Under the artistic direction of Bettina Wagner-Bergelt, the opening festival will go on a voyage of discovery from 16 to 24 January 2019 for the performative works, theories and experiments of the Bauhaus artists, including Oskar Schlemmer, Wassily Kandinsky, Lyonel Feininger, Paul Klee, László Moholy-Nagy and many others. In the bridge building between historical and contemporary artistic practice, artists get to grips with different genres in dealing with the question of the relevance of historical positions and issues – as experiments, research labs, manoeuvrability and regeneration space. The Bauhauswoche 1923 (Bauhaus Week 1923) and the legendary Bauhaus parties provide the historical reference for this. The programme includes an international selection of artists, both multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary; it features concerts, spoken theatre, installations, dance and film, VR and immersive art, presentations and workshops. Art and technology, light, colour, sound and movement and the relationship between humankind and machine will play a key role in the programme. The “Das totale Tanztheater” (Total Dance Theatre) virtual reality installation, a cooperation by Interactive Media Foundation with internationally acclaimed choreographer Richard Siegal and Artificial Rome, will explore this relationship using dance and allows visitors to immerse themselves in the virtual stage world. The nine-day festival is held in the rooms of the Academy of the Arts at Hanseatenweg 10 in Berlin, a venue that enables the simultaneous presentation of different formats in its diverse spatial offering – exhibition halls, studio, conference and club rooms.
Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier is the patron of the festival, and will give a ceremonial address at the opening on 16 January 2019.
