2020 Tabori Prize

Like a zoomed-in conversation with several participants, the 2020 award winners can be seen in this picture. Many are toasting to the camera from the bathtub. © Roman Hagenbrock

Tabori Award Winners 2020 Gob Squad

On May 20, 2020, the Fonds Darstellende Künste awarded the Tabori Prize, the country's most distinguished award for the independent performing arts, for the 11th time. The award jury selected the winners from all the groups and artists who have been supported by the Fonds Darstellende Künste in the past five years.

The Award Winners

The 2020 Tabori Prize went to the German-English theater collective Gob Squad, "which has had a significant influence on national and international theater aesthetics for more than 25 years and has thus become one of the pioneers of new contemporary art production in the independent performing arts," according to the award jury in its statement.

The 2020 Tabori Awards went to Anta Helena Recke, "who in her work insists on the question of diversity, effectively negotiates approaches to discourse in a large public sphere, develops an aesthetic critical of representation, and thus has a lasting impact on the structural work of theater". Also honored with the Tabori Award was Christoph Winkler, whom the jury recognized for "the artistic continuity [with which] he uniquely understands how to translate relevant sociopolitical and explosive personal issues into the language of dance, questioning our understanding of nationalities, generations and cultures as constructions".

The Award Ceremony

The 2020 prize and award winners were honored during an unboxing award ceremony via video stream, in conformity with the coronavirus pandemic protection measures, which was unprecedented in the history of the Tabori Prize.

Even if many things were a bit different in 2020, this online ceremony contained all the ingredients of an award ceremony: welcoming speeches by the managing director of the Fonds Darstellende Künste, Holger Bergmann, as well as the chairman of the Fonds, Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schneider, a tribute to the prize and award winners by the Deputy Mayor of Berlin and Senator for Culture and Europe, Dr. Klaus Lederer, and the reading of the jury statements by the jurors Sabine Gehm (Tanz Bremen), Martina Grohmann (Theater Rampe) and Annemie Vanackere (HAU Hebbel am Ufer).

2020 Award Jury

The five-member jury of experts selects the winners from all groups and artists who have received funding from the Fonds Darstellende Künste in the past five years. In 2020, the prize jury consisted of the following jurors: