Fragile 2024
Wuppertal, September 17, 2024: FRAGILE 2024, the international festival for sustainability and art, will take place in Wuppertal from September 24 to October 6, 2024. It is the first and only festival in Germany and internationally that is dedicated exclusively to this topic with dance and performance - climate change, social sustainability and the encouragement to take action.
Through dance and performance, contradictions become tangible and completely different perspectives become possible. “We want to encourage! It's about experiencing the beauty of nature, of which we are a part, and the diversity of this world together. Why don't we do what we know and can already do? The current rain floods make it clear once again that it is very expensive if we do not act,” says Bettina Milz. “Why do people drive their cars alone morning after morning? Wouldn't it be smarter and nicer to stay 'enkelfähig'?”
On September 24, 2024, at 18:00, the Belgian company Reckless Sleepers will present the performance A STRING SECTION in front of the Schauspielhaus Wuppertal, together with dancers from the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch and students from the Folkwang University of the Arts (free entrance). The festival will then be opened with speeches by Dr. Carolin Baedeker from the Wuppertal Institute, Matthias Nocke, City Director and Head of Cultural Department of the City of Wuppertal, Tobias Staab, spokesperson for the jury and Artistic Director of Dance München, and Bettina Milz, Head and Artistic Coordinator of the preliminary phase of the Pina Bausch Centre.
The opening production at 19:30 is the participatory performance LAKE LIFE by New Zealand artist Kate McIntosh. Together with the performers, the audience goes on a journey of discovery through the space. LAKE LIFE contrasts the fragility and uncertainty of today with the (re)discovery of trust, fun and free imagination. How can we free ourselves from the roles we are expected to play in the outside world? What connects us all? Perhaps it is the possibility of imagining a new world in which we can reinvent our paths from scratch. LAKE LIFE is a collaborative game, a puzzle and a celebration - you can go in with two feet and maybe come out with three. How changeable and fluid are we? How do we deal with each other and with the world? The play is transformative, imaginary and real.
“Science and art are important partners in phases of social change. They cooperated for centuries, for example during the Renaissance. That's why I'm delighted about FRAGILE, which combines dance and performance, sustainability and beauty, knowledge and moods, images and narratives - that's what the Great Transformation needs. Wuppertal is a special place for experimentation, with both great opportunities and challenges in the processes of social change,” says Mayor Uwe Schneidewind.
”In the opening week, the Colombian choreographer Martha Hincapié Charry follows from Friday, September 27 with her solo performance AMAZONIA 2040. The play reflects on the present, past and future of the Amazon rainforest, the disappearance of biodiversity in the midst of the climate crisis. The performative installation MESOKOSMOS by Anja Plonka and Rasmus Nordholt-Frieling interweaves voices and materials from the Wadden Sea to create a cosmology between plants, animals, bacteria, humans and planets. And the HÖHLE (CAVE) comes to the Pina Bausch Centre, a MUSIC ADVENTURE for children aged three to five. Together with friends, parents and grandparents, siblings and younger children, they are invited to discover the wonderful world of music! The research laboratory for innovative early education in Wuppertal is a cooperation with the LOCH art and culture center. Architects4Future go on a city walk in search of buildings at risk of demolition in Wuppertal and present the demolition atlas as a digital interactive platform (www.abriss-atlas.de).
Neue Effizienz as a guest at FRAGILE 2024 with Circular Insights
On September 25, the Circular Insights Days student congress will be held at the Schauspielhaus and the future Pina Bausch Centre. Neue Effizienz, a non-profit think tank for sustainable transformation in the Bergisch city-triangle, invites students and companies who see circular economy as an opportunity to set themselves up as future-proof and innovative think tanks (registration required). The Circular Insight Days provide the opportunity to tackle the challenges facing companies together with young professionals, who work on three days on relevant cases formulated by companies. The concepts will be awarded by the Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Transport of North Rhine-Westphalia, Oliver Krischer, and Lord Mayor Prof. Dr. Uwe Schneidewind.
The second week will also feature exciting performances with lots of urban dance, the hip-hop production EGO - a Journey of Urban Art by Urban Art Complex and TANZRAUSCHEN from Wuppertal and ICH KANN'S NICHT LASSEN by TANZKOMPLIZEN/Janne Gregor, an artistic work on the subject of participation and self-empowerment. In cooperation with the Kinder- und Jugendtheater Wuppertal, we will be showing GRÜN by Cologne-based choreographer and dancer Barbara Fuchs / tanzfuchs from October 3. She embarks on a search for parallels between humans and plants, exploring their movements, unfolding and the sound world of plants.
On the closing weekend of the festival, the artists of African Loop from Senegal will meet the dancer and choreographer Kenji Shinohe from Wuppertal in a triple bill. Kezia Jonah Zafinoa is a choreographer and dancer in BELOVED “Oui ou Non” and choreographer of KEUR, a danced story about clay construction as an expandable climate solution. In addition, the artist duo deufert&plischke will provide an insight into their project JUST IN TIME/ anarchivTANZ, which has been collecting and archiving personal letters from various people to dance for eight years. Their small, flying archive invites you to read these letters or write your own.
The festival is funded by the Zero program of the Kulturstiftung des Bundes (German Federal Cultural Foundation). Funded by the Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien (Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media). Additional sponsors are the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, the City of Wuppertal, the Sparkasse Wuppertal, the company KNIPEX and WSW Wuppertaler Stadtwerke.
pinabauschzentrum.de/en
under-construction-wuppertal.de/en
wupperinst.org/en/the-institute
