Festival theme: Come Closer

What are you in the mood for? To help you navigate the festival's many performances and events, we suggest thematic itineraries. These run like different paths through the entire program and help you set your own focus when visiting the festival. Or you can just go with the flow. Either way: See you soon in the city, in the circus tent or at the outdoor stages on the festival grounds by the Rhine!

Festival theme: Come Closer

This playful festival edition, designed to inspire empathy and laughter, is dedicated to the moments in between: between the stage and the audience, between us. ‘Come Closer’ focuses on pieces that you don't just watch but participate in on many levels: an invitation to be right in the middle of things. The international artists challenge the audience – playfully and with humor, full of risk-taking, sometimes subtle, sometimes with full physical engagement. These are experiences that celebrate community and make you want to experience things together in the most unusual ways.

La Churry | Cie Inextremiste | Darragh Mc Loughlin | Cirque Barbette | Diana Gadish | Come Closer Lab | Voices Magazin| Voices talk | Fotoausstellung | Workshop risking neaness | Campus Inter-Actions

In a park, surrounded by onlookers, a man is lifting a large wooden beam diagonally upward. In the background: trees.
A ping-pong table in the park: one person is standing on it, while the other is pushing off from it headfirst.
Im Park: eine waagerechte Wippe balanciert einen Stein gegen sechs bunt gekleidete Menschen.
In an urban setting, in front of an audience: a person with a cardboard head and hands climbs out of a large cardboard box.
A man is lying on a stage, looking straight ahead, holding a cane propped up on his hip, pointing straight up
A man sitting on a bicycle is being held aloft by a crowd of people below him. In the background are the sky and skyscrapers.
A circular stage surrounded by a crowd of people raising their arms in the air.
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