Culture Bathing

Press Conference
Tuesday, 26 May 2009

In the summer of 2009 Ottensheim will tempt visitors to dive into the river and float in a world of poetry, a place where laws are at work that differ from those in force on dry land. Discover them with us!

“Kehrwasser” is popular parlance in Upper Austria for places where the current runs upstream. In Ottensheim “Kehrwasser” refers to theatrical acts that take place on a number of different stages, have that extra bathing value and go on for 24 hours or 111 tidal units. A time measuring system specific to Ottensheim sets the pace. Swimmers and non-swimmers debate the relative merits of staying safe on solid land and of committing oneself to the more exciting challenge of the water. Hiking along the Danube, you can watch the scenes of Flowing theatre: Tide fishermen and -women fish for symbols in the Danube; book washerwomen liberate books from their content; saleswomen have fresh ABCs for sale. In between you take a crash course in “merry foundering” in a boat that you have built yourself in the paper boat dockyard. In the evening you sense the pull of myths and legends that draws you once more towards the river. You spend the night on a platform under the open sky. The next morning gets off to a good start with breakfast with fishes and at the end of the morning visitors and locals swim back, well, some of them will be on rafts, to Linz, accompanied by the strains of the Zweikilometermusik.

www.kulturbaden.ottensheim.at/