CORE: Corridor for Regional Exchange in the Arts is a targeted intervention in the cultural ecosystem along the Arnhem–Groningen–Münster–Düsseldorf axis. In the cultural and creative sector, cross-border collaboration has stalled: different funding systems, regulations, language and logistics make it difficult for organisations and artists to work together. As a result, makers and audiences rarely meet across the border, and opportunities for shared learning, artistic growth and mutual trust are lost.
Four independent production houses – Theater aan de Rijn (Arnhem), Grand Theatre (Groningen), Theater im Pumpenhaus (Münster) and Forum Freies Theater (Düsseldorf) – form a long-term working alliance. Rooted in the independent performing arts, they collaborate with mobile companies and collectives that operate as small cultural enterprises and are used to working in different contexts. Their physical, visual and performative languages travel easily across the border and speak to diverse audiences.
CORE is structured around three pillars: (1) Research & development through multi-week residencies, labs and workshops; (2) Presentation through compact cross-border touring routes and performance series under the label CORE Live, accompanied by contextual programmes; (3) Knowledge exchange through peer-learning, crew-shadowing and team labs that align working methods and audience strategies.
Citizens in the border region engage through open rehearsals, co-creations, artist talks and public presentations; artists strengthen both their artistic and organisational capacities; institutions develop shared cross-border routines. Over the project period, CORE will generate multiple tandems, residencies and performance series, reaching new audiences with work from the neighbouring country. This kind of structured, equitable collaboration cannot be realised within national frameworks alone and therefore relies on Interreg support, resulting in a lasting DE–NL network beyond 2029.
