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Five acts you simply can’t miss at this year’s Düsseldorf Festival

What makes the Düsseldorf Festival so special? The fact that it is not bound by a single concept. Fiona Leonard gives insider tips on how to make the most of this most eclectic of events.

Published: 14 September 2017 11:00 CEST
Five acts you simply can’t miss at this year’s Düsseldorf Festival
Aria by No Gravity. Photo: Düsseldorf Festival

In the heart of Düsseldorf’s Altstadt, construction teams have been hard at work over the past few weeks erecting a massive white marquee.

Where the formidable castle of the Count of Berg once stood, the Burgplatz will play host for the next two weeks to the Düsseldorf Festival (September 13th – October 2nd) and a cast of performers from around the world. Now in its 27th year, the festival draws acts from as far afield as Burundi, Korea, Canada and Australia.

While many festivals take a thematic approach to their line-up, the Düsseldorf Festival’s artistic and managing directors, Christiane Oxenfort and Andreas Dahmen, seek out artists whose performances cross genres – drawing together music, dance and theatre in unique and unusual ways.

Expect to see arias and aerial acrobats, fashion and beat boxing, plus musicians creating their magic in churches, concert halls and even in the dark.

With 42 performances in 11 different venues around the city, there’s a good chance you won’t have time to see everything the festival has to offer. But here are five must-sees to whet your appetite.

1. Aria – No Gravity

The 2017 festival opened on Wednesday with flair, drama and spectacle, featuring an Italian dance company that definitely lives up to their name. No Gravity has built its reputation on sending its performers soaring across the stage in elaborate costumes to create a visual tableau that defies logic and the laws of physics. 

This year German audiences will get their first taste of the company’s piece, Aria, which brings the Baroque era to life in a riotous blend of classical music, dance, poetry and song.

Imagine Monteverdi, Vivaldi and Pergolesi arias combined with oversized human bumble bees, boats that sail across the heavens and bodies that run, climb and glide in a 360 degree orbit, and you begin to get an idea of what you can expect from both this company and the festival to come.

13th-15th September 8:00 pm

Festival Marquee, Burgplatz, 40213 Düsseldorf

2. Chombotrope – The Jitta Collective

In stark contrast to the opening event, the firmly grounded African-European Jitta Collective examines contemporary issues of cultural appropriation, environment and identity. The Collective takes the term ‘mash-up’ to new levels combining beat boxing and spoken word, fashion and modern dance and drums and Voguing to create a narrative that reflects the German, Kenyan, Ugandan, Belgian, Senegalese heritage and inspiration of its members.

For this group of artists the message is in the music, dance and also in the clothes they wear; recycling, repurposing and reimagining as they blur the lines between art, fashion and concert.

21st-23rd September 8:00 pm

tanzhaus nrw,  Erkrather Str. 30, 40233 Düsseldorf

3. Silent Disco – Guru Dudu

Back for a second year, Australian comedian, David Naylor, AKA Guru Dudu takes to the streets of Düsseldorf with his silent disco walking tours.

Throughout the festival you can expect to see flash mobs of disco dancing people singing and dancing their hearts out on street corners around the city. If you love the hits of the 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s then you won’t want to miss the chance to let your hair down and cut loose.

If you fancy something a little more relaxed, Guru Dudu is also bringing his own laughter-based style of yoga to Düsseldorf. Expect to do some deep breathing and lots and lots of laughing.

Silent Disco Tours: 20th Sept, 7 pm, 21st-23rd Sept, 6 pm & 8:00 pm

Happy Yoga: 24th September 4.30pm

4. Ahnsim Dance – Eun-Me Ahn

In her European premiere, Korean choreographer, Eun-Me Ahn, will be presenting a powerful piece that explores what it is to be different in contemporary society. With a company that includes sighted and visually-impaired dancers this piece navigates the range of experiences of those who live on the fringes of society – from cruelty through to survival and, most importantly, joy. This piece is the first in a choreographic trilogy exploring disability and difference.

26th & 27th September 8:00 pm

Festival Marquee, Burgplatz, 40213 Düsseldorf

5. Reversible – Les 7 doigts de la main

Montreal’s Les 7 doigts de la main returns to the festival this year with another performance that reflects the diversity and virtuosity of its cast.

Originally founded by seven circus artists, the company has a reputation for projects that delve into the human condition and unfold stories that are as complex as the choreography through which they are told. Using theatre, circus, dance, music, and acrobatics, Reversible digs deep into the family histories of the performers as they tell the stories of their own grandparents and great-grandparents and reflect on how the experiences of the past define the future.

30th September – 2nd October

Festival Marquee, Burgplatz, 40213 Düsseldorf

ART

African-born director’s new vision for Berlin cultural magnet

One of the rare African-born figures to head a German cultural institution, Bonaventure Ndikung is aiming to highlight post-colonial multiculturalism at a Berlin arts centre with its roots in Western hegemony.

Published: 8 July 2023 10:13 CEST
African-born director's new vision for Berlin cultural magnet

The “Haus der Kulturen der Welt” (House of World Cultures), or HKW, was built by the Americans in 1956 during the Cold War for propaganda purposes, at a time when Germany was still divided.

New director Ndikung said it had been located “strategically” so that people on the other side of the Berlin Wall, in the then-communist East, could see it.

This was “representing freedom” but “from the Western perspective”, the 46-year-old told AFP.

Now Ndikung, born in Cameroon before coming to study in Germany 26 years ago, wants to transform it into a place filled with “different cultures of the world”.

The centre, by the river Spree, is known locally as the “pregnant oyster” due to its sweeping, curved roof. It does not have its own collections but is home to exhibition rooms and a 1,000-seat auditorium.

It reopened in June after renovations, and Ndikung’s first project “Quilombismo” fits in with his aims of expanding the centre’s offerings.

The exhibition takes its name from the Brazilian term “Quilombo”, referring to the communities formed in the 17th century by African slaves, who fled to remote parts of the South American country.

Throughout the summer, there will also be performances, concerts, films, discussions and an exhibition of contemporary art from post-colonial societies across Africa, the Americas, Asia and Oceania.

‘Rethink the space’

“We have been trying to… rethink the space. We invited artists to paint walls… even the floor,” Ndikung said.

And part of the “Quilombismo” exhibition can be found glued to the floor -African braids laced together, a symbol of liberation for black people, which was created by Zimbabwean artist Nontsikelelo Mutiti.

According to Ndikung, African slaves on plantations sometimes plaited their hair in certain ways as a kind of coded message to those seeking to escape, showing them which direction to head.

READ ALSO: Germany hands back looted artefacts to Nigeria

His quest for aestheticism is reflected in his appearance: with a colourful suit and headgear, as well as huge rings on his fingers, he rarely goes unnoticed.

During his interview with AFP, Ndikung was wearing a green scarf and cap, a blue-ish jacket and big, sky-blue shoes.

With a doctorate in medical biology, he used to work as an engineer before devoting himself to art.

In 2010, he founded the Savvy Gallery in Berlin, bringing together art from the West and elsewhere, and in 2017 was one of the curators of Documenta, a prestigious contemporary art event in the German city of Kassel.

Convinced of the belief that history “has been written by a particular type of people, mostly white and men,” Ndikung has had all the rooms in the HKW renamed after women.

These are figures who have “done something important in the advancement of the world” but were “erased” from history, he added. Among them is Frenchwoman Paulette Nardal, born in Martinique in 1896.

She helped inspire the creation of the “negritude” movement, which aimed to develop black literary consciousness, and was the first black woman to study at the Sorbonne in Paris.

Reassessing history

Ndikung’s appointment at the HKW comes as awareness grows in Germany about its colonial past, which has long been overshadowed by the atrocities committed during the era of Adolf Hitler’s Nazis.

Berlin has in recent years started returning looted objects to African countries which it occupied in the early 20th century — Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Namibia and Cameroon.

“It’s long overdue,” said Ndikung.

He was born in Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde, into an anglophone family.

The country is majority francophone but also home to an anglophone minority and has faced deadly unrest in English-speaking areas, where armed insurgents are fighting to establish an independent homeland.

One of his dreams is to open a museum in Cameroon “bringing together historical and contemporary objects” from different countries, he said.

He would love to locate it in Bamenda, the capital of Cameroon’s restive Northwest region.

“But there is a war in Bamenda, so I can’t,” he says.

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