THE CULTURE TRAIL BEGINS!
Report by Thomas Tschur

From the Culture Trail's first festival in Frankfurt. The point of meeting for all the artists is a ship on Frankfurt's river banks.

The band arrived first. From Spain, France, Ireland, Southern Germany, Poland and the Netherlands they came in from all corners of Europe. The rehearsals began and the ship took on a different form of rockin'. The Whitsun weekend passers by were attracted by these new-comers on their beat.

The first festival day began quiet with room to get used to the style of  living, eating, working and travelling together – a whole month of theater, music, literature and dance started to take place. The old factory in the centre of Frankfurt’s famous cider mile is now full of art exhibitions from Bekir Smolski from Belarus Patrick Mangnus from Deventer in the Netherlands. Oil paintings with a wonderful transparancy in direct contrast to the installations portraying cheeky messages about Europe.

Workshops in dance and art were quiet on the first day, but then, on the second day a group of primary school children came along and wore everybody out – what a fantastic day.

The work between the official and unofficial offices in Frankfurt in support of the Culture Trail was at all times at a high level of open communication. Private people gave what they could and some of Frankfurts oldest companies contributed toward the success in Frankfurt.

The last of the festival events was a buzzing world music concert in the cellar room of the factory, a stunning traditional environment. And then its back to the ship, sleep a few hours, pack up the old kit-bag and on the road to Soltvadkert in Hungary.

We leave the City of Frankfurt’s 'Europe Week' and head for the Children’s Festival in Hungary with new faces, new horizons, impressions and great expectations in our hearts.