew. The theatre collective FC Bergman makes use of these circumstances to create their visually stunning new work Guernica Guernica. They fill the hall with more than just visual impressions: On stage, over 80 performers form enormous “Wimmelbilder” that the audience can observe from two stands on opposite sides of the hall.
The Turbinenhalle Bochum used to generate high voltage electricity. At the concert by the Will Gregory Moog Ensemble, electricity becomes art: the synthesiser band resurrects works of classical music in the eerie electronic style of Wendy Carlos. In GenZ Don't Cry, visions of the future mingle with flashbacks to an unclear past and a virtual reality. Here, technology becomes the decisive narrator. Headphones immerse the audience in a 3D soundscape that is created live on stage, performed by young people from the Ruhr area.