WESTWIND 2015 will take place in Düsseldorf, the capital city of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia from 27th of May until 3rd of June. The festival will be artistically directed and organized by three theatres: Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus/Junges Schauspielhaus, tanzhaus nrw and Forum Freies Theater (FFT). WESTWIND 2015 is supported by the state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the City of Düsseldorf. Patrons of WESTWIND 2015 are the Minister for Family, Children, Youth, Culture and Sports of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Ute Schäfer, and the Mayor of the City of Düsseldorf, Thomas Geisel. WESTWIND every year presents the ten most outstanding productions of children's and youth theatre in North Rhine-Westphalia, chosen by a professional jury. In 2015, the jury consists of Takao Baba, dancer and choreographer, Johanna-Yasirra Kluhs, artistic festival-director, and Christof Seeger-Zurmühlen, artistic director of Junges Schauspielhaus and stage director.
WESTWIND sees itself as a workshop meeting of the theatres of North Rhine-Westphalia and international guests. The structure of the festival is unique: Every year, local theatres meet up in a different city with state and private theatres, independent theatres as well as independent groups and single persons. There are performances open to the public as well as academic talks on the performances of the competition, lectures, discussions and workshops dealing with different aspects of children's and youth theatre. Furthermore extraordinary international productions which are out of competition and international guests will be invited. Especially due to the support of the art foundation North Rhine-Westphalia, WESTWIND is able to enlarge its international framework programme in 2015. "Next Generation", a programme launched in 2009, within the WESTWIND festival also is a future-orientated workshop for young artists. From a large number of applicants ten young people will be chosen for a scholarship. A mentor will guide these participants through the week of the festival. Last but not least there will be educational offers along to the performances for kindergarten and school classes. At the end of the festival a jury will award the winner-production with 10,000 Euro provided by the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The festival-programme will be announced on 11th of March 2015.