Ruhrtriennale kicks off festival season 2024

The Ruhrtriennale 2024 kicks off the festival season on Friday, 16 August with the premiere of I Want Absolute Beauty. The festival weekend continues Saturday and Sunday with a packed programme. Visitors of the Ruhrtriennale can attend one event after another from morning to evening. The festival centre Wunderland is the meeting point between events. Here, guests can take part in workshops, enjoy food and drinks or simply relax before the next event.

Ivo Van Hove: "The Ruhrtriennale is set to be a huge festivity, which we will kick off this weekend with a firework of premieres. I am looking forward to the many fantastic artists from all over the world and the audience, whom I am welcoming for the first time this year as director of the Ruhrtriennale."

The installation City of Refuge IV by Berlinde De Bruyckere in the Turbinenhalle Bochum and the exhibition Landscapes of an Ongoing Past by Urbane Künste Ruhr in the Salzlager at Zeche Zollverein in Essen will open on Friday.

The Ruhrtriennale audience can choose between three premieres: the dance performance Y by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker at Museum Folkwang in Essen, the music theatre production The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions at the Jahrhunderthalle Bochum and the play LEGENDE by Kirill Serebrennikov at the Kraftzentrale in the Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord. The festival centre Wunderland invites you to a workshop for barrier sensitivity in the morning and to the first edition of the Down the Rabbit Hole party series in the evening (free of charge for a limited number of participants).

I Want Absolute Beauty

One woman. Her journey. Her decisions. Sandra Hüller (Oscar nominee for Anatomy of a Fall) sings and acts the leading role, embarking on an epic journey through extreme emotional and mental landscapes. She is joined by the revolutionary artistic collective (LA)HORDE, Marine Brutti, Jonathan Debrouwer and Arthur Harel who also co-choreographed Madonna’s Celebration Tour.

Brave New Voices

Literature creates narratives and establishes places of refuge. Places that tell of utopias, dystopias or reflections on a world. In the Brave New Voices series, authors of the new generation talk about writing and contextualise social conditions through their texts.