Why are we creative? Why are we not? In The Dialectic of Creativity, Hermann Vaske explores these questions in conversations with Marina Abramovic, Vivienne Westwood, David Hockney, Georg Baselitz, Bjoerk, Jeff Koons, Zaha Hadid, Christo, Yoko Ono, Damien Hirst, Jim Jarmusch, Shirin Neshat, David Bowie, and many more of the most influential creatives of our time, identifying the stimuli as well as the beta blockers, the killers of creativity: Spirituality, sex, money, fear, nurture, ambition versus censorship, self-censorship, bureaucracy, compromise, distraction, gatekeepers. Often it is those very blockages, the threats to creativity that allow it to thrive. A dialectical synthesis of opposites. Today, as we are facing an existential threat to our planet, it is time to come up with new ideas, more creative than ever. The Dialectic of Creativity explores all facets of creativity-artistic, intellectual, philosophical, and scientific. It is accompanied by a film trilogy and an exhibition.

Mojca Erdmann, Elin Rombo and Virpi Raisänen lead the cast in this world premiere performance of Wolfgang Rihm's operatic fantasy, recorded live at the 2010 Salzburg Festival. Based on Nietzsche's late cycle of poems 'Dionysus-Dithyrambs', the performance features distinctive staging by Jonathan Meese. Ingo Metzmacher conducts the Deutsches Symphonieorchester.