Informational event

Grant opportunities for dance and theatre projects as a part of "Kultur macht stark" From 2018-2022, the programme "Kultur macht stark" ("Culture makes us strong") will provide 250 million euro for cultural education projects with children and teens from disadvantaged circumstances.

In the area of the performing arts, the following organisations serve as active programme partners of "Kultur macht stark": ASSITEJ, the German Association of Independent Performing Arts, the Federal Association for Dance in Schools and the German Theatre and Orchestra Association. As a part of Westwind, these national organisations will come together to provide information on various grant opportunities and answer questions.
This event is open to the interested public.

Masterclass with Jessica Wilson

As the concept of "child as citizen" takes hold, there is growing demand in Australia for transformative experiences for child audiences, and for children accompanied by their parents. Local councils, arts festivals and schools search for projects that will challenge children beyond the process of art making and that create an engagement with the real world.

Director Jessica Wilson has a theatre background. She brings her sense of rich visuals and theatricality to projects which respond to sociological concerns such as the relationship between children and parents, and the relationship between children and place. In this masterclass Jessica will share her process for developing a new concept. Each participant will bring their own fascinations, social context and creative mediums to the formation of a draft idea for an interactive project involving children.

Working individually and in a supportive group structure you will dream up ideas that take art for children to unusual places and that expand the experiences of your audience beyond traditional art spaces. The workshop is in English.

Reading and speaking theatre in the family - An introduction to a French reading project

For years, French author Catherine Verlaguet has headed an extremely interesting project for the authors organisation Les Scènes Appartagées (A Stage to Share): making contemporary plays accessible to audiences through dramatic readings in a family setting. The project promotes reading and encourages visits to the theatre. The festival WESTWIND provides a singular opportunity to experience this unique project, and a select family from south Cologne has the chance to participate. This is made possible by the fact that Verlaguet speaks German fluently and is thus able to work with German texts here.

Together with Sandrine Grataloup from Societé des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatique Paris, she will present her experience with the project last summer in France. Perhaps we will even have a chance to meet the Cologne family ...

Catherine Verlaguet is a playwright who has published several works with Editions Théâ- trales and Lansmann. She writes for Olivier Letellier and regularly collaborates with Bénédicte Guichardon, Annabelle Sergent and Philippe Boronad. Next season, she will stage her latest play "Quelque chose à vous dire" ("Something I Want to Tell You") as an artistic partner of the theatre Le Forum in Fréjus.

For more information, visit: www.catherine-verlaguet.com.

Participation opportunities doing theatre work with young people
A workshop by Cathrin Rose

This workshop takes a closer look at participative theatre projects of culturally diverse groups. What effect does the group ´s diversity have on the development process? How important is an awareness of diversity during the artistic process? What role does diversity play on stage? After examining these questions, workshop participants will collectively brainstorm and reflect on new project ideas. The participants own prior experience with the relevant issues constitutes an important part of the workshop itself.

As of the 2018/2019 season, Cathrin Rose will assume the position of dramaturge at Schauspielhaus Bochum where she will head the theatre ´s youth programme, Junges Schauspielhaus, under the artistic direction of Johan Simons. This will mark a return to the place where she got her start, as she originally began working there in 1995 under the artistic direction of Leander Haussmann. She most recently worked as a dramaturge for the festival Ruhrtriennale, and has developed various programmes aimed at getting young people involved in artistic and curatory work. She perceives her work as inherently political.

This workshop was made possible by a cooperation between WESTWIND festival and the platform Zukunftsakademie NRW (ZAK).