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arts and culture outreach

At Westwind 2018, the programme of accompanying events will revolve around the question "who does the world belong to?"!

The festival examines this question in a variety of different formats: with strolls through the city, lectures on integration and the political notions of young people, with slam poetry and an entire "open stage" afternoon for Cologne teens. International artists will probe youth perspectives, and 4 national organisations will come together to provide information on the opportunities posed by the initiative "Kultur macht stark" ("Culture makes us strong"). The Next Generation of young theatre-makers will inquire into the issue as well as a panel discussion with the Minister of Culture and exciting guests from notable universities and theatres.

Cologne children actually began concerning themselves with this topic long before the festival kicked off: Under the direction of COMEDIA Theater ´s education department, they have been involved in production-based educational formats such as patron classes. But even more efforts have been devoted to the festival ´s key question: The language-development classes of the Cologne-based school Albert Schweitzer Realschule have come up with a performance of their own; the COMEDIA Theater youth club has spent time philosophising and preparing a public-space event; and COMEDIAs drama class for seniors, SPÄTSCHICHT, has written some texts for the festival newspaper. In addition, multiple classes at the school Carl von Ossietzky Gesamtschule in Nippes have been investigating the festival theme by composing texts and poems in German class, creating a montage of sound bites in music class, and producing and experimenting with "world vouchers" in two philosophy classes. Moreover, we can ´t wait to see the results of the school ´s art classes as well as its class Performance and Design. Not all of these results will be visible at the festival, yet they are sure to leave their mark here and elsewhere!