Festival
Theatre festival FAVORITEN, under the artistic direction of Aenne Quiñones, will take place in Dortmund from November 24 until December 1st, 2012.
Founded under the moniker "Theaterzwang" in 1985, this Dortmund festival has been operating under the family brand of FAVORITEN from 2008 onwards. Being one of Germany's most renowned competitions in the off productions field, the festival continually supports the independent theatre and dance works in North Rhine-Westphalia. It positions genre-crossing theatre and dance projects, known for their idiosyncratic aesthetic concepts as well as for referencing current social developments, alongside urban cultural processes which, in turn, have also brought forth their own artistic formats by now. The festival is also taking the increasing importance of cross-regional and international cooperations into due account.
In 2012, ten to twelve productions will be at the centre of the biannual festival. Those productions were created in cooperation with designated venues for independent theatre and dance within North Rhine-Westphalia.They will be selected for inclusion in the competition by the artistic direction; a jury will decide on the awarding of the prizes for a number of festival productions.
While having been traditionally concentrated on the "core business" of a regional theatre competition, starting in 2010, the festival began to spread out to establish and include a new setting under the direction of Aenne Quiñones: The city itself. The aim is once again to pick up on the fast-paced changes in urban living conditions as well as being a part of them in 2012.
Choreographers, theatre people, photographers, and video artists are going to develop artistic concepts of radical participation: They strive to detect social and political realities, to intensely connect into the city, to draw in the citizens and to widen the definition of what defines an audience.
