Cultura Nova’s programming team – led by Lieke Benders – has been busy in recent months with the programming and performance venues for the festival this summer. Many (new) makers and talents will be given a stage here again this year. With a packed program, it promises to be a smashing 33rd edition from Friday, August 30 to Sunday, September 8!
A striking number of performances and projects this year are about chaos. About when things don’t go the way they should, about misfortune, failure, falling … and getting up. This is no coincidence, because this year Cultura Nova’s program is an ode to resilience. Turning nothing into something. Of going on, trying again, figuring things out and being open to new opportunities, new ways. Qualities that make Heerlen and our region so special and resilient. But which children are also great at. That is what the opening performance of this festival, Mo et le Ruban Rouge by L’homme Debout, shows. The cover of this program booklet shows an image from the proposal. Mo, the child in this image, is huge and strong; the adult next to it is small and follows the gaze of the child seeking his new path. Or like the tragicomic figures of Danse Macabre. They fall outside the social norm. Despite setbacks and difficulties, they rise again and again and pull themselves together. With unusual solutions they find a place in a disrupted world.
It is this way of thinking and looking at things that makes theater and art, and also