10 days of experiencing and learning together with performances, showings, artistic & scientific inputs, experiential spaces, yoga & meditation impulses, excursions, workshops and late night sessions.

How do we experience ourselves and the world around us with all our senses? How do we learn and what are the forms of knowledge? How do we dive into intermediate levels of consciousness and subconsciousness? What is the relationship between our spirit and body, our mind and feeling, and our ego and environment? How do we find creative resources together to shape a new and sustainable world?

Framed in the ongoing production of Ben J. Riepe’s film “Sainte Realité”, the Summer School “Sainte Réalité” Senses, Science and Sessions took place from September 3 – 12, 2021 with a focus on Düsseldorf as well as one day in Wuppertal and various other locations in NRW, combining knowledge and experience, learning and unlearning, conscious and unconscious. Instead of passive consumption of knowledge, rigid hierarchies and fixed content, it invited people to immerse themselves, dive in and experience. Academic knowledge met artistic-experimental and performative research, cognitive approaches met sensual experiences, habitual ways of seeing met alternative perspectives to experience the world. Meditative breathing techniques, immersive performances, spontaneous knowledge impulses, cinematic, musical, trance and dream-like experiential journeys could be experienced through deep immersion, random drifting or momentary passing, depending on individual interest.

Here you can find our documentation of the Summer School 2021:

Künstlerische Leitung: Janine Blöß und Ben J. Riepe
Konzeptionsteam Summer School: Ann-Katrin Günzel, Florian Kuhlmann, Janine Blöß und Ben J. Riepe
Team Ben J. Riepe: Izaskun Abrego (Administration/Produktion), Nassrah-Alexia Denif (Management/Kommunikation), Jan Kollenbach (Projektleitung „Schule des Erlebens“), Jessica Prestipino (Projektleitung BJR Produktionen), Robert Schulz (Projektleitung FREIRAUM), Víctor Zapata (Choreographische & Produktionsassistenz)
Performer*innen: Aaron S. Davis, Eray Gülay, Jolinus Pape, Paula Pau, Sudeep Kumar Puthiyaparambath, Wendel Lima, Lujain Mustafa, Waithera Schreyeck, Igor Sousa, Leonie Türke
Technik: Philipp Zander
Video und Foto: Lisa Viezens
Stimmbildung, Gesang: Carolina Rüegg
Komposition: Gordon Kampe Visuelle
Kommunikation: dasbuero. Puder und Müller

Gefördert durch: Fonds Darstellende Künste aus Mitteln der Beauftragten der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien, Kunststiftung NRW, Kulturamt der Landeshauptstadt Düsseldorf, Ministerium für Kultur und Wissenschaft des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen.