2018 George Tabori Prize
On May 25, 2018, the George Tabori Prize was awarded for the 9th time by the Fonds Darstellende Künste for ensembles and artists from the independent theater scene. The six nominated groups were selected from more than 300 groups supported by the Fonds Darstellende Künste over the past five years. With the most distinguished national award for ensembles and artists from the independent theater scene, the Fonds Darstellende Künste honored artistic expressions of particular brilliance.
Award Winners
The main prize, endowed with €20,000, was awarded to the theater collective copy & waste, which, according to the jury's statement, "seduces the audience with brilliant language, glamorous music, and the virtuoso play with artful plagiarism [...] to bitter lies and dazzling truth" and thus creates "a unique intellectual flic flac between discourse and the reality of life [...]".
The jury also honored the Berlin performance collective Turbo Pascal with the incentive award of €10,000, stating that Turbo Pascal "create moderated theatrical audience experiments, shift the perspectives of perception and lead the audience through different [...] worlds of imagination. Accordingly, rethinking and thinking differently is constantly up for discussion [...]. This results in courageous performances, with an enormous pull effect on the audience."
Award Ceremony
In her welcoming speech the Minister of State for International Cultural Policy, Michelle Müntefering, acknowledged the importance of the independent performing arts and awards such as the George Tabori Prize in terms of their international and intercultural significance.
The subsequent keynote speech by Jean Peters, co-founder of the action collective Peng, was also a plea for the German arts and cultural landscape to be used as a way to transcend borders, curb political trends and thus stand up for a fair civil society.
The laudatory speech for this year's prize winners, copy & waste, was given by the dramaturge and curator Katja Herlemann, and the former director of the festival steirischer Herbst and Vienna City Councillor for Culture, Veronica Kaup-Hasler. The laudatory speech for the winners of the incentive prize was given by the former artistic director of the Theater Freiburg and current dramaturge of the Ruhrtriennale, Barbara Mundel.
With his voguing performance, Eray Güray then demonstrated how the boundaries between art, subculture and gender identities can be crossed. Benedikt ter Braake and Yana Gottheil provided the musical framework for the evening, presenting arrangements by pianist and composer Kai Schumacher on violin and piano. The presenter and actress Kübra Sekin presided over the ceremonies throughout the evening.
Impressions
© Florian Krauß
© Florian Krauß
© Florian Krauß
© Florian Krauß
2018 Award Jury
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Sabine Gehm
Cultural scientist, festival director TANZ Bremen, dramaturg, curator | Bremen/Berlin
© Heidi Scherm
Sabine Gehm
Cultural scientist, festival director TANZ Bremen, dramaturg, curator | Bremen/BerlinSabine Gehm is artistic director of the international festival TANZ Bremen and in the management team of the Tanzpakt project 'MV tanzt an'.
From 2006 to 2016, together with Katharina von Wilcke, she directed the first four editions of the international dance congress of the German Federal Cultural Foundation (Berlin 2006, Hamburg 2009, Düsseldorf 2013, Hannover 2016).
A graduate in cultural studies, she was program dramaturg and director of various festivals (including Junge Hunde, Independance Days, Tanzplattform Deutschland 2000) at Kampnagel Hamburg from 1994 to 2001 and coordinated, among other things, the international performing arts network 'Junge Hunde', which she co-founded, from 2001 to 2005.
Before that, she worked as an organization manager at the International Summer Theater Festival Hamburg.
As a freelance curator and cultural manager, she conceived and was responsible for international exchange projects, think tanks, laboratories and academies for KSB, BFDK, DTD, among others. She is on the board of the Dachverband Tanz Deutschland and was chair of the board of trustees at the Fonds Darstellende Künste from 2015 to 2020, for which she led the decision-making processes in 2020 (including publication of the handout on jury procedures). She is active as a reviewer and member of various juries of nationwide and international programs and works as a mentor in an advisory capacity for various artists and projects.
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Ilka Schmalbauch
Lawyer (Deutscher Bühnenverein)
© privat
Ilka Schmalbauch
Lawyer (Deutscher Bühnenverein)Lawyer and Head of Legal/International Affairs of the German Stage Association. Studied law, German language and literature, and history at the University of Regensburg and the University of Cologne. Managing Director of the Council for Performing Arts and Dance of the German Cultural Council, representative of the Council for Performing Arts and Dance in the expert committees Labor and Social Affairs and Europe of the German Cultural Council. Member of the Committee for European Social Policy of the Confederation of German Employers' Associations. Deputy member of the executive committee of the employers' association PEARLE* - Live Performance Europe, representing the German Stage Association and PEARLE* in the Social Dialogue of the European Union. Co-author of the loose-leaf collection "Stage and Orchestra Law". Member of the Board of Trustees of the Dance Foundation - Transition Center Germany. Ilka Schmalbauch was a member of the Fonds' Executive Board for many years. She did not stand for re-election in 2023, but continues to advise the Executive Board and management on personnel and legal issues.
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Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schneider
Chairman of the Fonds Darstellende Künste
© PAP9 Branchentreff des LAFT Berlin Foto Mathias Voelzke
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schneider
Chairman of the Fonds Darstellende KünsteWolfgang Schneider was founding director of the Institute for Cultural Policy at the University of Hildesheim and holder of the UNESCO Chair "Cultural Policy for the Arts in Development" (2014 - 2020). He was the first director of the Children's and Young People's Theater Center in the Federal Republic of Germany, chairman of the Lower Saxony Theater Advisory Board, member of the Goethe-Institut's Dance and Theater Advisory Board and, as an expert member of the German Bundestag's Enquete Commission "Culture in Germany," rapporteur for the chapter on theater, among other things. He is chairman of the Fonds Darstellende Künste e.V., a personal member of the German UNESCO Commission, a trusted lecturer of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, a member of the federal board of the Cultural Forum of Social Democracy, a member of the board of the Initiative for the Archives of Independent Theater e.V., a member of the International Theater Institute, a member of the Council for Performing Arts and Dance in the German Cultural Council, an honorary member of ASSITEJ Germany and Switzerland, and honorary president of the International Association of Theater for Children and Young People. In 2018, he was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit 1st Class by the German President for his honorary international commitment. Numerous publications on theater policy, editor of, among others, "Theater und Schule. Handbuch zur kulturellen Bildung" (2009), " Theater und Migration. Herausforderungen für Kulturpolitik und Theaterpraxis" (2011), "Theater entwickeln und planen. Kulturpolitische Konzeptionen zur Reform der Darstellenden Künste" (2014), "Theatermachen als Beruf. Hildesheimer Wege" (together with Julia Speckmann, 2017); ""Partizipation als Programm. Wege ins Theater für Kinder und Jugendliche" (together with Anna Eitzeroth, 2017); "Performing the Archive. Studie zur Entwicklung eines Archivs des Freien Theaters" (together with Henning Fülle and Christine Henniger, 2018), "Theater in der Provinz. Künstlerische Vielfalt und kulturelle Teilhabe als Programm" (with Katharina Schröck and Silvia Stolz, 2019); "Theater in Transformation. Artistic Processes and Cultural Policy in South Africa" (with Lance Lebogang Nawa, 2019).
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Matthias Schulze-Kraft
Artistic director LICHTHOF Theater
© G2 Baraniak
Matthias Schulze-Kraft
Artistic director LICHTHOF TheaterMatthias Schulze-Kraft is the artistic director of the LICHTHOF Theater, a venue and production center for independent theater in Hamburg. A director by training, he has been working in the theater in a wide variety of functions and production contexts since 1986. Stations included the Ulmer Theater, the Pocket Opera Company Nuremberg, the Schauspiel Frankfurt and various independent productions. Since 2006 the LICHTHOF Theater Hamburg, from 2008 as artistic director. After further education studies as "Culture and Education Manager" (HWP Hamburg) and various other further education (Change Manager, Management Trainer, Business Coach, Quality Manager), he developed his second professional pillar as a lecturer, consultant and coach since 2000, primarily in the qualification of managers and in organizational consulting. Since 2019, he has been a member of the board of the Bundesverband Freier Darstellender Künste (BFDK). From 2014 to 2019 he was chairman of the board of trustees of the Fonds Darstellende Künste, he was a jury member of, among others, the "Theaterpreis des Bundes" (2019), the "Reload" program of the Kulturstiftung des Bundes (2020) and the Körber Studio Junge Regie (2021).
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Amelie Deuflhard
Intendant Kampnagel, Member of the Board of Fonds | Hamburg
© Marcelo Hernandez
Amelie Deuflhard
Intendant Kampnagel, Member of the Board of Fonds | HamburgAmelie Deuflhard was artistic director of Sophiensæle (Berlin) from 2000 to 2007. In 2004/05 she was part of the artistic direction of "Volkspalast", a festival-like performance of the deconstructed Palast der Republik. Since 2007 she has been artistic director of Kampnagel (Hamburg), Europe's largest production center for the independent performing arts. With EcoFavela Lampedusa Nord, she initiated a living and action space for refugees in 2014. The project has found its extension at Kampnagel in the award-winning encounter space Migrantpolitan. Amelie Deuflhard was part of the curatorship of four of Theater der Welt 2017. She is the author of numerous publications and regularly holds teaching positions at universities. For her work, she was awarded the Caroline Neuber Prize in 2012 and the Insignia des Chevaliers des Arts et Lettres in 2013. In 2018, she received the European Cultural Manager of the Year award.