An independent theater landscape developed some time ago in German-speaking countries offering artistic impulses whose significance has been felt beyond its own genre and operating across extremely well developed national and international networks. Now the challenge is on the one hand to continue to improve conditions for production and presentation and on the other to also develop a stronger awareness of the independent theater’s own history and artistic traditions.

For this reason, in 2013 Impulse Theater Festival started the Independent Theater Archive which has since been extended onto a broader institutional basis. Independent theater needs an archive – to achieve the visibility it deserves and as a wide foundation for the recognition of a distinct theatrical aesthetic. There is also a need to represent and reflect on its history, for a space which relieves the constant pressure to justify itself and as a response to the unceasing – and primarily economic – obligation to produce new work. An archive of independent theater is intended to include performance-based production methods as well as documentary practice, visual theatre and text-based plays. Such an archive also needs to be as mobile as the theatre which is its subject.

A consortium has since been established to maintain the project including the Bundesverband Freie Darstellende Künste, the umbrella organization Tanz Deutschland, the Institute of Cultural Politics at the University of Hildesheim, the International Theater Institute Germany/ Mime Centrum Berlin, the NRW KULTURsekretariat and the Impulse Theater Festival. Research has been conducted since November 2015 as part of a study by the University of Hildesheim as to how such an archive can be set up in practice and structured to reflect the unique aesthetic of independent theater.

We are looking for collaborators who wish to contribute their collections to the archive; practitioners who will also contribute what did not happen and share their ideas in an archive of unmade projects; sponsors who wish to help finance the project and conspirators who want to help shape the archive as a living site of history and exchange.

Further information can be found at theaterarchiv.org

Which knowledge do we permit and where are the limits of free exchange? The Silent University, initiated by Kurdish artist Ahmet Öğüt, is an autonomous platform to exchange knowledge for academics who are unable to pass on their know-how and competence as teachers as a result of their residence status or the non-recognition of their qualifications. It enables knowledge which has been silenced to be heard once again. The participants work together to develop the content of courses which are appropriate to their professional qualifications and their thoughts as refugees or asylum seekers and which liberate them from the role of waiting without a voice.

Founded by Impulse Theater Festival, Ringlokschuppen Ruhr and Urbane Künste Ruhr, the Silent University Ruhr took up residence in summer 2015 in the clearly visible location of the so-called “dezentrale” in the center of Mülheim, inventing itself as an alternative Ruhr University for everyone with no or little access to education and the transfer of knowledge. In recent months it has forged many links with initiatives and societies in the Ruhr region as well as with the relevant departments of the city of Mülheim. The Silent University Ruhr is a long-term project with its own rhythm – public where possible and a protected space where necessary. Internal events alternate with public courses. Lectures and seminars are often held in the teacher’s mother tongue – reversing the prevailing rules of exclusion and inclusion. The lectures are also translated and made accessible on the website shared with the other Silent Universities in Amman, Athens, Hamburg, London and Stockholm.

The current program of events and further information can be found at www.silentuniversity.ruhr

Alle Informationen zum Netzwerk aller Silent Universitys finden unter thesilentuniversity.org

A comprehensive report on the Silent University can be found on the webpages of the Goethe institute.

To coincide with the Impulse Festival 2016 Sternberg Press also published a comprehensive book on the Silent University with essays and interviews on the lost knowledge of refugees, critical or radical approaches to new pedagogy and reports from the Silent Universities which currently exist in Amman, Athens, Hamburg, London, Mülheim/Ruhr and Stockholm.

DEZENTRALE
Leineweberstraße 15-17
45468 Mülheim an der Ruhr