Impulse Festival 2026

Performance / Theater / Tanz →
12.06. - 14.06.2026

tickets

For more than 30 years, the NRW KULTURsekretariat's Impulse has been one of the most important festivals for the independent theatre scene in the German-speaking world. Impulse has often reinvented itself and thus also reflects developments in the independent performing arts. What remains constant: The festival presents noteworthy productions of the year from Germany, Austria and Switzerland (DACH region) and thus gives visibility to the outstanding works of the independent theatre scene. It invites a broad audience to encounter innovative and transdisciplinary working methods and aesthetics in performance, theatre and dance and thus reflects contemporary developments.

In September 2024, dramaturge and curator Franziska Werner took over as festival director. The festival name has been changed: From 2025, Impulse will operate under the name Impulse Festival for Performance, Theatre & Dance, thus taking into account the close connection and often blurred boundaries between the artistic genres in works by the independent scene.

With the first festival edition in 2025 under new artistic direction, the Impulse Festival for Performance, Theatre & Dance also underwent a restructuring of its programme architecture: between 18 June and 6 July 2025, each of the three Impulse cities of Mülheim an der Ruhr, Cologne and Düsseldorf hosted a dense programme of productions selected by a jury for the Showcase and the Post-West programme focus, alternating on a weekly basis. Post-West focusses on the exchange between East and West and creates spaces for encounters between the independent scenes and artists of the host region NRW and East Germany and Eastern Europe. A third programme area Impulse meets... includes discursive formats, workshops and parties in collaboration with local partners and friends of the festival.

This programme architecture was to be continued in future festival editions. In 2026, Bochum was added as a further Impulse city, with PRT Bochum joining as a partner institution.

Further information at: https://impulsefestival.de/en