Dresden’s oldest and best student club is celebrating its anniversary with a week of festivities from June 1 to 10

Sven Willer

The Bärenzwinger student club is celebrating its 50-year anniversary – with a week of festivities from June 1 to June 10, 2018. Dresden’s distinctively named club, whose name translates as the ‘Bear Pit’, has now been open for half a century. Generations of students and young people have passed through its doors, where they have danced and listened to music, celebrated and drowned their sorrows, drunk and debated, laughed and cried.

A lot has changed over the years. That has included structural developments. Once run by the German Democratic Republic’s Free German Youth ( Freie Deutsche Jugend  – FDJ) youth movement, it has become one of the oldest and best student clubs in Dresden – a place for students, young people, theater lovers, music lovers, soccer fans, and many others.

Rooms have been added and lost again. The club occasionally used the unrenovated Kurländer Palais palace’s cellar vaults – until 2006, when a soundproof screen was installed in the courtyard of the Bärenzwinger to create Dresden’s most attractive covered open-air venue.

As association president Denise Füssel says, “a club that has been firmly established as a cultural institution in Dresden for 50 years not only has every reason to celebrate, this anniversary is also an incentive for us to keep contributing to our city’s rich cultural scene.”

The damage caused by the floods in 2002 and 2013 was repaired thanks to many helpers and many donors, and normal business was quickly resumed. It has always been and still is the members of the Bärenzwinger who plan and run events, shaping the club’s unique style.

“Students from almost all TU Dresden departments are now celebrating their semester parties in our club again. And it’s not just the students who use our rooms: Many guests from outside the university also come to us for their parties and events,” says Denise Füssel.

On the afternoon of June 1, the week of festivities begins with International Children’s Day. In the evening, the “Große Tonne” venue will be back in business with T.S.O. followed by a disco. Then come concerts for all ages, a pub quiz to exercise your grey cells, the NaWa Festival with all student clubs, and a public ceremony on June 6 including the Bärenzwinger Ball with the TU Big Band.

There will also be a movie night on June 7, with a screening of Detlef Buck’s “Wir können auch anders”. Afterwards, there will be a movie quiz.

The Große Tonne will be hosting a concert with a band (yet to be announced) on June 8 and a hip-hop party on June 9. On June 10, the week will end with a brunch and musical entertainment provided by Sasa und der Bootsmann.

You can find out about all events and the club at www.baerenzwinger.de.

This article appeared in the Dresdner Universitätsjournal (university newspaper, UJ) 10/2018 of May 29, 2018. The complete issue is available as a free PDF download here. Printed copies and PDF files of the university newspaper can be ordered from . More information can be found at universitaetsjournal.de.