donaufestival: Confusion Is Next
Sound, Performance, Art, Film, Discourse.
May 2–4 and 9–11, 2025 | various locations in Krems
“Confusion Is Next” is the title of a song by Sonic Youth from 1983. In 2025, the 20th year of donaufestival in its present form, the fabrication of political paranoia is an accustomed part of everyday life. Social turmoil is kindled through identity politics, disinformation triggers spirals of indignation, setting the groundwork for opposing political fronts and new forms of fascism.
In this nebulous state, artists too have turned to tactics of irritation: Göksu Kunak’s installation at Kunsthalle Krems exposes the political-mafioso entanglements in Turkey in 1996, which continue to have an impact today. God’s Entertainment summons a dubious doppelganger of the Danube. In a stirring video opera, Ayla Pierrot Arendt investigates the tenuous fragility of peace in Georgia. The Original Bomber Crew translates Brazilian street life into anarchic dance energy. People Like Us drive 1001 images through our heads. In the midst of Krems’s pedestrian zone And Jeremy Deller smuggles a disturbing statement by author Primo Levi about our present times into the urban fabric.
The music programme responds to such findings in its own way: Lankum plunge Irish folklore into deep dark drones, Tristwch Y Fenywod spin cobweb electronics about the suffering of women, Spiritualized immerse themselves in psychedelic parallel worlds, and Kabeaushé bathe in ecstatic softness. Liturgy cleanses the eardrums, while HHY & The Macumbas, Nídia, and Yellow Swans knot the legs and untangle the synapses: confusion is next!
Dramaturge Sara Abbasi is a new addition to the donaufestival roster. She worked most recently for the Ruhrtriennale and will be supporting Thomas Edlinger as curator for Performing Arts in the 2025 edition.
More artists will be announced when Early Bird tickets go on sale in mid-January 2025, and the full programme will be set at the beginning of March.
Venues: Festival Centre and Stadtsaal, Utzstraße 12 (festival centre); Klangraum Krems in the Minorite Church, Minoritenplatz 5; Kunstmeile Krems; and others, all: 3500 Krems a.d. Donau www.donaufestival.at
Nö Festival und Kino GmbH., Minoritenplatz 4, 3500 Krems an der Donau, Pressekontakt: Barbara Pluch, barbara.pluch@noe-festival.at; Tel: 0664 60499332 10.12.2024 Änderungen vorbehalten