Tabori Preis 2024

Graphic with the inscription “Tabori Prize 2024”

With the 15th edition of the Tabori Prize in 2024 the Fonds Darstellende Künste is honoring an artist or group of artists whose work in the independent performing arts has been particularly noteworthy for many years and whose work has nationwide and often international appeal.

The Tabori Prize will be awarded for the first time this year as part of the ceremony for the Theaterpreis des Bundes on October 2, 2024 at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele. The Fonds Darstellende Künste is thus not only honoring an artistic position, but also the independent performing arts as another important pillar alongside the diverse theater institutions and their aesthetic styles and profiles in Germany. This non-material enhancement of the award is accompanied by an increase in the prize money to a total of €100,000.

This year's winners will be announced in September 2024 – together with further information on the award ceremony.

Save the date

October 2, 2024, Haus der Berliner Festspiele

As part of the award ceremony for the Theaterpreis des Bundes 2024.

Jury

The award is made on the basis of a jury decision, which includes members of the Fonds’ Board of Directors and Board of Trustees as well as proven experts in the independent performing arts. Holger Bergmann, Managing Director of the Fonds Darstellende Künste, supports the work of the jury in an advisory capacity.

We would like to thank Amelie Deuflhard, Prof. Dr. Joy Kristin Kalu, Anne-Cathrin Lessel, Dan Thy Nguyen, Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schneider, Anna Wagner.

Jury

Amelie Deuflhard

Intendant Kampnagel, Member of the Board of Fonds | Hamburg

© Marcelo Hernandez

Amelie Deuflhard
Intendant Kampnagel, Member of the Board of Fonds | Hamburg

Amelie 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.
Prof. Dr. Joy Kristin Kalu

Theater scholar, dramaturge and curator | Berlin

© Dorothea Tuch

Prof. Dr. Joy Kristin Kalu
Theater scholar, dramaturge and curator | Berlin

Joy Kristin Kalu holds a doctorate in theater studies, is a dramaturge and curator for international performative arts. She currently works as a visiting professor for the theory of performative arts at the Berlin University of the Arts. Until summer 2023, she was head dramaturge for theater and performance at the Sophiensælen in Berlin. There she curated the festivals "Save your Soul" (2018), "Freischwimmer*innen. The Future is Female" (2019), "Risk & Resilience" (2020) and "Leisure & Pleasure" (2023) and conceived and moderated the ongoing discourse series "Politics of Love. Representation in Theater and Society". Her book "Aesthetics of Repetition. Die US-amerikanische Neo-Avantgarde und ihre Performances" was published in 2013 (Transcript). She is co-editor of the volumes "Theater als Intervention. Politiken ästhetischer Praxis" (Theater der Zeit 2015), "Kunst und Alltag" (De Gruyter 2017), and "OPENINGS. Sophiensaele 2011-2021" (Alexander Verlag 2021).

Joy Kristin Kalu has researched and taught at Freie Universität Berlin and New York University and has worked at various cultural institutions in Germany and the USA, including the Actors' Gang in Los Angeles, Berlin's Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, New York's Wooster Group and Kunst-Werke Berlin. Most recently, she was a member of the board of trustees of the Fonds Darstellende Künste (2018-2022), the jury of the Forced Entertainment Award (2018), the Stückemarkt of the Berlin Theatertreffen (2018) and the advisory board of the Impulse Theaterfestival 2017.
Anne-Cathrin Lessel

Artistic Director LOFFT - DAS THEATER, Board Member of Fonds | Leipzig

© Tom Dachs

Anne-Cathrin Lessel
Artistic Director LOFFT - DAS THEATER, Board Member of Fonds | Leipzig

Anne-Cathrin Lessel, born in 1987, studied theater, psychology and cultural studies at the University of Leipzig. Until 2011, she worked as a freelancer in artistic projects with children and young people, primarily at the Theater an der Parkaue Berlin. From 2011, program and production manager at LOFFT - DAS THEATER, whose artistic direction and management she took over in 2019. Since 2013 she has been a board member of the Bundesverband Freie Darstellende Künste and since 2020 a board member of the Landesverband der Freien Theater in Sachsen. For many years she has been a member of various professional juries, including those of the City of Leipzig, the Cultural Foundation of the Free State of Saxony, the German National Academic Foundation, the National Performance Network and the Fonds Darstellende Künste.
Dan Thy Nguyen

Theater maker, director fluctoplasma festival, Studio Marshmallow | Hamburg

© Nico Scagliarini

Dan Thy Nguyen
Theater maker, director fluctoplasma festival, Studio Marshmallow | Hamburg

Dan Thy Nguyen is a freelance theater director, actor, writer and singer in Hamburg. He has worked on various productions at Ballhaus Naunynstraße, Mousonturm Frankfurt, Kampnagel, MDR and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, among others. In 2014 he developed and produced the play "Sonnenblumenhaus" about the pogrom of Rostock -Lichtenhagen, which won the "Hörnixe" in 2015 in its radio play version and is still played at various institutions. Since 2020, he has directed the Hamburg festival "fluctoplasma - 96h Kunst Diskurs Diversität" with his production company Studio Marshmallow and he is deputy board member of the LAG Kinder- und Jugendkultur Hamburg. In 2021, together with the entire ensemble, he received the German Radio Play Award for his acting performance. In 2022 he published, among other things, his first volume of poetry "Über Wasser und Tote" and co-curated the exhibition "Wer wir sind" at the Bundeskunsthalle Bonn in 2023.
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 Künste

Wolfgang 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).
Anna Wagner

Artistic Director and Managing Director Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm | Frankfurt

© Maximilian von Lachner

Anna Wagner
Artistic Director and Managing Director Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm | Frankfurt

Anna Wagner has been the artistic director and managing director of Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm in Frankfurt together with Marcus Droß since September 2022. After studying theater, she worked as assistant dance curator at Hebbel am Ufer in Berlin and directed the dance department at Theater Freiburg, which she transformed from an ensemble company into a production platform for independent choreographers and dancers. In 2014, she moved to Frankfurt's Mousonturm as dramaturg. There she established ongoing working relationships with dance, theater and performance creators from the national and international independent scene such as Paula Rosolen, Eisa Jocson, Helgard Haug/ Rimini Protokoll, Jetse Batelaan and Eisa Jocson among others. She is also co-founder of Tanzplattform Rhein-Main and developed numerous special projects and festivals such as "Indonesia LAB" (2015) "Oper Offenbach" (2018) and "This is Not Lebanon" (2021).