2019 Tabori Prize

Tabori Prize 2019: all award winners and program participants
On May 24, 2019, the Fonds Darstellende Künste presented the 2019 Tabori Prize and the Tabori Awards. With the award ceremony, the Fonds celebrated 10 years of the Tabori Prize and thus also 10 years of excellent artistic avant-garde, advanced artistic positions, experimental conceptions and formats, and the further development of a cross-genre and audience-oriented aesthetic.
The Award Winners
The 2019 Tabori Prize was awarded to the collective Monster Truck, which "realizes aesthetically highly sophisticated and at the same time divisive works that provoke and have thus long conquered a contentious stage and discourse space as 'pioneers' of a currently much-discussed performative concept of diversity," according to the jury.
The 2019 Tabori Awards were presented to the Ben J. Riepe Company "for its choreographic upheavals and departures on stages, in museums and streets, through which it has achieved an outstanding position in dance" and machina eX "for making virtual worlds experienceable in the reality of stage performance".
The Award Ceremony
Never before has an award ceremony so clearly depicted the diversity of the independent performing arts as this anniversary edition did. The program of the evening was designed by the former prize winners LIGNA (prize winners 2017), the puppet theater Wilde & Vogel (prize winners 2013), kainkollektiv (prize winners 2015), copy & waste (prize winners 2018), Gintersdorfer/Klaßen (prize winners 2010), and the theater Thikwa. In addition, there were video retrospectives of the 20 award winning groups of the last 10 years and thus also of the development of the independent performing arts.
Professor Monika Grütters, Member of the German Bundestag and Minister of State for Culture and Media, gave the evening’s welcoming speech. She emphasized: "For 10 years now, the Tabori Prize has honored the outstanding importance of the independent performing arts within the German dance and theater landscape. The award-winning ensembles and artists represent the innovative, experimental and courageous creative power of the independent scene. With this award, we want to once again draw greater attention to this social avantgarde. Not least, the reputation of the Tabori Prize has contributed to the independent houses being perceived on an equal footing with the municipal and state theaters as essential components of the dance and theater landscape."
The jury statements were read by the members of the expert jury Sabine Gehm (Tanz Bremen), Martina Grohmann (Theater Rampe, Stuttgart) and Carena Schlewitt (Hellerau – Europäisches Zentrum der Künste, Dresden). The laudatory speech for the winners, Monster Truck, was held by Christoph Gurk (curator, dramaturge and member of the artistic management team at the Münchner Kammerspiele).
2019 Award Jury
-
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.
-
Martina Grohmann
Dramaturg, artistic director Theater Rampe | Stuttgart
© Felix Grünschloß
Martina Grohmann
Dramaturg, artistic director Theater Rampe | StuttgartMartina Grohmann, born in Mödling near Vienna, studied theater at the University of Vienna. She began as a production manager at steirischer herbst in '98 and '99. From 2000 on, she was engaged as a dramaturg at Staatstheater Kassel, at LTT Tübingen, at Theater Heidelberg, where she directed the venue zwinger1 for author's theater and projects from 2005 to 2007, and at Theater Basel. She has also worked as a guest dramaturge at the Schaubühne Berlin and the Schauspiel Frankfurt. Her work focuses on contemporary drama, play development, and interdisciplinary formats and festivals. Since August 2013, she has been the artistic director of Theater Rampe together with Marie Bues.
-
Wolfgang Kaup-Wellfonder
Association of German Puppet Theaters, former board member of the Fonds
© wodo.de
Wolfgang Kaup-Wellfonder
Association of German Puppet Theaters, former board member of the FondsWolfgang Kaup-Wellfonder, January 1983 Founded the puppet theater "Wodo Puppenspiel" with Dorothee Wellfonder. Since August 1, 1984 self-employed as a puppeteer. 1988 to 1991 Managing Director of the Association of "Verband Deutscher Puppentheater" (VDP). 1996 to 2003 member of the board of trustees of the Fonds Darstellende Künste. 2005 elected to the board of the Fonds Darstellende Künste. 1997 to 2013 seat on the Council of the Performing Arts and Dance in the German Cultural Council for the VDP.
-
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schneider
Chairman of the Fonds Darstellende Künste
© PAP 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).
-
Carena Schlewitt
Director HELLERAU – Europäisches Zentrum der Künste | Dresden
© Stephan Floss
Carena Schlewitt
Director HELLERAU – Europäisches Zentrum der Künste | DresdenCarena Schlewitt was born in Leipzig in 1961. Since 2018, she has been the artistic director of HELLERAU - European Center for the Arts in Dresden.
She was Director of Kaserne Basel from 2008-2018 and Artistic Director of the Basel International Theater Festival (since 2012). She studied theater at the Humboldt University in Berlin and worked at the Academy of Arts in East Berlin from 1985 to 1993. She worked as dramaturge, curator and deputy artistic director at various independent production houses (Podewil Berlin; FFT Düsseldorf; HAU Berlin) and at international festivals (Theater der Welt; HAU Berlin).
The focal points of her work have included the transformation processes in East Germany, Eastern Europe and China and the development of theater in Poland, France and Italy as well as live art and performance art. She has served on various juries, including for the "Impulse" festival; for the German-Polish expert panel of the Kulturstiftung des Bundes as well as for the "Doppelpass" program of the Kulturstiftung des Bundes; she was a member of the expert commission of the Swiss cultural foundation Pro Helvetia.
Carena Schlewitt is a member of the Saxon Academy of Arts, the Saxon Cultural Senate and a member of the Expert Advisory Board for Performing Arts and Music at the Cultural Foundation of the Free State of Saxony.