This is the twelfth time that the International Theatre Institute (ITI) has called on the festival Theater der Welt to present the latest international developments in theatre in a main German city. In 2010 the festival and its artists are guests of the Theater an der Ruhr in Mülheim and of the Schauspiel Essen in the European Capital of Culture RUHR.2010. For three weeks, the festival, together with these cities, becomes a cosmopolitan metropole filled with encounters: open, contradictory, multi-layered and challenging.

It is in cities that the world comes together, where living together across borders, languages and cultures is possible. On a city’s streets and squares people from across the globe with their own stories and traditions move closer. Here the contradictory and the foreign come together, where the far-away comes near. Paths cross and separate again, on every corner is another perspective, another language, another scent. Out of this unpredictable mix of closeness and difference comes diversity, energy and tension that continues to fascinate the modern world. A cosmopolitan city is still a shock today, forever in crisis, with far too many demands made on it.

Every encounter is an opportunity to discover something new, every encounter is a risk of misapprehension or not understanding. The more different points of view and cultures meet, the more misunderstandings and mistranslations occur. Dialogue is the only way to remove them and that is what each and every city promises and requires.

Artists have gathered from all parts of the world to spend three weeks in Mülheim und Essen for the festival. They come from Western and Eastern Europe, from the Arab world, from Africa, Central and South America, Asia and Oceania. No matter how far away they might be, no matter where they come from, they are not sharing one place but this time in which we live. Their work contains memories of traditional and local cultures, yet they are connected by their common search for new forms and ways of working. Each and every single one of them is looking for a way to compress the time in which we live and then to create it anew.

A change in perspective, a change in our own point of view is essential in order to do justice to the artists and their work. They are not representatives of their culture – something we often consider as merely far-off and exotic – nor do they represent the conflicts and traditions of their homeland, however much they might want to grapple with these things. They speak and represent only themselves. Not lines, styles or tendencies will be presented, but very individual and personal work that places the artist at its heart. The festival presents snapshots of contemporary arts: installations, choreographies, theatre, film, music and fine arts – not only world theatre, but world art.

It is difficult to bring these artists together under one aesthetic banner. What marks them is their restlessness. A restlessness that comes from understanding the precarious nature of this world and of the fragility of what life is. There are young up-and-coming artists and old hands, all are looking to translate this restlessness into a new relationship between art and engagement and seek a new form for it. Many of the productions have been developed in situ and confront questions and crises relevant to this region, a region that in less than one hundred years experienced the rapid devastation of industrialisation and de-industrialisation. Not only the Ruhr, but the world is changing.

Theater der Welt 2010 is a festival on the move: it is taking place in two different cities. It will open in Mülheim with an international production of the opera Montezuma and presents many world premieres. From the first weekend onwards it will occupy stages in the Theater an der Ruhr, the Stadthalle, the Ringlokschuppen and the Autonomes Zentrum in Mülheim. In the second week the festival moves on to the Schauspiel Essen, PACT Zollverein and Zeche Zollverein. For the final weekend it travels in its entirety to Essen and celebrates its completion.

Theater der Welt takes place only every three years. The festival will take place only once in the Ruhr. Theater der Welt 2010 is an invitation – an invitation to be there, to ask questions, to listen, to be surprised. To meet people from all over the world, on stage and after the performance. To celebrate with parties and concerts in the festival centre. Make sure you are there when the festival becomes a party, when in the summer of 2010 a brand new utopian city is created in Essen and Mülheim an der Ruhr.

Frie Leysen, Programme Director, and the team of Theater der Welt 2010 (Editorial)