Tangente St. Pölten – Festival for contemporary culture is open

2024-04-30 19:13:06

The new festival for contemporary culture began with a ceremonial opening on the stage in the courtyard and in the festival center as well as the Austrian premiere of “Justice” by Milo Rau.

St. Pölten (OTS) – Exciting events, surprising encounters and new perspectives: This is what the Tangente St. Pölten offers from April 30th to October 6th, 2024. The new festival was launched with a ceremony on the stage in the courtyard and in the Tangente festival center for contemporary culture was ceremoniously opened. Spanish author Cristina Garcia Morales gave the opening speech. In 2021, she was selected by the literary magazine Granta as one of the best Spanish-language writers under 35. Her works have been adapted for film, theater and television and translated into a dozen languages.

After the ceremony, the Austrian premiere of the opera “Justice” by Milo Rau, Hèctor Parra, Fiston Mwanza Mujila with the Tonkunstler Orchestra of Lower Austria took place in the St. Pölten Festival Hall. Previously, the intro “Justice”: A tribunal, an opera, a campaign was invited, in which director Milo Rau, composer Hèctor Parra, librettist Fiston Mwanza Mujila, musician Serge Kakudji and lawyer and human rights activist Céline Tshizena talked about the crowdfunding campaign for the victims about the accident in the Congo. So far, 13,526.38 euros have been collected, and 20,000 euros are expected to be raised by the end of May.

Connections that last

“The tangent is intended to provide a space for different, even contradictory, voices to engage in a constructive exchange. It’s about enduring differences and not withdrawing. The festival has long since begun in the city and, I am confident, will provide impulses beyond its duration,” said Tarun Kade, curatorial director of Tangente, in his introduction to the opening.

State Governor Johanna Mikl-Leitner emphasized the great expectations of the festival for contemporary culture: “Our state capital has developed into a pulsating, dynamic and young city in which people enjoy living and working and where people from near and far enjoy it today more than ever before Enjoy culture. With the power of culture, we want to further strengthen St. Pölten’s profile as a cultural metropolis in the heart of Europe. With the Former Synagogue as a leading project of memorial culture and the Children’s Art Laboratory, which is unique in Europe, we are also creating lasting beacons that will have radiance beyond the borders of Lower Austria.”

St. Pölten’s mayor Matthias Stadler said: “As the youngest state capital, we will consciously present ourselves as cosmopolitan and future-oriented, lively and diverse, approachable and contemporary. St. Pölten is a city worth living in that has a lot to offer culturally and wants to surprise you this year. The festival is intended to permanently make people “want more”. Culture in all its facets is always closely linked to the quality of life and location of a city. Investing here pays off. We will all benefit from the infrastructure created and the new dimension of cooperation between the city, the state and the capital region, not just in 2024, but far beyond!”

Opening days April 30th until 5.5. 2024 and a lot of program in the festival center

The Tangente is an international festival with local roots. The program focuses on three themes: ecology, memory and democracy. These are developed from the city’s events and its history. The international guest performances and local collaborations take place at various venues in the Lower Austrian capital, and existing institutions are involved as well as the independent scene. In short: The Tangente can only take place in this form in St. Pölten.

To mark the opening, the Tangente St. Pölten invites you to its opening days from Tuesday, April 30th to Sunday, May 5th. They are a celebration for everyone with many freely accessible events. On April 30th and May 1st, the opera “Justice” by Milo Rau, Hèctor Parra and Fiston Mwanza Mujila with the Tonkunstler Orchestra of Lower Austria is on the program. It is part of the focus on ecology in April/May, where the internationally successful project “Shared Landscapes” by Caroline Barneaud and Stefan Kaegi (Rimini Protocol) will also be performed. With the Tangente Street Festival on May 4th, the festival center shows its busy side – entry is free. The art course “The Way of the Water”, which shows 24 artistic positions along the Traisen and the Mühlbach that were created in dialogue with the water, is also freely accessible. “Alien Disko” curated by The Notwist will also be shown. For the first time in Austria is “Freeway Dance”, an extraordinary dance project by the Japanese choreographer Ayaka Nakama. “Tipping Time”, a top-class climate conference for civil society, is taking place in Sonnenpark St. Pölten, curated by Globart in collaboration with Solektiv. And on May 11th and 17th, the premiere of “Alfa Romeo and the Electric Giulietta” by Wunderbaum will be celebrated. The second focus on memory follows in May/June, and democracy in September/October.

Festival center as the “Heart of the Tangente”

The festival center will open at the same time as the festival. It is considered the “Heart of the Tangente” and was designed as a meeting place for St. Pölten residents and local and international artists as well as a new cultural meeting place in the city. In the past few months, the Venetian architecture collective Biennale Urbana (Andrea Curtoni, Giulia Mazzorin and Andrea DeLorenzo) designed together with numerous local actors and students from the New Design University St. Pölten, the TU Vienna and the Linz University of Art and Design and almost exclusively through reuse of used materials, a public co-working space, a mediation room and much more.

Via the St. Pölten tangent

The Tangente St. Pölten includes the entire city and its region. To realize the St. Pölten tangent, the state of Lower Austria and the city of St. Pölten have agreed on a joint cooperation. The joint public appearance and the collaboration of all cultural partners raise the public perception of the region and thus contribute to the sustainable development of the capital region and the country.

Further information about the unique Tangente St. Pölten events can be found on the website: www.tangente-st-poelten.at.