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 discuss their work and the status of their work 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 specialised knowledge, or our Traumformate, which enable interested students to turn their own event ideas into reality with the support of CHEERS FOR FEARS. Furthermore, we always invite you to join us at events such as the Skulpturprojekte Münster or the Rundgang 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 lies 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 what experimental free spaces exist at universities beyond the curricula; the following year, we were concerned with the role of music in works of the performing and visual arts; in 2016, we wanted to know what forms of performance play a role in theater training at NRW art academies; at the 2017 Cheers Festival, we were interested in the status and understanding of political “art between reflection and action”; and in 2018, under the motto “Organize yourselves! Working (together) in the Arts” we devoted ourselves to questions of collective creation. In 2019, as part of the Impulse Theater Festival, we invited young artists* and theater makers to explore the fine line between empowerment and self-optimization in theater and the arts. 2020 we invited to the Academy for Theater and Digitalization at Theater Dortmund under the title “Staging Complexity. A Lab on Culture and Theater in the Digital Age” to the Academy for Theater and Digitization at Theater Dortmund. In 2022 students, professors, young artists and their audience met in the frame of the Cheers for Fears Festival at tanzhaus nrw. Under the motto of interdisciplinary exchange and teaching in the arts met installative, cinematic, scenic, dance as well as musical formats came together. In addition, the Panel discussion “Together for the Theater of Tomorrow – Training in the Performing Arts” was held.

Beyond solidary exchange, Cheers for Fears also repeatedly encourages interdisciplinary artistic collaboration. In co-production with the NRW Landesbüro Freie Darstellende Künste, we were able to initiate three theater productions by young artists from various universities in 2014, which were presented at the theater festival Favoriten. At Favoriten 2016 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 a first major work together. In 2021, Transit went back to the drawing board to encourage artistic teams across disciplines to come up with their own unique creations.

In October 2015, the initiative set up a coordination office at the Ringlokschuppen Ruhr, which serves as a space for coordinating the initiative’s work, shall be used as a meeting place for students, and will facilitate 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 staffed in August ’22; as of 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 and the Kunststiftung NRW. 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 particular ties to the Folkwang University of the Arts, the Academy of Media Arts and the Ruhr University Bochum.