Power and Tradition

An open and active memorial culture without blind spots is a necessity for using the past to learn lessons for a careful and proactive approach to our present and future. The maintaining of tradition is a vibrant and strong practice in the Salzkammergut region. It covers a wide range of activities, extending from music, crafts, customs, theater and literature to restaurant culture. In order to understand traditions, however, a differentiated view of how they developed is also necessary. What power relationships have shaped this region and new modes of behavior and new customs? Remembering means shaping the future responsibly.

Power and Tradition

An open and active memorial culture without blind spots is a necessity for using the past to learn lessons for a careful and proactive approach to our present and future. The maintaining of tradition is a vibrant and strong practice in the Salzkammergut region. It covers a wide range of activities, extending from music, crafts, customs, theater and literature to restaurant culture. In order to understand traditions, however, a differentiated view of how they developed is also necessary. What power relationships have shaped this region and new modes of behavior and new customs? Remembering means shaping the future responsibly.
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A Woman Who Knows What She Wants!

Operetta in two acts (1932) by Oscar Straus

In a breathless tour de force, the consummate performers Dagmar Manzel and Max Hopp act and sing their way through 20 characters using power and slapstick. The glamour queen and operetta diva Manon Cavallini can turn the head of any man.

(Original title: Eine Frau, die weiß, was sie will!)

Innovative ceramics - Regional - International

Gmundner Keramik and OÖ Landes-Kultur GmbH have created a new format with the Academy of Ceramics. The center of the focus is placed on the shared firing and the exchange between one of the oldest locations for the production of ceramics in Europe and internationally renowned contemporary artists.

The life of a great artist between culture and barbery

With the tragic life story of the Jewish artist Alma Rosé, who was closely connected to the Salzkammergut, a series of events started that already refers to the Capital of Culture Year 2024 and to the program line POWER AND TRADITION.

(Original title: Alma Rosé – Das Leben einer großen Künstlerin zwischen Kultur und Barberei)

Building bridges in the Salzkammergut

School students, folklore preservationists and retired people will work with the General Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations in a variety of ways.

SOUND TRACES OF THE AVANT-GARDE

The Salzkammergut was a melting pot of the avant-garde in the 19th and 20th centuries. The performance and exhibition of the “Ballet Mécanique” tie in with this tradition and at the same time offer a Salzkammergut version of the visionary masterpiece of classical modernism.

A museum reinvents itself

The Bartlhaus Writing Museum  celebrates the Capital of Culture Year with a series of exciting presentations and, as a project partner, opens the house to new perspectives and current positions from May to October 2024.

(Original title: Schriftmuseum Bartlhaus)

The Wittgensteins around the Villa Toscana

In the Villa Toscana of Margarete Stonborough-Wittgenstein, the sister of philosopher Ludwig Wittgensteinsich, people met every summer for creative meetings, exchange or musical and dance performances. In 2024, Villa Toscana will once again become a place of exhibition and salons.

An evening in the Salzkammergut's most spectacular sound space

A saltworks is a place for extracting salt, isn’t it? It is also a very special place to get a taste for the crystalline basic structures of Bruckner’s music.

The union of salon culture and the women's circle.

The focus of the women’s circle is the exchange of experiences among the artists on topics such as the “female working body” and “the task of being a woman”.

(Original title: ZirkelSalon)

What does it mean to be human? What does the Nazi era have to do with us and the world today? The project wants to encourage people to talk about the Nazi era, to listen and to ask questions.

Europe celebrates its miners' traditions

In 2024, the European Miners’ and Smelters’ Day will take place in Bad Ischl from May 24 to 26, with 2000 to 3000 participants expected from all over Europe. Miners’ associations mainly from mining regions in Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic and France will be on site to celebrate their miners’ traditions together.

(Original title: Europäischer Knappen- und Hüttentag)

Living tradition

The Glöcker*innenlauf developed from traditional customs on Traunsee and has spread from there over the course of the last century.

Young people at work

The project invites young people to try their hand at arts and crafts. In this way, they develop their own interest and an understanding of traditional crafts.

Comics tell history

Stories in pictures pictures have offered a unique and touching access to our history since the beginning of time. The German comic artist Simon Schwartz is a master of the form and shows how up close and personal the experience of contemporary history can be.

(Original title: Verborgen im Fels. Der Berg, das Salz & die Kunst)

The Great Divas of the Roaring Twenties

An evening with Ethel Merhaut and Stefano Bernardin, in which Vinzenz Praxmarer and his orchestra Divertimento Viennese revive the sound of light music of the 1920s and 1930s.

(Original title: Im Frauenparadies)

Letter culture between private and public

The project invites people to reread letters from their own environment and make them available to us: Because these personal documents reflect the life of the region, contemporary events and their impact on the lives of the authors.

(Original title: Briefgeheimnisse interaktiv)

Commemoration and remembrance

A book project about the Jewish population living in the Salzkammergut before and in some cases still during National Socialism.

(Original title: Jüdische Familien im Salzkammergut)

Sometimes the imperial legacy weighs heavily on Bad Ischl, and alternative perspectives are largely ignored – kitsch and clichés dominate, with history being clotted in the shadow of the Habsburg myth. An exhibition in the public space as well as talks and statements by European experts dare to take a differentiated look at the imperial and royal period.

(Original title: k.u.k. kritisch und kontrovers)

Musical by Aksel-Otto Bull and Gisele Kverndokk

World premiere at Musical Frühling Gmunden 2023. Since 2015, theater makers Elisabeth Sikora and Markus Olzinger have been establishing Gmunden as a venue for Austrian and German-language premiere performances in what is probably the most modern genre in theater history, the musical.

(Original title: Briefe an Ruth)

A living installation in the Lederermayerhaus

A house becomes a place of exchange of living history of its surroundings. The history of the Lederermayerhaus dates back to the beginning of the 18th century. Among other things, it was the location of a fishmonger and the house of a Lederer trade. It was farm and a loving cat house, cared for by its last owner.

(Original title: Museum der Erinnerung)

Regional Traditional Instruments Meet Contemporary Electronic Music

This project combines traditional instruments such as the zither, dulcimer and fife with contemporary electronic music. The sound characteristics of traditional and nearly vanished instruments from the region will be paired with new and unusual styles of playing.

(Original title: Musikmaschine)

culture salts 2024

A yodel out into the world!
The opening of the European Capital of Culture Bad Ischl Salzkammergut 2024.

Political history and hiking together - in seven hikes

The rugged mountain areas, dense forests and extensive alpine pastures of the Salzkammergut served not only as hiding places for resistance fighters and deserters during National Socialism, but also for some high-ranking National Socialists. Within the framework of the project, hikes will take place that are not so much aimed at spectacular mountain peaks, but rather lead to original locations that played an essential role in this context, but have largely disappeared from the collective memory or have never taken root there.

(Original title: Wege des Widerstands)

one for all, all for one

With the European Capitals of Culture, impulses are set, models of the future are worked on and cultural developments are conceived with art and sent out into the world: it is a matter of the unifying visionary power that Europe, just like the Salzkammergut region, has and needs through cultural diversity. We are living in times in which Europe has to find its position in the world anew and, in doing so, it is not only a matter of shared rules, guidelines and bureaucracy, but instead much more about the question of the role of culture as a source of power that provides identity.

a fairy tale of salt and ice

A visually stunning children’s music theatre project inspired by the legends, salt mines and ice caves of the Austrian Salzkammergut with the artistic vision of  pop-up paper sculptures, origami techniques and paper engineering.

Salzkammergut Connected History

Salt as a continuous line that connects a region is analysed in yesterday, today and for tomorrow and made accessible without restrictions via web app.

(Original title: SALZZEIT.at)

A four-part Sound-Land-Art project with choirs, music bands, “Prangerschütz*innen” and bells from the Salzkammergut region.

(Original title: Salzkammer(sc)hall)

Resistance and partisan movement 1943-1945

Peter Kammerstätter collected the experiences of people who would otherwise not have had a chance to speak. Without his tireless work, only a few fragments about the resistance movement in the Salzkammergut would be known today. This publication is a reminder of these people.

A cosmos of traditions, folk dances and folk music

In an experimental way, four performers and musicians make use of traditional alpine live music, various group dances and ritualistic practices.

Music from hard times

With the concert series Bleiben oder Gehen, or Stay or Go, the tradition of salon culture in Bad Ischl is being resurrected.

(Original title: Bleiben oder gehen – Musik aus schweren Zeiten)

art with salt & water

It was once called “white gold”: salt is a crucial element for the entire Salzkammergut region; even today it remains an important trade good, which leads some to prosperity and a few to richness.

From prehistory to the present

This symposium on one of the most important prehistoric cultures is intended to shed new light on its development, as well as the findings and progress that have been made since the first finds up to the present day.

Improvisational theatre has the ability to take on any conceivable topic spontaneously

David Wagner and ten grandees of the Austrian improvisation theatre scene will ask the population of 16 Capital of Culture communities about their ideas and concerns on the topic of culture and process the results between May and September 2023 in 16 improvised theatre live shows.

(Original title: Sog’s uns, Soizkammerguat!)

Give diversity a stage

Illustrious people have responded to the casting call for “The Big World Theatre”. They find themselves in a closed room and are asked by the creator to improvise from “birth to death”. Who is this mysterious entertainer with his two angels?

(Original title: Das Große Welttheater)

Hitler's cultural policy, art trade and storage in the Salzkammergut during the Nazi era

Three different art exhibitions of a special kind at three locations: During the Second World War, Hitler and the most important Austrian museums and art dealers used the Salzkammergut to bring masterpieces of European art history to safety or to protect museum collections from destruction.

(Original title: Die Reise der Bilder)

From the root to the vision

Storytellers from different countries in Europe will visit schools in the 2024 European Capital of Culture Salzkammergut region and tell stories in the oral tradition in different languages in a variety of different school levels.

(Original title: Die neue Welt des Erzählens)

Photographs by Konrad Mautner

On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the death of Konrad Mautner, the Folk Life Museum at the Paulustor in Graz is dedicating a personal exhibition to this researcher and collector of traditional garbs and folks songs.

Bicycle partisans in the Salzkammergut

The bicycle as an indispensable means of transport in the resistance against National Socialism: This project describes bicycle routes used by the partisan group Willy-Fred.

(Original title: Touren von Willy-Fred)

A musical picture book with lots of poetry and hearty wit

World premiere based on the book by Mira Lobe, adapted by Michaela Obertscheider. Start 3 pm, admission 2 pm

(Original title: Valerie und die Gute-Nacht-Schaukel)

The Art & Power of Celebration

Volxfest to join in, dance along, play along, sing along, listen, parades, musical tram rides, performances, dance performances, open dancing and singing… in addition, workshops and regulars’ tables take place in the run-up to the festival.

Rethinking togetherness

The Welt-Salon takes up the idea of the historical salon concept as a social meeting place between the public and private spheres, as a place of exchange on topics such as politics, culture and economics. Representatives of communities and experts discuss historical immigration and emigration.

(Original title: Welt-Salon)