New Talents Ruhr

PROMOTION OF YOUNG ARTISTIC TALENT

NEW TALENTS RUHR is an artistic talent promotion programme run by the RVR and the successor project to Kunstcamp Ruhr. The project is being implemented in cooperation with the Folkwang University of the Arts, Pottporus e.V., the Theater im Depot, the Academy for Theatre and Digitality and Urbanatix.

As part of NEW TALENTS RUHR, young artistic talents aged 16 and above from the eleven partner cities of the Ruhr Metropolis are supported on their path to a professional future in the arts.

DIGITAL ARTS & PERFORMANCE

Since last summer, six mentees have been working at the Theater im Depot and the Academy for Theatre and Digitality as part of this New Talents Ruhr programme, exploring the connection between virtual and real spaces in the live arts.

Performing arts stages have always been places of technology and engineering. They are used there just as they are critically reflected upon there. In the latest developments in the performing arts, digital tools are increasingly being combined with live events – whether in theatre, dance, on concert stages or in entirely new formats such as live gaming or interactive projects in urban spaces. Theatre and other forms of live arts are constantly developing and expanding their forms of presentation and expression. The idea of what a stage is and what characteristics this space can have is changing, as are the play, the theatre performance, the actors on stage and the audience in the auditorium. What live art looks like and how it is viewed is a reflection of the respective era. Recently, mixed reality, sensor technology, motion tracking, robotics, machine learning and numerous do-it-yourself techniques have fundamentally expanded the various forms of live arts. Along with critical reflection on the position of technology in society, digital tools have found their way into the theatre, and virtual spaces are being discovered as new stages. Shaping this change with curiosity and creativity – and critically questioning it – is the goal of an encounter between digital arts and performance.

The artistic direction is in the hands of Jens Heitjohann (artistic director, Theater im Depot) and Michael Eickhoff (dramaturg, Academy for Theatre and Digitality).

Agnetha Jaunich is the mentor for the project.

NEW TALENTS RUHR is supported by the Ministerium für Kultur und Wissenschaft des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen as part of the support programme Neue Künste Ruhr.