Jump to main content (press Enter)Jump to the footer (press Enter)
Urbane Künste Ruhr

Breadcrumbs

  1. Home
  2. Calendar
  3. Performance

The Troubadour

© Daniel Sadrowksi

10.8. – 10.9.26

Address

Various locations in the Ruhr region, including Dortmund city centre

Open in Maps

The Troubadour, performed by the songwriter and actress Riah Knight, is touring the Ruhr region for a month – from Bochum to Dortmund, from Duisburg to Essen. Accompanied by her assistant, the Juggler, the Troubadour character meets people, swaps stories, wanders about and finds her way around on public transport whilst searching for places to linger. Along the way, Riah Knight writes and performs her own songs and combines the music that Ari Benjamin Meyers composed in advance for the project with new material. Inspired by the wandering ballad singers of the Middle Ages, this project is both a long-term performance and a social experiment. What is heard, experienced and exchanged in one place will be carried forward to the next. How is this supposedly ‘unknown traveller’ treated in every town she visits? What kind of music will her journey through the region produce?

Ari Benjamin Meyers (lives and works in Berlin) is an artist and composer who develops structures and processes that redefine the performative, social and ephemeral nature of music. He trained to be a conductor and composer at the Juilliard School, Yale University and the Peabody Institute. Since then, his work has been presented at numerous institutions, festivals and biennals worldwide. He is currently Professor of Sculpture at the Düsseldorf Art Academy. 

Riah Knight (born 1996) is a Romani-British artist and lives in Berlin. Her interdisciplinary practice includes acting, music, writing and dramaturgy.


Performance The Troubadour: Riah Knight
Assistant / The Juggler: Christian Löffel

The Troubadour by Ari Benjamin Meyers is a co-production by Urbane Künste Ruhr and Manifesta 16 Ruhr as part of the exhibition Uncanny Shifts, presented by Urbane Künste Ruhr during Ruhrtriennale 2026. 

Related Events

  • Open Event

    © Yusuke Mori, Photo: Erdem Akkaya

    So., 23.8.26, 16:30–19 hView

    Meet Kein schöner Archiv,  KDM and The Troubadour

  • Open Event

    © Yusuke Mori, Photo: Erdem Akkaya

    Do., 10.9.26, 19–21 hView

    The Troubadour’s Farewell

  • Open Event

    © Yusuke Mori, Photo: Erdem Akkaya

    Sa., 19.9.26, 19–21 hView

    Troubadour, The Epilogue

Related exhibitions

  • Open Event

    © Heinrich Holtgreve

    Sa., 22.8. – So., 4.10.26View

    Uncanny Shifts

Hamminkeln

The Grand Snail Tour will be accompanied by literary, photographic and illustrative artists, who will collect impressions and reflections from the same city at the same time as the Trailer is there and put them into visual or literary form. The result is a paratext on the three-year tour, a travel chronicle in the form of a kaleidoscope of stories, connections and snapshots in the 53 cities of the region, revealing the simultaneities and non-simultaneities of the Grand Snail Tour.

Hamminkeln by Erdem Teper

so müssen wohl die bäume über die menschen denken, 
der mensch ist ewig damit beschäftigt 
versteht, dass alles und jeder irgendwo
eins ist 
versteht, dass alles –  liebt und lacht und lebt in frieden existiert; stoa
versteht, dass es ist – ebenbild 
wenn mensch findet sich selbst 
vor uralten baumrinden 
ein wesen schaut das andere an, 
am ende haben beide einander
und somit sich selbst erkannt 
beide aus gerüst, beide aus haut 
nur dass der baum im wald sich zutraut
zurecht, dass er den menschen überlebt; 
während die zeit bereits 
das leichentuch des menschen webt 
und der baum schaut den menschen an, 
beide aus haut, rinde und knochen 
nur hat der neue mensch 
seine beziehung zur natur unterbrochen

Artist

Open Artsit

©priscilliagrubo

Erdem Teper

Erdem Teper writes about everything that makes Erdem feel. Themes in his poetry are often taken from philosophical and religious contexts.

View