Festspielhaus grounds⎟ Institutions on site
Today, the Festspielhaus (Festival Theatre) grounds are home to the following institutions that organise and shape the cultural and artistic life of this unique place:
- Freundeskreis HELLERAU e.V.
- HELLERAU Residency Programme
- HELLERAU Kulturgarten (Culture Garden)
- Dresden Frankfurt Dance Company
- The Cultural Foundation’s Scholarship Holder’s Apartment
- Sächsischer Kultursenat (Saxon Senate on Culture)
- Deutscher Werkbund Sachsen e.V. (German Association of Craftsmen Saxony)
HELLERAU - Europäisches Zentrum der Künste. Geometrisches Ballet. Hommaga à Oskar Schlemmer, Ursula Sax, 2019.
© Peter R. Fiebig
HELLERAU European Centre for the Arts Dresden
HELLERAU is an interdisciplinary and international centre for dance, performance, music, theatre, and media art and as a stage by the state capital Dresden it offers spaces for productions, festivals, concerts, performances, exhibitions, and discourse. HELLERAU cooperates with other cultural partners regionally and is involved in numerous international networks. The residency apartments and opportunities for artistic research, production, and encounters are unique. Carena Schlewitt has been the artistic director since the 2018/19 season.
Freundeskreis HELLERAU e.V.
www.hellerau.org/en/friendship
Founded in 2005 as Förderverein Hellerau e.V., the association, renamed Freundeskreis HELLERAU e.V. in 2020, aims to promote the artistic activities as well as the expansion and operation of HELLERAU – European Centre for the Arts.
Activities include supporting individual productions such as dance performances, concerts, theatre or art installations as well as structural projects such as the HELLERAU Kulturgarten (Culture Garden).
HELLERAU Residency Programme
www.hellerau.org/en/residencies
Residency programmes are successful worldwide as a creative instrument of cultural exchange. In view of increasing global interdependencies, they are a key resource for knowledge transfer, networking, and international cooperation.
Residency programmes facilitate creative processes, productions, and sustainable dialogue between artists, institutions, and (urban) societies through a change in perspective. The year-round residency programme is an integral part of HELLERAU: It offers artists the opportunity to research, expand their own working methods, and develop specific projects. Working studios, rehearsal stages, and the culture garden are available for research, rehearsals, and experimentation, in addition to the flats.
HELLERAU Kulturgarten (Culture Garden)
www.hellerau.org/en/kulturgarten
The Kulturgarten (Culture Garden) right next to the Festspielhaus (Festival Theatre) is a place of inspiration, encounters, and action. This is where visiting artists, visitors, Hellerau citizens, but also students from the nearby 84th primary school and tourists from the city of Dresden come together. The results of artistic research projects are presented to visitors in the Kulturgarten (Culture Garden). Workshops, performances, concerts, film screenings, happenings, and much more can be experienced on the garden stage.
Dresden Frankfurt Dance Company
www.dresdenfrankfurtdancecompany.com
The internationally renowned dancer and choreographer William Forsythe founded The Forsythe Company in 2005 with dancers from Ballet Frankfurt, known since 2015 as the Dresden Frankfurt Dance Company. The Forsythe Company performed the ‘Human Writes’ dance installation as part of the official ceremony for the reopening of Hellerau Festival Theatre in 2006. Ten years after it was established, Jacopo Godani took over the artistic direction of the company in the 2015/2016 season, which has since performed as the Dresden Frankfurt Dance Company. It is funded by the state capital Dresden and the Free State of Saxony as well as the city of Frankfurt am Main and the state of Hesse and is a company-in-residence at HELLERAU – European Centre for the Arts and the Bockenheimer Depot in Frankfurt am Main. Its name is an expression and recognition of the unique cross-state funding.
Kulturstiftung des Freistaates Sachsen (Cultural Foundation of the Free State of Saxony)
The Kulturstiftung des Freistaates Sachsen (Cultural Foundation of the Free State of Saxony) has been based on the Festspielhaus (Festival Theatre) grounds in Hellerau since 1996. Its main remit is to promote art and culture in the Free State of Saxony. It supports the development of new forms of artistic expression and promotes young artists. It is committed to the sustainable communication of art and culture, the preservation of cultural heritage, and cross-border cultural cooperation.
The Cultural Foundation also awards scholarships and purchases works of contemporary art for the Free State of Saxony. It currently funds around 650 projects annually with a funding volume of more than 5 million euros.
The Cultural Foundation’s Scholarship Holder’s Apartment
With its extensive scholarship programme, the Kulturstiftung des Freistaates Sachsen (Cultural Foundation of the Free State of Saxony) supports outstanding individual artistic achievements and promotes intercultural dialogue within the framework of international cooperation. Together with the Goethe-Institut e.V. and the Alfred Toepfer Stiftung F.V.S., the Cultural Foundation awards up to four scholarships a year to professional literary translators from abroad, thus promoting the translation of German literature into other languages.
Sächsischer Kultursenat (Saxon Senate on Culture)
www.saechsischer-kultursenat.de
The Sächsischer Kultursenat (Saxon Senate on Culture) was established by the Free State of Saxony on 17 May 1993. Its remit is to support the funding policy of the state and the municipalities for art and culture in an advisory capacity and to make recommendations for content-related and regional priorities. It also takes a position on fundamental cultural policy issues. The honorary body consists of 24 members associated with the arts and culture in Saxony who are appointed by the Minister President for a term of five years. The Sächsischer Kultursenat (Saxon Senate on Culture) meets twice a year. In addition, the members of the senate work in committees on specific topics, where they prepare the Senate on Culture’s recommendations. The Sächsischer Kultursenat (Saxon Senate on Culture) is located in the foundation houses managed by the Cultural Foundation of the Free State of Saxony on the Festspielhaus site.
Deutscher Werkbund Sachsen e.V. (German Association of Craftsmen Saxony)
The Deutscher Werkbund (German Association of Craftsmen) was founded in Munich on 6 October 1907 as an economic-cultural ‘association of artists, architects, entrepreneurs, and experts’. From 1910 to 1913, the company’s head office was located in the Deutsche Werkstätten Hellerau (Hellerau German Workshops). It discontinued its work in 1938. It was not until after 1945 that the first regional associations were re-established in West Germany, the Deutscher Werkbund Sachsen (German Association of Craftsmen Saxony) on 6 March 1992 in what is now the GRASSI Museum of Applied Arts in Leipzig. Initially, the focus was on the preservation of endangered cultural monuments, the transformation of landscapes left behind after lignite mining, and brownfield sites addressing issues of regeneration and ecology. With the support of the Kulturstiftung des Freistaates Sachsen (Cultural Foundation of the Free State of Saxony) and the Wüstenrot Stiftung, the office was moved from Leipzig to the Festspielhaus (Festival Theatre) site in Hellerau in 1997.
The association sees its remit as regenerating the culture of design, education, and life. With exhibitions, publications, and symposia, with guided tours in Hellerau, and international expert discourse, it offers a forum for exchange and is an initiator in important subject areas. It works in an interdisciplinary way with its members from creative fields and innovative business enterprises.
