The Fusion Festival is a

music Music is the arrangement of sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm, or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Music is generally agreed to be a cultural universal that is present in all hum ...

and

arts festival An arts festival is a festival that can encompass a wide range of art forms including music, dance, film, fine art, literature, poetry and is not solely focused on visual arts. Arts festivals may feature a mixed program that include music, lit ...

with a

countercultural A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores.Eric Donald Hirsch. ''The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy''. Ho ...

character. It takes place at a former military airport called

Müritz Airpark Müritz Airpark , previously known as ''Rechlin–Lärz Airfield'') is an airfield in the village of Rechlin, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany. The airport is not used for scheduled traffic but features general aviation and is home to other ...

in Lärz,

Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (MV; ; ), also known by its Anglicisation, anglicized name Mecklenburg–Western Pomerania, is a Federated state, state in the north-east of Germany. Of the country's States of Germany, sixteen states, Mecklenburg-Vorpom ...

, in northeastern

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. The festival name is often depicted in

Cyrillic The Cyrillic script ( ) is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking countries in Southeastern Europe, Ea ...

letters as Фузион, but pronounced like the English word fusion []. The annual festival was started by the ''Kulturkosmos'' organisation in 1997 and is described by the organizers as a place to practice "Holiday Communism" (Ferienkommunismus). It lasts four to six days, usually at the end of June. In 2016, the Fusion Festival event took place from 29 June to 3 July and which has attracted some 70,000 attendees for each year's festival, since the 2013 event, which the comparable American

Burning Man Burning Man is a week-long large-scale desert event focused on "community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance" held annually in the Western United States. The event's name comes from its ceremony on the penultimate night of the event: the ...

event only matched in 2015. Different musical styles are represented at the festival, but the line up is not released beforehand. Mostly

electronic music Electronic music broadly is a group of music genres that employ electronic musical instruments, circuitry-based music technology and software, or general-purpose electronics (such as personal computers) in its creation. It includes both music ...

is present, but there is no stylistic restriction for the various live music acts, and the festival attendees may bring their own instruments. The festival also holds its own film festival and features different scales of art installations. Attendees may bring their own art and appear in artistic costumes. Only vegetarian food is sold at the festival grounds. The festival gears to create a

Temporary Autonomous Zone ''T.A.Z.: The Temporary Autonomous Zone'' is a book by the anarchist writer and poet Hakim Bey (Peter Lamborn Wilson). It was published in 1991 by Autonomedia and in 2011 by Pacific Publishing Studio (). It is composed of three sections, "Chaos: ...

and a transformational environment. Due to its avantgardistic attitude and the variety of art, the Fusion Festival has been described as a "European Burning Man".

Concept

The Fusion Festival combines all styles of the underground electronic music scene and various other styles, sometimes depending on the attendees who choose to play their own music. It is described as a space people go to free their minds from their everyday lives, jobs, studies and other responsibilities. It is the result of the search for an alternative through music, to the system "people are forced to live in". People go to the Fusion to experience a different way of socializing and living, where experiencing one another freely, sharing love for music and art connects different scenes and minds. It is partially a clothing-optional event. Art installations include

performance arts Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...

, static artworks, sculptures,

art car An art car is a vehicle that has had its appearance modified as an act of personal artistic expression. Art cars are often driven and owned by their creators, who are sometimes referred to as "Cartists". Most car artists are ordinary people with ...

s and various other forms.

Festival site

Fusion Festival began in 1997 near the city of Lärz in north-eastern Germany, about from Berlin and from Hamburg. The location is on the original grass-covered grounds of the disused ''Erprobungsstelle Rechlin'' Third Reich-era central military experimental airfield (at for the area central field) about due north of the modern Rechlin-Lärz Airfield facility. The site was first acquired by the

German Empire The German Empire (),; ; World Book, Inc. ''The World Book dictionary, Volume 1''. World Book, Inc., 2003. p. 572. States that Deutsches Reich translates as "German Realm" and was a former official name of Germany. also referred to as Imperia ...

in 1916 as an aviation research and training ground, opening the facility for use by the ''

Luftstreitkräfte The ''Deutsche Luftstreitkräfte'' (, German Air Combat Forces)known before October 1916 as (The Imperial German Air Service, lit. "The flying troops of the German Kaiser’s Reich")was the air arm of the Imperial German Army. In English-langu ...

'' in August 1918. After the establishment of the

Luftwaffe The Luftwaffe () was the aerial warfare, aerial-warfare branch of the before and during World War II. German Empire, Germany's military air arms during World War I, the of the Imperial German Army, Imperial Army and the of the Imperial Ge ...

in 1935, the field served as the ''Erprobungsstelle Rechlin'' central military aircraft test facility of the Third Reich through early 1945, and it was captured by the Soviet Red Army on 2 May 1945, for use by the VVS. There are grass-covered concrete hangars (actual bunkers) from that time that were used for Soviet fighter aircraft (hence the Cyrillic transliteration of the festival name and various stages, as many Cyrillic inscriptions were still present on the site). The airfield was reopened for civilian use in 1994 and sold to the ''Müritz Airpark Group'' in 2010.

References

External links

Fusion Festival website
{{Authority control Music festivals established in 1997 Events in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania Music in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania Counterculture festivals Transformational festivals New Age in popular culture Ecovillages Clothing-optional events 1997 establishments in Germany Cacophony Society Culture of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania Tourist attractions in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania Electronic music festivals in Germany Anti-capitalist organizations Summer in Germany

Concept

Festival site

See also

References

External links