Esch2022: REWIND-PLAY-FORWARD closing celebration

On 22.12.22, Esch2022 invites you to the festive closing evening of the first chapter of the European Capital of Culture.

To celebrate the closing of the European Capital of Culture title year, Esch2022, together with the 19 Luxembourgish and the French municipalities invites you to the Rockhal in Esch-Belval on Thursday 22 December from 17:30 and to an after-show at the new cultural centre L`Arche in Villerupt (FR). The first part of "Esch2022 - REWIND-PLAY-FORWARD" invites you to a joint review of the year from 5:30 p.m. to approx. 8 p.m.; afterwards, visitors will be delighted with concerts, performances and dance at the Rockhal, and the evening will end with a DJ programme at the Arche.

"Even if the pulse of Esch2022 will continue to be felt locally and internationally in the years to come, we would like to close the chapter of the "title year" on 22 December. We will look back together on numerous projects and events, new partnerships that have set impulses for the future; but we also want to celebrate proudly and exuberantly with all those who were and are part of Esch2022, who have actively shaped or followed it. This evening should be a moment of gathering, joy and dance, in Luxembourg and in France," says Nancy Braun, General Director Esch2022.

The Rockhal opens its doors at 16:30. As at the opening ceremony, the specially created Esch2022 musical ensemble Future Frequencies - an ensemble of locally recruited musicians - together with the collective Compagnie Les Passagers will introduce the Esch2022 REWIND-PLAY-FORWARD - year review. The show will offer surprises, great music and diversity - participating municipalities as well as local actors will provide an entertaining and emotional evening thanks to video shows and immersive visual and audio experiences combined with flashbacks, outlooks and dialogue sessions.

The common thread of the REWIND-PLAY-FORWARD - year review, will be twelve theme-based performances by various actors and partners. The participating Esch2022 communities as well as partners will present their cultural and touristic Esch2022 highlights and give a first outlook on the legacy of the title year for the years to come. The audience will thus be guided through the various facets and dimensions of Esch2022 in the first half of the evening. The focus will be on artistic achievements, emerging places, cultural appropriation of existing places, new virtual and digital horizons, artists' residencies, sustainable projects, immigration stories, culture, industrial heritage, local traditions, cross-border and international cooperation with Kaunas 2022 and Novi Sad 2022, tourism and Europe. The experience will be underlined by local music, art, acrobatics and culinary.

"We look back on the title year of the European Capital of Culture, a year full of exciting events in new and familiar places, with old and new friends, familiar traditions rethought and innovative ideas which take root. Our cross-border region has already changed in a positive way, it has become more visible, also on an international level," says Georges Mischo, President of Esch2022. "Many new ways, including networks, have already developed from a collective spirit; a new direction that we will maintain in the coming months and years, as the Esch2022 project continues to build our common future united."

From 8pm to 11pm, up to 5,000 guests can take part in various shows. The projects included here were part of the official Esch2022 programme and are intended to be representative of all the projects and to exude the spirit and energy of Esch2022.

On the floor of the Rockhal, dance and theatre will welcome guests at 8:30 pm as part of an Apéro Littéraire. Starting 9 pm, the Main Hall of the Rockhal will be heated up by the collective Belong in collaboration with AlterCadance and the Capoeira Team Luxembourg. The three projects of Esch2022 join forces in the form of an extraordinary stage and music spectacle. The audience will meet 30 musicians and dancers who will take them on a sound journey to the four corners of the world.

In the Club of Rockhal, the Belgian collective La Jungle - Collaborations Brutes will rock also starting 9pm. As of 10.15pm, Désoeuvrés and E(s)chauffés will continue the show in an intimate setting. To continue the evening, the new cultural pole Arche in Villerupt will welcome the public from 11pm to 3am. Here, the electronic music of Miss Sappho, the collective La Creole, Bernadette as well as the collective La Zintrie will make the Red Earth shake. Shuttle buses will be provided between the Rockhal and the Arche in Villerupt from 16:00 to 03:00.

Ticket reservations will start on 1 December. Admission is free, but online ticket booking is required.

Info and registrations at esch2022.lu

Programme overview :

16:30 - Opening of the Rockhal doors.

17:30 - 20:10 : REWIND-PLAY-FORWARD - Review of the title year with dialogue sessions accompanied by artistic performances by Future Frequencies and acrobats.

20:30 - 23:00 : Music, dance and meeting with partners from Esch2022.

- 20:30 - Rockhal / Floor - L'Apéro Littéraire (Literary Aperitif)

- 21:00 - Rockhal / Main Hall - Music and dance by Belong in collaboration with AlterCadance and Capoeira Team Luxembourg.

- 21:00 - Rockhal / Club - La Jungle - Collaborations Brutes

- 22:15 - Rockhal / Floor - Désoeuvrés et é(s)chauffés

23:00 - 3:00 : L'Arche / Music, Dance / Foyer and Great Hall.

• Collectif La Zintrie
• Miss Sappho
• La Creole
• Bernadette
• Stage design by the PUZZLLL collective

ANNEX:

Detailed information about the programme:

17:30 - 20:10 REWIND-PLAY-FORWARD - Year review and dialogue sessions accompanied by Future Frequencies and Compagnie Les Passagers - Vertical dance performances.

On the floor of the Rockhal, a L'Apéro Littéraire will welcome the participants at 20:30.

The Apéro Littéraire will be presented by 5 professional musicians and actors and 5 amateurs from the Esch2022 project "Rêves d'Europe" of the Bettemburg municipatlity. A performance with songs and drama on the theme of Europe. The thread of the performance is based on the work of Laurent Gaudé, Prix Goncourt 2004, and presents extracts from: "Nous, L'Europe, le banquet des peuples" (We, Europe, the banquet of peoples). He will present the dreams of Europe that have germinated in authors as diverse as Erasmus, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Victor Hugo, Stefan Zweig, Jules Romains, Robert Desnos, Céline, Jean-François Billeter, Simone Veil and Robert Schuman.

From 21:00, the Main Hall of the Rockhal will be heated up by the collective Belong in collaboration with AlterCadance and the Capoeira Team Luxembourg. The three projects of Esch2022 join forces in the form of an extraordinary stage and music spectacle. The audience will meet 30 musicians and dancers who will take them on a sound journey to the four corners of the world.

The BELONG project, revolving around European and world music, aims to preserve the world's cultural heritage while promoting understanding and intercultural exchange through folk art, creating synergies between multidisciplinary and multicultural art forms. Through the Esch2022 project, musicians and artists have come together through a series of courses, boot camps and workshops to celebrate the art and music of their countries and cultures and bring them together in unique artistic creations.

Capoeira Team Luxembourg exemplifies sport, dance and inclusion. Within the framework of Esch2022, capoeira classes and Afro-Brazilian dances (maculélé, jongo, puxada de rede, samba de roda) were offered to the general public through the project "La Roda". On a huge stage in the south of Luxembourg, the participants performed the dance steps they had learned.

AlterCadance presented the PONT INVISIBLE project as part of Esch2022. The choreographer and dancer Modestine Ekete unfolds in poems an invitation to enter the world of women as mothers, workers and immigrants. She tells us about her career, about her feeling of integration in Europe and especially in Luxembourg. Dance, theatre, song, music, fairy tales and reading are the common thread of AlterCadance's workshops, which are based on African gestures and forms of expression. altercadance.com

At Club de la Rockhal, the Belgian collective La Jungle - Collaborations Brutes will rock from 21:00.

The cross-border project La Jungle - Collaborations Brutes (Belgium-France) is a cross-border pop, rock and electro music project supported by the Communauté de communes Pays Haut Val d'Alzette (CCPHVA). Within the framework of Esch2022, the project united the FrancoFolies of Esch-sur-Alzette, the Belgian trans-noise duo La Jungle and the Institut Médico Éducatif of Aumetz. Accompanied by the Parisian collective Brut Pop - Music Education and Inclusion, the young people of the Institute and the group La Jungle met during a joint sound piece. After several residencies in Luxembourg and France, several tracks were presented in the framework of FrancoFolies 2022 in Esch -sur- Alzette and in L'Arche (FR).

From 22:15, Désoeuvrés and E(s)chauffés continue the show in an intimate setting.

In their ninth season, Désoeuvrés and E(s)chauffés conquered the South with events that explored both the urban, playful and multidisciplinary continuity of the project and the themes and specificities of the European Capital of Culture Year 2022. The first events, the literary Pub Crawl, have seen artists going to various bars in the town of Esch to bring literature out of its usual walls. Further events have paired authors with local musicians to present music-covered texts together, which, surrounded by sounds, have developed new directions.

To continue the evening, the new cultural pole Arche in Villerupt will welcome the public from 11pm to 3am. Here, the electronic music of Miss Sappho, the collective La Creole, Bernadette as well as the collective La Zintrie will make the Terres rouges shake.