At the invitation of the Free State, the three Saxon Capital of Culture applicants presented themselves in Brussels on Wednesday: in addition to Chemnitz, Dresden and Zittau.

“We want to reach for the stars,” Mayor Barbara Ludwig began her speech in Brussels, in which she presented Chemnitz’ application for the European Capital of Culture. – And she had twelve of these stars, as many as the European flag bears, with her, made by children from a Chemnitz day-care centre. Each star was associated with a buzzword for Chemnitz2025: change, the search for identity, the freedom to shape things, new beginnings, togetherness, a shared future in the European house… Being European Capital of Culture, Barbara Ludwig finally said, would be a great opportunity for Chemnitz and the region to give and receive a lot. “There are so many reasons why the third largest East German city should become the European Capital of Culture. One of them is blond.” And already Chemnitz rocked the stage and the hall. Young, cheeky, rousing – only to play a round of turbo bingo with the Brussels players afterwards. Beate Düber and Jan Kummer proved in a matter of seconds that “their international, cross-generational, blood pressure-lowering, democratic game can not only put Chemnitz in raptures, but also put the whole of Europe in a good mood. And after all, five people from Brussels were allowed to take home a “culture bag with Chemnitz treasures” as bingo winners that evening. Illustrator Stephanie Brittnacher captured all this wonderfully in her live drawings.

Besides Chemnitz, the other two candidate cities Dresden and Zittau also presented themselves on this evening. While Dresden relied on top-class artists such as the cellist Jan Vogler and the Dresden Frankfurt Dance Company on the one hand and on electronic sounds by Moritz Simon Geist on the other, Zittau staged a medley of music, projection and dance, created by the Gerhart-Hauptmann-Theater and students from the Drei-Länder-Eck.

Three completely different presentations, in other words, which showed the cultural potential of the Free State in a wonderful way and which certainly promoted Saxony and its candidate cities, as Dr. Eva-Maria Stange, the State Minister for Science and Art of the Free State had already announced in her speech at the beginning of the evening.