The Aarhus Festival board has decided that the theme of the 2010 Festival is Neighbours. The inspiration for this theme was drawn from the necessity of making other people a part of your world.

Neighbours are the people that live next door on the other side of the fence. We either love them or hate them, we are kind to them or ignore them, admire or envy them. Neighbours are the districts, regions, countries we feel closest to on account of similar mentalities – in the geographical sense we may, however, be far apart – or vice versa. Can and should we love our neighbours as ourselves, and is the grass always greener on the other side?

A Festival at the micro and the macro level
The 2010 Aarhus Festival will be about neighbours both at the micro and the macro level. We are going to take a closer look at what our neighbours have to offer in an era when most people seem to behave as if they were a law unto themselves. Is neighbourliness compulsory or simply outdated? We intend to let ourselves be amazed by the people on the other side and to embrace them in defiance of walls and fences, age and cultural barriers. But is it really possible to make definitive peace between warring neighbours, or is the border line separating ours and theirs still worth fighting for? There’s no getting around having neighbours – and so we are looking forward to a Festival that will put the people next door centre stage.

Festival Director Jens Folmer Jepsen makes the following statement about the 2010 theme:

- We make use of concepts such as iPhone and iPod. What the Aarhus Festival would like to know is, whether it would not be possible to create an iWe. Whether it is possible to hold on to oneself and one’s integrity and simultaneously be part of something bigger – a kind of individualism without selfishness.

The 2010 Aarhus Festival takes place between Friday the 27 August and Sunday the 5 September.