Freiräume - Project grant International May Festival
The joint funding program of the Wiesbaden Cultural Office and the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden, "Freiräume - Projektstipendium Internationale Maifestspiele", which was launched in 2021, was advertised again for 2025.
Archeology of body histories (project grant International May Festival 2024)
At the end of 2023, the International May Festival project grant was the first funding program to be processed via the new funding portal of the state capital of Wiesbaden and was able to simplify the process for applicants. In addition, the jury has decided to expand the standard application process to include an oral pitching session in future, in order to give applicants the opportunity to present their ideas beyond the written applications and to be able to ask open or arising questions directly.
The artists are supported with up to 8,000 euros per grant for their projects.
In 2025, applications were received from the fields of installation art, video art, radio plays, theater, dance, performance, film and music.
Projects
A six-member jury of experts selected five promising projects from fourteen applications. The scholarships go to:
Mareike Buchmann with the project "Leerstellen, eine Beschwörung" (AT)
Isidora Markovic with the project "Checkpoints"
Moritz Buch with Red Sloth Productions, Theater 3D and Artnurwo with the project "Memor-i-all - 80 years of liberation from what?" (AT)
Katharina Heißenhuber with Friends in Public with the project "Valhalla - Who are you?"
Raquel Nevado Ramos with the project "Plié"
Jury
Dr. Viola Bolduan, long-time features editor of the Wiesbadener Kurier
Maximilian Nickel, arranger and lecturer at the Wiesbaden Music Academy
Beate Heine and Dorothea Hartmann, directors of the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden
Dr. Philipp Schulte, Managing Director of the Hessian Theatre Academy and freelance author and dramaturge
Franziska Domes, Head of the Department of District Culture - Performing Arts - Music - Artistry at the Wiesbaden Cultural Office
"Valhalla - Who are you" (May 8, 2025, Studio of the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden)
"Walhalla - Who are you?" is a musical documentary theater project by the international artist group "Friends in public" about the original Wiesbaden "Varieté- und Spezialitätentheater Walhalla". What is the history of this institution? What do the people of Wiesbaden remember when they hear the name Walhalla? And what future could be in store for this place of splendor in the heart of the state capital?
In addition to historical testimonies and sources, city residents and passers-by will also have their say and will be asked to give interviews during the development of the play. Friends in public" have already proven themselves in this kind of portrait of a place and are looking forward to a number revue full of retrospectives and outlooks.
Artistic team and cast: "Friends in public" Tülin Pektas (actress); Katharina Heißenhuber (actress); Georg Brenner (music)
Info: Thu, May 8, 7 pm, Studio of the Wiesbaden State Theatre (Christian-Zais-Straße 3), performance: approx. 1h 15 min, no intermission; price 18€ / reduced 9€
"Memor-i-all - 80 years of liberation from what?" (AT) (all of May and May 8 and 9, 2025, Mauritius-Mediathek)
The history of Jewish and communist resistance in Wiesbaden against the Nazis is highlighted in a video sound installation. This stands in contrast to the history of the dominant society. Distortions of image and sound are used in an attempt to de-layer history and to remove the ideological veil from the view of what happened - but never to question history as a fact-based reality. The audience is encouraged to question their own narratives about the culture of remembrance.
A performance takes place within the installation that makes history accessible and at the same time does not resolve the contradictions through simple identification. The result is a constellation that places the self in the foreground, but does not lose its collective character through the performance practice. The makers thus consciously place themselves at the center of the question of their own threshold of resistance.
In a space that is permeated by different levels, visitors are forced to wander through the space in order to take in everything: But is this possible? Or does true resistance take place in secret after all?
A place becomes a space for reflection on the culture of memory and democratic debate. The aim is to create potential for exchange and explicitly invite people to communicate about what has been told. The aim is to create a democratic space that is dedicated to the question of anti-fascist resistance, encourages people to linger and become active themselves and creates synergies between different parts of urban society.
A project by Redsloth Production in cooperation with Theater 3D and Artnurwo.
Info: The video-sound installation runs throughout May and can be visited free of charge. The performances will be presented on May 8 and 9, both at 7:45 pm, admission €9, Mauritius Mediathek (Hochstättenstraße 6-10)
"Checkpoints" (May 11 and 18, 2025, Zukunftswerk, May 12 and 17, 2025, Wartburg Rehearsal Stage)
Checkpoints
A participatory dance happening
What is the reciprocal relationship between space and body? What happens with/to our bodies and the spaces we (temporarily) inhabit?
The starting point of the project is a digital phenomenon in which people shared biographical events in the comments of a YouTube music video over a period of 10 years. These diary-like texts all began with the word checkpoints. Our communication is increasingly shifting to digital spaces. What effect does this have on our interpersonal encounters? What power lies in the simultaneous spatial presence of bodies? What happens when we breathe together in a physical space, move and reflect on our individual checkpoints?
In this one-hour dance happening, we invite you to immerse yourself in a collective choreography with us. Using movement, drawing and music, we will create checkpoints of connection that inspire empathy and community. Together we will explore a shared moment of simultaneous presence of bodies in space.
No previous dance experience is necessary and all bodies aged 14 and over are invited to participate.
Info: Sun, May 11 and Sun, May 18 at Zukunftswerk (LuisenForum, Kirchgasse 6, 2nd floor before the transition) 6 pm, Mon May 12 7:30 pm and Sat, May 17 11 am, rehearsal stage Wartburg (Schwalbacher Straße 51), price €9 each.
"Blank spaces, an evocation" (May 13 and 14, 2025, Wartburg)
Blank spaces
How can we remember something that is missing? How can shared storytelling create memories? How can the absent suddenly become present? How do voids inscribe themselves on the body as traces of the unsaid?
Absent people, incomplete memories, concealed events, lost places or things - we encounter voids in many different forms. They often appear as a lack, but at the same time they harbor a potential for new narratives and magical memories. The artists place these empty spaces at the center of their performance. Based on their own biographies, they conjure up the void and search for magic and transformation in it. They practise speculation, invent rituals of remembrance, touch the edges of the past and create vessels for new stories and imagined biographies.
"Leerstellen, eine Beschwörung" interweaves biography and autofiction. Mareike Buchmann's Sudeten German grandparents and the story of their expulsion serve as a starting point to reflect, together with Theresa Lawrenz and Mirko Danihel, on gaps in biographies that continue to have an effect across generations. The biographical traces condense and are reflected in countless current life stories worldwide that are characterized by flight, migration and loss. Against this background, we would like to understand empty spaces as starting points for a narrative of connectedness. In this artistic reflection, the void becomes a place of resonance that can open up perspectives for a shared future by creating narratives.
Info: Tue, May 13 and Wed, May 14, both 7 pm, Wartburg (Schwalbacher Straße 51), duration approx. 1h, price 18€/erm. 9€
"Plié" (May 22 and 23, 2025, Wartburg)
Plié deals with the emotional and cultural resonance of migration. In particular, she focuses on experiences of losing one's own culture as well as being at the mercy of and alienated in a new environment: What happens when we have to leave our cultural roots behind in order to embark on new paths? How does this separation from home affect our personal and creative identity?
The choreographer and dancers share similar migrant experiences between the cultural heritage of Andalusia and the international meta-culture of contemporary dance (which is also an almost completely socially and linguistically isolated parallel culture in many countries), which are negotiated in the performance. Plié explores the inner conflicts that arise from this area of tension: The pain of loss due to separation from our origins, feelings of absence and powerlessness, the longing for the familiar and the challenge of repositioning ourselves in a globalized world.
In the context of an increasingly socio-culturally globalized world, we experience the loss of our own roots and thus a loss of identity. With Plié, we want to explore how we can preserve what is within us and still continue to develop.
Participants: Raquel Nevado Ramos (choreographer), Johannes Schropp (music and dramaturgy); dancers: Carla Gonzalez Pérez, Clara Valdera Barbero, Juan Camilo Rojas Arevalo and others.
Info: Thu, May 22nd and Fri, May 23rd, Wartburg (Schwalbacher Straße 51), duration 40 min., price 18€/ reduced 9€
