2021 Tabori Prize
On May 21, 2021, the Fonds Darstellende Künste presented the Tabori Prize and the Tabori Awards for the 12th time in an online award ceremony followed by a digital aftershow party. The evening was hosted by the theater collective Gob Squad, the previous year’s prize winners.
The Award Winners
Choreographer Constanza Macras and her interdisciplinary ensemble Dorky Park received the €20,000 2021 Tabori Prize in recognition of "the artistic continuity of this long-standing company [and] the unique, unmistakable signature of its interdisciplinary, pioneering practice, which sets aesthetic standards at an international level".
The two Tabori Awards went to performance group Flinn Works and choreographer Ligia Lewis. The jury's statement said that Flinn Works' "unique signature of documentary research theater [...] draws attention to abuses both nationally and internationally". Ligia Lewis was honored by the award jury with the second Tabori Award as an "emerging artist who has developed a new form of poetic choreography and performance through her particular aesthetics". The awards were each endowed with €10,000.
The Award Ceremony
The theater collective Gob Squad – Tabori Award winners in 2020 – moderated a special and particularly mobile award ceremony: in line with the pandemic regulations, they visited the award-winning artists at their places of work in order to present the awards. The event was opened by the managing director of the Fonds Darstellende Künste, Holger Bergmann. This was followed by speeches by the chairman of the board, Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schneider, and the politician Sabine Bangert (the Greens). A number of interludes gave an insight into the diversity of the work of the award-winning artists. The program was rounded off by the read-out of the jury statements by the jurors Carena Schlewitt (HELLERAU – Zentrum für die Europäischen Künste), Franziska Werner (Sophiensӕle), and Prof. Dr. Hans-Joachim Wagner (City of Nuremberg) as well as the digital after show party in the virtually recreated theater HAU Hebbel am Ufer.
Digital aftershow party
Due to the digital awarding of the Tabori Prize, there was also a digital aftershow party this year. Using avatars, guests were able to meet each other in a special version of HAU1 and celebrate the award winners together.
© Benjamin Krieg
Aftershowparty in Zeiten von Corona
2021 Award Jury
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Ute Kahmann
Actress, cultural scientist, puppeteer, director | Berlin
© privat
Ute Kahmann
Actress, cultural scientist, puppeteer, director | BerlinUte Kahmann studied cultural studies and acting in Berlin. She learned puppetry externally at the Ernst Busch Drama School and at the Figurentheaterkolleg Bochum. She receives directing commissions for theater and dance, has been staging her own productions for adults and children in close collaboration with artists from the visual arts and music since 1988, and plays in the ensemble at the Konzerthaus Berlin, among other venues. From 2006 to 2016 she served on the board of the Association of German Puppet Theaters and from 2014 to 2019 on the board of trustees of the Fonds Darstellende Künste.
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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.
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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).
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Prof. Dr. Hans-Joachim Wagner
Chairman of the Board of Trustees, cultural manager, curator, author, music dramaturge | Düsseldorf, Cologne, Nuremberg
© Stadt Nürnberg/Christine Dierenbach
Prof. Dr. Hans-Joachim Wagner
Chairman of the Board of Trustees, cultural manager, curator, author, music dramaturge | Düsseldorf, Cologne, NurembergProf. Dr. Hans-Joachim Wagner (born 1961) studied musicology, German philology and art history before working as a cultural manager, curator, researcher and author. He most recently worked as head of the department of music and performing arts at the Kunststiftung NRW in Düsseldorf. Wagner worked at the opera houses in Koblenz and Cologne as a production dramaturge, personal assistant to the artistic director and member of the opera management staff. From 2002 to 2006, he worked as a music referent in the cultural office of the city of Cologne and took over the coordination of the music department during the application of the city of Cologne for the title of European Capital of Culture 2010.
In Cologne, he curated the cultural program for the 2006 World Cup, was artistic director of the festival "Feste Musicali" and the children's and youth music festival "Stadt Klang Fluss". For some time, he has been particularly interested in contemporary dance and theater, the diversity of cultural practice and its visualization.
Since January 2, 2018, the scientist and cultural manager Prof. Dr. Hans-Joachim Wagner has been head of the office for Nuremberg's application for the title of European Capital of Culture 2025.
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Franziska Werner
Artistic Director of the Impulse Festival | Düsseldorf, Berlin
© Katja Renner
Franziska Werner
Artistic Director of the Impulse Festival | Düsseldorf, BerlinFranziska Werner is a dramaturge and curator and has been Artistic Director of the Impulse Festival in NRW since September 2024. From 2011 to summer 2023, she was Artistic Director of Sophiensaele Berlin.
Her curatorial interests include questions of work ethics and accessibility, the link between humor and queer feminism, performativity and everyday life, body politics and how origins shape artistic work. She has a special interest in so-called East German themes, because these always contain pan-German and international discourses as well as global issues and systemic questions.
She has been or is active in various juries and committees, including the Berlin Council for the Arts, the advisory board of the Goethe-Institut's theater/dance department, as a mentor for the PAP of LAFT Berlin e.V. or in the mentoring program “Women in Culture & Media” of the German Cultural Council.
She was born in East Berlin in 1975, grew up in Weimar and studied Theater Studies/Cultural Communication, Art History and European Ethnology at Humboldt University Berlin (M.A.) and Études Théâtrales at the Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris.