Tabori Prize 2026
This year, the Fonds Darstellende Künste will award the Tabori Prize for the 17th time and honors outstanding artistic achievement and raises the profile of the independent performing arts as another important pillar of the theater landscape in Germany.
Tabori Prize Winner 2026
© Amelie Losier
raumlaborberlin
This year, the Tabori Prize from the Fonds Darstellende Künste, worth 100,000 euros, goes to raumlaborberlin. In awarding this prize, the jury honors an artistic practice whose long-standing and outstanding work has had a formative impact both nationally and internationally. The jury explained its decision to award this year’s prize as follows:
“The projects by raumlaborberlin address current social issues, deliberately reach out to people outside traditional theater contexts, and thereby achieve a broad engagement of urban society. […] raumlaborberlin exemplifies an artistic approach that opens up spaces, creates structures, and continuously expands the formats and audiences of the performing arts.”
Read the full jury statement Download press materials
raumlaborberlin is a collective of nine members who share a background in architecture. As architects, artists, performers, inventors, and curators, they have explored diverse fields of practice. The group emerged in 1999 from a shared interest in an expanded understanding of architecture, which has since established itself as “urban practice.” raumlabor’s working method is situational and action-oriented, with a focus on collaborative spatial production as an open-ended process. More information about the company can be found on their website.
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What does this award mean to you?
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What makes your work stand out?
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What project would you like to carry out if money were no object?
Award Ceremony
The highest national award for the independent performing arts will be presented on April 17, 2026, as part of the “Theaterpreis des Bundes” at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele.
Jury
The award is based on the decision of a jury comprising members of the Fonds executive board and board of trustees as well as renowned experts in the field of independent performing arts. Holger Bergmann, managing director of the Fonds Darstellende Künste, acts in an advisory capacity to the jury. The jury members are Amelie Deuflhard, Matthias von Hartz, Anne-Cathrin Lessel, Dan Thy Nguyen, Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schneider, and Anna Wagner.
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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 has been the artistic director of Kampnagel, Germany’s largest independent venue for international performing arts, since 2007. Prior to that, she served as artistic director of the Sophiensæle and the Volkspalast in Berlin. Her work focuses, among other things, on the interplay between art, cultural production, and the city, as well as on issues of diversity, decolonization, and inclusion. She has transformed Kampnagel into a place of encounter that brings international artistic perspectives into continuous dialogue with activists, scholars, local artists, and diverse urban communities. Amelie Deuflhard was part of the four-member curatorial board 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 of Chevalier des Arts et Lettres in 2013. In 2018, she received the European Cultural Manager of the Year award, and in 2021, the Berlin Theater Prize.
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Matthias von Hartz
Curator, Artistic Director of Zürcher Theater Spektakel | Zurich
© Kira Barlach
Matthias von Hartz
Curator, Artistic Director of Zürcher Theater Spektakel | ZurichMatthias von Hartz studied economics and directing in London and Hamburg. After staging productions at municipal theaters and international production houses, he developed series with artists, scientists, and activists for museums and theaters. In 2007, he founded the EU network IMAGINE 2020 on art and climate change with European partners and has since been involved with ecological issues in art, both in terms of content and structure. From 2007 to 2011, he directed the Impulse Festival with Tom Stromberg and, until 2012, the International Summer Festival Hamburg at Kampnagel. After directing the Foreign Affairs / Berliner Festspiele festival, he worked as artistic advisor to the Manchester International Festival MIF from 2016 and curated the international program of the Athens and Epidaurus Festival. Since 2018, he has been co-director and artistic director of the Zurich Theater Spektakel.
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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 | LeipzigAnne-Cathrin Lessel studied theater studies, psychology, and cultural studies at the University of Leipzig. Until 2011, she worked as a freelancer on artistic projects with children and young people, primarily at the Theater an der Parkaue in Berlin.
In 2011, she became the program and production director at LOFFT – DAS THEATER, and in 2019 she took over as its artistic director and managing director.
Anne-Cathrin Lessel has been actively involved in cultural policy at various levels for many years: for 12 years she served on the board of the Bundesverbandes Freie Darstellende Künste; since 2020 she has been a board member of the Landesverband der Freien Theater in Saxony; since 2023 she has been a board member of the Fonds Darstellende Künste; and starting in 2025 she will serve on the board of the Bundesverband Zeitgenössischer Zirkus.
Among other things, she is also a member of various expert juries, including those for the City of Leipzig, the Cultural Foundation of the Free State of Saxony, the German National Academic Foundation, the National Performance Network, and various festivals.
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Dan Thy Nguyen
Theater maker, director fluctoplasma festival, Studio Marshmallow | Hamburg
© Nico Scagliarini
Dan Thy Nguyen
Theater maker, director fluctoplasma festival, Studio Marshmallow | HamburgDan 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.
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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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Anna Wagner
Artistic Director and Managing Director Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm | Frankfurt
© Maximilian von Lachner
Anna Wagner
Artistic Director and Managing Director Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm | FrankfurtAnna 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).