IMMER WIEDER AUFBRUCH Deutsch-ukrainisches Festival der Künste

In the organizer's words:

ALWAYS BEGINNING AGAIN
German-Ukrainian Festival of the Arts

14.-15.10.2024
COMEDIA Theater, Vondelstraße 4-8, 50677 Cologne
Free admission!
Full program: www.bgk-verein.de/immer-wieder-aufbruch-2024

Upheavals and upheavals run like a red thread through the cultural history of Ukraine. At the moment of greatest threat, the resistance of Ukrainian artists as part of a free Europe becomes apparent. Now more than ever.

For the second time, the Immer wieder Aufbruch festival, organized by Blau-Gelbes-Kreuz e.V., celebrates artists from Ukraine in dialogue with their German counterparts. Over two days, installations, concerts, film screenings, readings, workshops and panels invite the public to get to know the history, everyday life and cultural dynamics of Ukraine beyond the war. A world unfolds on the European map that has developed a unique culture between tradition and urbanity, between the archaic and the digital, despite colonial foreign regulations in the past. This world is still waiting to be discovered.

The following program items are examples of this:

• The exhibition "Lomykamin" uses artistic reflections to convey the resistance of women in Crimea against oppression and occupation. (14./15.10.)

• The exhibition "Lichtblicke" was created with young people who were deported from the occupied territories to Russia and were able to be liberated. Their experiences were also incorporated into the workshop game "Raus aus der Okkupation". Both were also presented at dokumenta 15 in Kassel. (14./15.10.)

• The play "Rainbow over Saltivka" by the NAFTA Theater from the heavily shelled city of Kharkiv in the East offers wonderfully absurd theater. With lots of music and a terrific actor, it tells the story of the protagonist's attempt to organize a celebration in honour of Ukraine's victory - Kafkaesque and dreamlike. (14./15.10.)

• A special piece of "new music" comes to Cologne with the vocal artist, pianist and conductor Viktoriia Vitrenko. The powerful composition "Limbo" was originally dedicated to the Belarusian activist Maria Kalesnikava, who was sentenced to eleven years in prison. The Russian war of aggression has once again increased the significance of this work. (14.10.)

• Part of Ukraine's diversity is its progressive pop culture. With "Ship her son" (part of the Dnipropop label), the halls of the COMEDIA Theater are flooded with intense electro sounds. This wonderfully dark live act received special attention two months after the outbreak of war with the release of the EP "Alles wird gut".

• And for the grand finale on October 15, the music project "Songs of woundings" by busy jazz drummer Max Andrzejweski and Ukrainian singer Mariana Sadovska invites you to join them. Their ensemble brings together German and Ukrainian musicians who use traditional chants, experimental compositions, old instruments and electronic sounds to create a sometimes meditative, sometimes aggressive soundscape.

Full program: www.bgk-verein.de/immer-wieder-aufbruch-2024

An event by Blau-Gelbes-Kreuz e.V.
In cooperation with Ukrainian Institute, Federal Agency for Civic Education, Goethe-Institut Ukraine and COMEDIA Theater

Project and guest performance funding
Kunststiftung NRW, District Government of Cologne, Engagement Global, House of Europe with funds from the European Union

Partners
Free Trade Zone - Ensemble Network Cologne e.V., Kharkiv Literature Museum