Cheers for Fears & Theater im Pumpenhaus Münster
24.-28. Juli 2024, Probenzentrum Hoppengarten Münster
Cheers for Fears and Theater im Pumpenhaus Münster have invited art students and young artists from NRW to an interdisciplinary laboratory at the Hoppengarten rehearsal and residency venue in Münster from July 24 to 28, 2024. The exchange format was the first collaboration between the initiative and the theater with the longer-term goal of connecting Münster’s young artists and art students with each other and with the Theater im Pumpenhaus as a local structure.
The Common Grounds Lab offered participants with different (artistic) educational backgrounds from Münster and the surrounding area the opportunity to come together over five intensive days, reflect on their own practice in exchange with the other artists and develop new interdisciplinary working methods. The Hoppengarten rehearsal center formed the concrete ‘common ground’ for the encounter of different perspectives and for joint artistic try-outs.
Participants of the lab located themselves in various artistic genres such as performance, photography, music, visual arts, artistic research, theater pedagogy, etc. and also contributed their expertise in e.g. ecology and activism.

Hosted and moderated by the Cheers for Fears team, the initial aim was to get to know each other’s artistic practice. Accordingly, we discussed and negotiated the prerequisites, conditions and concepts of our work together. What motivates us and our art? What are our individual strategies, what are our common concerns? What is our common ground? We received support on these questions from two external experts from NRW’s independent scene: choreographer Silvia Ehnis gave a workshop on layering and emergence, in which she worked with different artistic scores in order to make the development of an artistic work conscious in as small a way as possible. Valerie Wehrens, who provides dramaturgical support for various projects in NRW, gave an input on the “commons” idea in the artistic field and practiced the “Take More Care” feedback method developed by Valerie and Lili M. Rampre together with us.
The two workshops resulted in small interdisciplinary groups, each of which worked together on a score from Silvia Ehnis’ workshop. This resulted in small interdisciplinary showings on the concepts of Nourishing, Decisioning, Inviting and Archiving.


In addition to the joint artistic try-outs, we explored the possibilities of the Hoppengarten rehearsal center with the means of art and intervention, e.g. through environmental embodiment practice, automatic writing and movement improvisations.
The participants of the Common Ground Lab also explored Münster’s urban space, the Theater im Pumpenhaus and the adjacent community gardens and inspected Münster from an artistic research perspective. Based on the thematic focus of Common Grounds, the group investigated the local fauna and its usability in the immediate vicinity of the Hoppengarten. The group was also able to get to know local residents such as Cactus Junges Theater and the studios in the Hoppengarten and discover productive connections.

During the lab, we repeatedly came together in plenary to give each other feedback, share emerging needs or feelings and exchange work statuses. We celebrated the end of the lab with a sharing of the work progresses and a barbecue.