Minutes before the event begins, people are still busy tinkering and touching up at the youth playground in Neugermering. Slowly, a curved green-and-blue shape turns into lettering, which a girl wearing a respirator mask is spraying onto the barrier around the kickabout pitch. A fine mist of paint drifts off the wall and hangs in the surrounding air. Most of the spray cans the children and teenagers used for the project are acrylic-based and therefore actually harmless - "it's still not exactly nice breathing it in", says the girl behind the mask.
The town offered the project to decorate the youth playground with graffiti together with the Jugendbegegnungsstätte 2 youth centre, the Jola Kre-Artiv Freiraum and the Munich breakdance school Step-2-diz. It was a big hit with local young people: around twenty participants aged between nine and 17 teamed up to give the playground near Harthaus station a fresh coat of paint - "more girls than boys", as Claudia Sigl from Jola adds. Three sessions had been available for this over the past two weeks, along with spray cans and other materials. Shortly before the start, there's a commotion. "We've got a problem," says one of the organisers. "The fuse at the recycling centre has blown." No power means no microphone, no music, no breakdance and no rap performance. Time to act. Claudia Sigl sets off, phone at the ready.
The teenagers notice none of this. A boy is standing on the football goal, spraying the word "Harthaus" along the top edge of the barrier, while hip-hop music blares from a speaker down in the grass. The plastic wall around the kickabout pitch is now filling up with a colourful mosaic of different motifs. Among them are various pieces of 3D lettering, a milkshake with a face, but also lots of well-known characters such as Spiderman or Kermit the Frog. Pia Schwarz, Alena Seeholzer and Emilia Beyreuther go to school together and took part in the project together. Right next to one of the two goals is a rainbow-coloured compass that Emilia painted. "It stands for freedom and a love of adventure," explains the 13-year-old. Her friend Alena made a pink-and-violet pair of angel wings that you can stand between to have your photo taken. "Follow your dreams" is written underneath in matching letters.
In front of the football goal, the sound system is now fully set up, and the power problems have been fixed too after a short delay - it was the cable reel. A little out of breath, Claudia Sigl is also back in time to praise the children's commitment and creativity in a short speech. She would love to see more projects like this in future, "to make Germering a little more colourful."
Alongside graffiti and breakdance, rap is also part of the kind of urban "street culture" that is being celebrated here. So the afternoon programme also includes, among other things, a performance by freestyle rapper Perquist. But first comes the big performance by breakdancers Daniel Thalmaier and Tobias Dupp. The two boys, aged 14 and twelve, know each other through the breakdance school Step-2-diz and have already danced together at several events. They roll out a chequerboard dance floor across the pitch and begin their performance. To Latin American rhythms they twist their bodies and send their limbs whirling through the air. The dance style takes a good deal of acrobatics and core strength. They have to train up to five times a week for it, Daniel says later.
For younger visitors, several stations have been set up next to the sports ground where they can make graffiti-style badges or get their faces painted. Some of the parents escape here into the shade for a few minutes. Finally, Germering's mayor Andreas Haas also gets to speak. "The mayor probably shouldn't say anything at all on an occasion like this," he says, keeping it short. Still, he doesn't miss the chance to express his appreciation to the artists and the organisers involved.
