What is Cheers for Fears?

Since then, this concern has been pursued on a regular basis: Young artists and art students from the fields of stage design, design, singing, instrumental music, composition, media art, film, physical theater, directing, scenic research, scenography, dance and dance education, as well as dance and theater studies meet regularly to talk about works and work statuses and to debate the study and working conditions in the arts with changing guests. After many editions of Cheers for Fears on Tour, we rely on formats such as CheersCamp, where all participants contribute their specialized knowledge, or our Dream Formats, which allows interested parties to make their own event ideas a reality, supported by CHEERS FOR FEARS. Furthermore, we always invite you to join us at events such as the sculpture projects in Münster or the tour of the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne and to talk to the artists involved.

In addition to regular discussions, workshops and studio visits, a Cheers for Fears Festival or Academy has been held annually since 2014 with changing partners such as Ringlokschuppen Ruhr, Theater Oberhausen, FFT Düsseldorf, IMPULSE Festival or TanzFaktur Köln. The focus of the festivals is on the presentation and feedback of artistic works – in addition, we explore a pressing question in workshops with invited guests and in discussion formats. In 2014, for example, we asked which experimental free spaces exist at universities beyond the curricula; the following year, we looked at the role of music in works of the performing and visual arts; in 2016, we wanted to know which forms of performance play a role in theatre training at NRW universities; at the Cheersfestival 2017, we were interested in the status and understanding of political “art between reflection and action”; and in 2018, we devoted ourselves to the topic “Organise yourselves! (Working) Together in the Arts”, we addressed questions of collective creation. In 2019, as part of the Impulse Theatre Festival, we invited young artists and theatre makers to explore the fine line between empowerment and self-optimisation in theatre and the arts. In 2020, under the title “Staging Complexity. A Lab on Culture and Theatre in the Digital Age” to the Academy for Theatre and Digitalisation at the Dortmund Theatre. In 2022, students, teachers, young artists and their audience met at the Cheers for Fears Festival at the tanzhaus nrw. Under the motto of interdisciplinary exchange and teaching in the arts, installative, cinematic, scenic, dance and musical formats came into contact. In addition, the panel discussion “Together for the theatre of tomorrow – training in the performing arts” was held.

wasIn co-production with the NRW Landesbüro Freie Darstellende Künste, we were also able to initiate three theater productions by young artists from various universities, which were presented at the 2014 Favoriten theater festival. At the 2016 Favoriten, we then realized the summer academy “Another Living Theatre,” which dealt with traditions of political art and political interventions and culminated in a performance in Dortmund’s urban space. In cooperation with the literary initiative Land in Sicht, we explore the scenic potential of texts by young authors from German-speaking countries once a year at the Auftakt Festival für szenische Texte together with theater professionals from the Cheers community. In addition, in 2018 we relaunched the idea of a production platform with Cheers for Fears Transit – bringing together young artists and students at the end of their training to produce their first major work together. In 2021, Transit was launched again to encourage artistic teams across disciplines to create original works.

In October 2015, the initiative established a coordination office at the Ringlokschuppen Ruhr, which serves as a space for the coordination of the initiative’s work, is to be used as a meeting place for students, and facilitates the announcement of requests and calls. Your contact persons there are the initiative coordinators Jascha Sommer and Sina Schneller. The contact and coordination office in the Ringlokschuppen Ruhr will not be open from mid-July to the end of August; from September it will be open again on Mondays and Tuesdays from 11 am to 6 pm.

The CHEERS FOR FEARS initiative is supported by the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, the Kunststiftung NRW and 2021 dem Fonds Darstellende Künste. Strong partners include the Ringlokschuppen Ruhr, the NRW Landesbüro Freie Darstellende Künste, the NRW Kultursekretariat, the FFT Düsseldorf and the Theater Dortmund. At the academy level, we have special ties to the Folkwang University of the Arts, the Academy of Media Arts and the Ruhr University Bochum.