Cheers for Fears a the end?!
Call for support: The Ministry of Culture and Science NRW rejects to continue the funding for Cheers for Fears
At the beginning of December, the Ministry rejected the continued funding of Cheers for Fears in 2025. This means that the planned program cannot take place in 2025. In order to prevent the end of our initiative, we are now asking for your support: campaign for Cheers for Fears by emailing/writing to or calling Minister Ina Brandes and the Head of the Department of Culture, Dr. Michael Reitemeyer:
Ministerium für Kultur und Wissenschaft
Völklinger Straße 49
40221 Düsseldorf
Ina Brandes
Tel. 0211-896-4701/4702 ina.brandes@mkw.nrw.de
Dr. Michael Reitemeyer
Tel. 0211-896-4800/4801 michael.reitemeyer@mkw.nrw.de
Grab pen and paper – a huge pile of letters in the ministry would be a beautiful sign! You can use our request or parts of it and also add your own statement. Leave us your signature and statement under this link and also get loud on social media and other publication channels for Cheers for Fears!
Thank you for the support!
Your Initiative Cheers for Fears,
Mona Sachße, Sina Schneller, Josefine Simonsen & Jascha Sommer
Cheers for Fears has to be funded!
The Cheers for Fears initiative is the interdisciplinary network for art students and the young scene in NRW. For 11 years, Cheers for Fears has been organizing festivals, academies, workshops and much more at and with the art academies, theaters and festivals of NRW, thus enabling interdisciplinary exchange, artistic feedback, new collaborations and a presentation platform for the young scene. Cheers for Fears helps young artists who are completing an art degree and/or are new to the NRW scene from abroad to enter the professional art landscape in NRW.
The initiative’s eleven years of successful work has significantly improved the climate and opportunities in NRW’s current artistic production landscape and has left its mark on many currently relevant players. The initiative has received strong support and encouragement from the entire education and art landscape in NRW for years, but is entirely dependent on new project funding applications. After the Kunststiftung NRW stopped funding Cheers for Fears in 2023, as well as many other festivals and structures in the independent scene, the state of NRW now also no longer aims to fund the initiative in 2025.
Why Cheers for Fears supposedly shall not be funded any more?
One of the initiative’s many activities is to campaign for the establishment of a sponsored university and theater alliance in NRW, comparable to the “Hessische Theaterakademie”. Not all universities are yet ready for this idea. This is now being cited as the sole reason why Cheers for Fears should not receive any further funding – a reason that is not at all related to the main activities of the initiative and therefore the funding application for 2025. The funding is being canceled even though the relevant title group for independent theater has actually experienced an increase, and at a time when there are hardly any opportunities to submit other funding applications for 2025.
In 2025, Cheers for Fears is planning the established Cheers for Fears Festival with the FFT Düsseldorf, workshop showings with the Theater im Pumpenhaus Münster and the FWT: Cologne as well as a symposium with international guests at pact Zollverein with the theme “Exploring Access”. These events cannot be realized without the support of the Ministry of Culture and Science NRW.
We urge the NRW Ministry of Culture and Science to withdraw its decision to continue funding Cheers for Fears as a relevant player in the NRW scene and thereby secure the vitality of the independent scene in NRW for the future!
Demonstration against funding cuts in the independent art scene NRW
On January 16, we would like to take a stand against the funding cuts to the independent cultural scene in NRW!
We invite you all to gather with us in front of the culture committee meeting in the state parliament in Düsseldorf and draw attention to us with artistic contributions.
