my roles: Co-creation of the overall format, performer, audience interaction, immersive stage design.

VOLXFEST

Folk dance ball and traditional costume festival
Festival of the Regions (AUT), (2019)
Place: Gasthof Jägerwirt, 4332 Au/Donau

Close to home and open to the world, tradition and update, down-to-earth and experimental – apparent contradictions are invited to dance at the Volxfest. The Volxfest invites in a playful way to experience one’s own relation to local, national and global roots. This is where people and points of view meet who might not otherwise meet like this. Old rituals are rediscovered in the light of a global consciousness.
An interdisciplinary team of musicians, dancers, and performers, together with local customs groups, creates an atmosphere that will not soon be forgotten. Together, traditional cultural assets such as folk dance, folk music and traditional costumes are revived in a playful way and declared a field of experimentation with appreciation. There is dancing, talking, singing and laughing. Perhaps also wept or raged – depending on which feelings of home come to life in the context of this interactive evening, which blurs the boundaries between participants and artists in a finely tuned choreography between targeted impulses, fluid improvisation and relaxed participation.

Artistic direction: Simon Mayer & Teresa Distelberger

A folk festival is an area with various stations, amusements and challenges. It’s the same with this Volxfest, just a little different. Here the festival hall, the guest rooms, the cellar and the guest garden of the Jägerwirt will be declared the Volxfest area. The folk music ensemble called “Aasgeiger” plays while the dance floor is enlivened by the audience and the artists together with various dances and show acts. Further program points are among other things the Schuhplattler_innen of the region, a Hip Hop and folk dance battle, gesellig-gspürige regulars’ table discussions, a contemporary dance performance, as well as the Quetschenteufel and the Kuschelkrampus. From time to time, a double liter of beer is shouted at, worshipped or sung to in an unusual way, and some artists and visitors present their costumes created especially for this evening. The festival hall will be musically heated by the Banda Adriatica, and around the campfire stories will be told about the Jägerwirt and his landlady, about the dirndl dresses from the Jewish costume house Wallach, and much more. No one is “just an audience” here – those who participate are invited to contribute themselves as well. Bring your personal talent and costume or ritual attire. Whether traditional or experimental. All are welcome. Everyone gets involved and defines tradition together.

Volxfest welcomes people of all backgrounds, genders, sexual (non)orientations,
living in any (non)relationship form and with any form of physical particularity.

Walter & Marianne Sinnhofer / Fa. Costumes Sinnhofer
(Sponsors for stage design and costume workshop)

Invitations to participation for the local population and the festival audience: events to prepare & immerse themselves in

ALL are cordially invited to the main event, the Volxfest on July 6 – those who are at home in the customs, and just as those who usually want to have nothing at all to do with tradition, folk dance or traditional costumes. For all those who want to actively participate in the festival, three events will be held in the run-up to the event. The artists of the project spend several weeks in the region to explore local customs, traditions and rituals, to get in touch with the local people, and to invite them to participate in the creation of the festival.

This research leads to three different events: musical regulars’ tables with local musicians, dance floor workshops with the Schuhplattler dance group and a traditional costume workshop with a local traditional costume group (Goldhauben). All the results of these meetings will be presented as important parts of the program at Volxfest.

Traditional costume workshop with root soup

Concept / Implementation: Teresa Distelberger
& Mario Sinnhofer aka Touched

Participative process with the gold hood and traditional costume groups of the district Perg

Traditional costumes are often seen as uniform-like clothing of a certain region. But what does it mean to find an individual version of one’s own costume, in which affiliations to different groups also become visible? What might a gold cap look like that expresses inner wealth beyond money & gold?

When seemingly opposing styles are combined in an unusual way, but with a fine sense, an approach to an individual and thus lively costume becomes possible. Classic-traditional, urban, weird, transgender, multicultural mixed – everything is allowed and will be tried out right away. This respectful reinterpretation of traditional craft techniques is backed by subtle, deep-impact dialogue techniques that enable reflection on the individual meaning of the term “home” for all participants. Finding unsuspected nutrients in your own home soil is not at all unlikely. Even – or perhaps even precisely – when the word “home” itself makes you shudder. (the dialogical art project Salon der Heimatgefühle is dedicated to this topic in detail).
The 6-hour workshop will culminate in a joint sewing meditation, led by the Goldhauben women and musically accompanied by musicians from the Volxfest team.

VOLXFEST / CONTRIBUTORS:

Performance, research, audience interaction and creative collaboration: Mario Sinnhofer aka Touched, Manuel Wagner, Patric Redl, Katharina Frieda Meier, Agnes Distelberger, Farah Deen, Valentin Alfery, Annegret Schalke, Robert Steijn, Sophie Rastl, Simon Mayer, Teresa Distelberger

Guest artists and groups: Schuachplattler Menscha Ried, Ledarsoinbuam Ried, Goldhauben- and Trachtengruppen des Bezirkes Perg, Claudio Prima

Dramaturgical advice: Robert Steijn
Lighting: Annegret Schalke Sound: Lukas Froschauer

Immersive stage design:
Mario Sinnhofer aka Touched, Simon Mayer

Interview Press Conference Festival of the Regions 2019

Bonus track at Volxfest :
“dirndl dialogues”
 by Teresa Distelberger
For the great-granddaughter of the expropriated Jewish costume manufacturer Moritz Wallach, a dirndl dress made of original Wallach fabrics was sewn by Goldhaubenfrauen from Mauthausen – and presented to the young US-American as a gift at the Volxfest.