Winterwerft Internationales Theaterfestival

Winterwerft is the festival for wild, organic, uncivilised theatre. Theatre that changes perspective and place, that fearlessly looks into the abyss of our times and uses critical creative engagement to search for visions.Winterwerft seeks and creates spaces for critical creative engagement with the crises and challenges of our time.In particular, the prevailing narratives, such as the idea of unlimited growth or the superiority and detachment of human beings – with all their consequences and traces for and in culture, nature, philosophy and economics – should and must be questioned and examined.In doing so, attention is paid to changing perspectives and searching for alternative, regenerative points of view.Unconventional and transdisciplinary approaches in theatre and performance are presented, and space is given for creative engagement with the acute ecological, political and social challenges we face.The main focus is on the quality of our cultural narratives and the influence they have on the way we see ourselves as human beings in the context of the nature that surrounds us. The question of narratives that see us as embedded in and dependent on the natural world around us is raised and examined, researched and creatively explored using models of regenerative, sustainable culture – such as connection to nature.What does it mean to be at home, to have a homeland – in times markedby war, displacement and the destruction of livelihoods?These are questions we want to ask ourselves together in this winter workshop.In the two-week theatre lab and festival, we gather around stories of grief, anger, resistance and survival, of research and curiosity.With theatre, performance, music and dance, art and through theatre, performance, music and dance, art and storytelling, we want to explore these themes together.What remains when we stop pretending that everything is fine?We invite you, the bee dancers and storytellers, shamans, Brahmins and visionaries, street children, city pirates, forest gnomes and ghost seers.We set out in search of stories and perspectives that supposedly or actually help us to better understand these wild times. We stoke the fire and invite you to look into the flames, to look into the past, to look into the future. We set out in search of stories and perspectives that supposedly or actually help us to better understand these wild times. We stoke the fire and invite you to look into the flames, to dare to gaze into the abyss, to lay down the crown of creation for once and to sneak through the undergrowth of this world together.