During Cultura Nova, from Friday August 26th till Sunday September 4th, Parkstad was once again\u00a0filled with exciting visual theater in every nook and cranny. Every edition of the festival is special, but\u00a0the 31st edition of this international visual theater festival was definitely one to remember. After a\u00a0cancelled year and a version limited by the corona virus, Cultura Nova was back in business this year.\u00a0There was a lot of action, with 85 different national and international companies presenting more\u00a0than 350 cultural activities for all ages in 10 days, including 14 premieres, 22 co productions in\u00a0Heerlen and Parkstad and even across the border in Aachen. In front of and behind the scenes of the\u00a0festival, 600 employees – a significant part of them volunteers – ensured an unforgettable edition.\u00a0The festival attracted over 73.000 visitors.<\/p>\n
Beginning and ending<\/strong> Fiedel van der Hijden, initiator and artistic director of the festival, announced last spring that it was\u00a0time to make way for younger people and handed over the baton to Lieke Benders on the last day of\u00a0the festival. Benders is delighted with her assignment. "I have gotten to know the festival as a creator\u00a0from the inside out over the past 12 years. During that time a mutual bond of trust has developed,\u00a0which is characteristic of all artistic partners, volunteers, audiences and the city with which Festival\u00a0Cultura Nova establishes connections. I look forward to building on those relationships starting in\u00a0October.\u201d<\/p>\n Crossing borders and connecting<\/strong> International circus and street theater<\/strong> Giving space to young makers<\/strong> The city in motion<\/strong> Every day Cultura Nova at a distance<\/strong> The next edition of Cultura Nova will be from August 25 to September 3, 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" During Cultura Nova, from Friday August 26th till Sunday September 4th, Parkstad was once again\u00a0filled with exciting visual theater in every nook and cranny. Every edition of the festival is special, but\u00a0the 31st edition of this international visual theater festival was definitely one to remember. After a\u00a0cancelled year and a version limited by the corona…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":12088,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_eb_attr":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[194,70,101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2022-en","category-nederlandse-premiere-en","category-nieuws-en","category-194","category-70","category-101","description-off"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oud.cultura-nova.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oud.cultura-nova.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oud.cultura-nova.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oud.cultura-nova.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oud.cultura-nova.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12105"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/oud.cultura-nova.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12105\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12107,"href":"https:\/\/oud.cultura-nova.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12105\/revisions\/12107"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oud.cultura-nova.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oud.cultura-nova.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oud.cultura-nova.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oud.cultura-nova.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nCultura Nova 2022 was about beginning and ending. The festival opened with the performance ‘From\u00a0the Ashes’, which the Catalan company La Fura dels Baus from Barcelona created especially for the\u00a0occasion. Large visual scenes depicted the birth of Heerlen, its mining history, the dark period after\u00a0the mines closed and the current renaissance. It was not only like a rite de passage for Heerlen and\u00a0the more than 22.000 visitors, but also personally for Van der Hijden himself – who is quitting as\u00a0artistic director. On the first festival day, Van der Hijden was named Limburger of Merit by Governor\u00a0Emile Roemer; in addition, Mayor Roel Wever presented him with the silver medal of honor of the\u00a0city of Heerlen.<\/p>\n
\nLieke Benders, who as of Oct. 1 also leads the Maastricht company Hoge Fronten in addition to being\u00a0Cultura Nova’s artistic director, was responsible for crossing the border together with Studio Europa\u00a0(NL), with the performance ‘Smalltalk'(\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2606 in the Volkskrant) in German Aachen. ‘Smalltalk’\u00a0was a theatrical meeting journey in coaches between Heerlens Tempsplein and Aachens\u00a0Ungarnplatz – an ode to smalltalk, a tribute to the meeting and connection of different worlds. The\u00a0theme of connection was something that several performances and activities had in common at the\u00a0festival. Willem de Bruin (NL) with ‘Spuug van God’ brought a performance about identity, family\u00a0and being different. De Bruin confronted the audience with the question of what it means to grow up\u00a0as a colored boy in a typically Dutch village in the polder. A similar picture was painted by the photo\u00a0exhibition ‘Eerlijk gezegd’ which represented Heerlen residents who experience racism and\u00a0discrimination. With photographic portraits and stories of a diversity of Heerlen people, dialogue and\u00a0connection were sought. This was also the case with ‘Beeld\/\/Formers’, an ever-expanding photo\u00a0exhibition in which young people from the Heerlen asylum seekers' center showed a fresh view of\u00a0Heerlen and Cultura Nova. During the festival, they stepped out not only with their work, but also\u00a0with themselves.<\/p>\n
\nCultura Nova has now built a tradition of presenting top international circus companies. Yoann\u00a0Bourgeois (FR) presented with his French company a circus dance performance on a huge swing with\u00a0which they performed dangerous and almost impossible tricks. David Dimitri (CH) used to be a\u00a0virtuoso with Cirque du Soleil; at Cultura Nova he presented the solo performance L’Homme\u00a0Cirque’; in which – among other things – he fired himself out of a real cannon. Gravity & Other Myths\u00a0(AUS) made the audience question the laws of gravity in eighty minutes of breathtaking acrobatics in\u00a0their show ‘Backbone’. Canadas Machine de Cirque showed a wacky, upbeat circus performance for\u00a0alla ges, with lots of music and comical stunts. There was also no shortage of international location\u00a0theater this year. In Voerendaal, Kerkrade and Brunssum, the Belgian Theater Gajes presented the\u00a0musical street theater show ‘Odyssee’, and in Landgraaf, the Wilhelminaberg was transformed into a\u00a0fairy landscape by A\u00e9rosculpture from France and Compagnie Dwaallicht (BE).<\/p>\n
\nThis years festival also offered plenty of space to young makers. Compagnie COVAR (BE) brought not\u00a0one but two musical theater performances to Heerlen with Caf\u00e9 COVAR – #GMS; and Nachtwaken;\u00a0writer and theater maker Merlijn Huntjens (NL) presented his very first chapbook to the audience\u00a0with a live performance in the Royal Theater; PANDA (NL) taught Heerlen citizens in ‘Antifest’; how\u00a0to deal with every form of crisis and took them into nature with the launch of their app Yugo;\u00a0students of VISTA College (NL) presented movement theater performance Vervellen; under the\u00a0direction of theater maker D\u00f6nci B\u00e1nki; VIA ZUID once again delivered high level performances by\u00a0young creators Celine Daemen (NL), Just van Bommel (NL), Laila Claessen (NL), Lieke van der Vegt\u00a0(NL), Collective King Sisters (NL) and Roshanak Morrowatian (IR). The performance ‘Het Sterrehuis’ by\u00a0Het Laagland (NL) about the children’s home of the same name was highly praised by the visiting\u00a0audience and received a good review in the Volkskrant (\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2606).<\/p>\n
\nAfter editions in 2019 and 2021, the Stadmaakweek kicked off its third edition during the festival.\u00a0This year’s theme was ‘The city on the move;. We live in a time of considerable change and\u00a0experience great pressure. We want and need to learn to manage our environment sustainably. How\u00a0do we ensure that we can continue to live, work and play? The Stadmaakweek gathered residents,\u00a0city planners and policy makers around this question. Each day of the Stadmaakweek had its own\u00a0theme; from a Day of Art and Heritage to a Day of Citizen Power. The set-up was mostly the same: in\u00a0the morning the participants went into the city and neighborhoods, walking or cycling. In the\u00a0afternoon, participants shared what they had seen that day in workshops, lectures or debates. Each\u00a0day ended with a Stadmaakcaf\u00e9; a talk show discussion about the day’s theme.<\/p>\n
\nFor the seventh year in a row, L1 descended on Cultura Nova so that Limburgers could also\u00a0experience the festival from home every day; via L1 TV, radio and social media. From Friday, August\u00a026 to Sunday, September 4, L1 covered the festival through reports, atmospheric impressions and\u00a0interviews by Jolien Linssen and Wouter Nelissen. They also made a spectacular (live) registration of\u00a0the opening performance From the Ashes, so that besides the thousands of people in the audience\u00a0even more people at home could experience the show. In addition, every festival day there was the\u00a0opportunity to enjoy the experiences of the audience, stories from the creative makers about their\u00a0passion for art and theater and highlights from the many performances.<\/p>\n