Herbst und Taumel
Ruhrtriennale
An der Jahrhunderthalle 1
44793 Bochum
In the fall of 1946, the young Swedish author Stig Dagerman travels through devastated Germany. In his literary travelogue German Autumn, he probes Berlin, Hamburg, and the Ruhr region – places marked by hunger, ruins, and exhaustion. Dagerman describes a country teetering between ending and beginning and asks an uncomfortable question: Is this country ready for freedom? Exactly 80 years later, a human lifetime, the celebrated director Christopher Rüping takes up this question. The winner of the 2025 Theatre-Award-Berlin, together with the ensemble of the Deutsches Theater Berlin, turns his ear to German history: 1946, 1977, and other autumns – times of transition, uncertainty, responsibility. When memory vanishes and history becomes a search, the question arises again: How much freedom do we carry within us? Who are we when all certainties fall away?
Co-produced by Ruhrtriennale and Deutsches Theater Berlin.
Direction Christopher Rüping
Set Design Jonathan Mertz
Costumes Lene Schwind
Video Design Emma Lou Herrmann
Lighting Design Robert Grauel
What causes us and our society to lose our balance? And what can this sense of dizziness tell us about our present? Taking Christopher Rüping’s Deutscher Herbst as its starting point, this event explores the phenomenon of dizziness from artistic, philosophical and physiological perspectives. It focuses as much on our vestibular system and the physical experience of instability as it does on autumn as a state of transition, uncertainty and change. The event opens up new perspectives on central themes of the theatre performance and on topics that have emerged in dialogue with the artistic research project Iliggocene – The Age of Dizziness. Free of admission.
