Blog
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Fond kicks off funding year 2026 – an overview
15 Jan 2026
The Fonds Darstellende Künste (Performing Arts Fund) is kicking off its 2026 funding year with new programs – but also new challenges. Steffen Klewar, program director at the Fonds, presents all of the funding programs in this video.
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Funding year 2026: Fund responds to new challenges
08 Jan 2026
Although funding for the Fonds has been stabilised in the 2026 federal budget, this cannot compensate for the consequences of the complete cancellation of nationwide projects and networks. In order to safeguard artistic work despite foreseeable deficits and structural gaps, the Fonds is making adjustments to its funding program.
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“Not appropriate”: Why cuts to the culture budget threaten the independent scene
04 Dec 2025
Funding for the independent performing arts is falling from €22 million (2024) to €8.5 million – a cut of two-thirds. Holger Bergmann warns that this jeopardizes cultural freedom and innovative strength. The Fonds is calling on the BKM to take countermeasures.
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Joint appeal from the independent performing arts
01 Dec 2025
The culture and media budget allocated to the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media (BKM), Minister of State Wolfram Weimer, will increase to around €2.57 billion in 2026 – yet essential structures of the independent performing arts remain unsecured.
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Art requires freedom and courage
15 Oct 2025
The Fonds managing director, Holger Bergmann, looks back on two intensive days of events, the results of the individual workshops, important insights from the panel discussions and statements: Art needs freedom and courage to face current social challenges, art needs stable funding beyond the logic of individual projects – and it needs “alliances that are bigger than ourselves.”
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Tabori Preis 2025 | Das war die Preisverleihung
15 Oct 2025
On September 25, 2025, as part of The Show Must Go On. BUNDESTREFFEN25 at HAU Hebbel am Ufer, the Tabori Prize was awarded for the 16th time—the highest national award for the independent performing arts. The 2025 Tabori Prize went to pulk fiktion. Highlights from the award ceremony can be found here.
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Black Box - White Cube: New narratives, diversity of forms, aesthetic risks or ancient blockages?
© Dorothea Tuch
13 Oct 2025
Independent performing arts create spaces for diversity, empathy, and social renewal—beyond market logic and political appropriation. Heinrich Horwitz summarizes the artists' workshop and advocates for protection, participation, and stable funding structures.
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Taking responsibility: Who represents whom and how?
© Dorothea Tuch
13 Oct 2025
Legitimacy, participation, and resources are key prerequisites—supplemented by creative competence, cooperation, and structural support. Anna Steinkamp and Helge-Björn Meyer summarized the workshop for interest groups at BUNDESTREFFEN25 as a plea for strong, agile organizations in the independent scene.
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ON HOLD. HOLD ON
© Dorothea Tuch
13 Oct 2025
Art needs freedom, trust, and reliable structures. At the end of the second day of the BUNDESTREFFEN25 event, Annemie Vanackere provided an insight into the topics and demands of the workshop for theater and festival managers.
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“Remaining effective” – self-positioning & scope for action
© Dorothea Tuch
13 Oct 2025
In times of precariousness and competition, fair conditions, open spaces, and genuine solidarity are crucial for cultural effectiveness. Felizitas Stilleke provided an insight into the topics covered in the workshops and made a plea for attitude, sustainability, and shared responsibility.
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Under Pressure
© Dorothea Tuch
06 Oct 2025
The BUNDESTREFFEN25 of the Independent Performing Arts at HAU Hebbel am Ufer in Berlin, with its motto “The Show Must Go On,” provided an opportunity for coming together, exchanging views, taking stock, discussions and looking to the future. Impressions of the two-day event by cultural journalist Thomas Kaestle.
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Freie Darstellende Künste in Deutschland
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The big swimming pool feeling
© Christian Knieps
15 Sep 2025
The theater group pulk fiktion receives the fund's Tabori Prize 2025. Hannah Biedermann and Lisa Zehetner, the artistic directors, talk to Christine Wahl about the Tabori Prize 2025.
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Don't isolate yourselves
© Sebastian Bolesch
11 Sep 2025
In this era of austerity and a shift to the right, isolation is the wrong tactic at the wrong time, according to cultural journalist Janis El-Bira, who calls for unity. An assessment of the current situation in the independent performing arts.
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Perhaps we’re the minority after all.
© Christian Knieps
05 Sep 2025
What to do when so much speaks against the liberal arts? A plea for a reversal of the idea of wanting to reach everyone. - Cultural journalist Tobi Müller on the technological, political, and artistic reasons why thinking in terms of large numbers and majorities has even taken hold in the world of subsidized art. An uncomfortable essay in uncomfortable times in the run-up to the “BUNDESTREFFEN25 der Freien Darstellenden Künste”.
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Art needs reliability – the time to act is now
© Benjamin Krieg
04 Sep 2025
Systematic funding requires the corresponding political will - A personal contribution by Holger Bergmann, managing director of the Fonds Darstellende Künste
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Tabori Prize 2025 | Winners announced
18 Aug 2025
The 2025 Tabori Prize of the Fonds Darstellende Künste goes to pulk fiktion. What makes their work special? What themes do they explore? This clip about the Tabori winners provides brief insights into their past productions.
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The Art of Staying Many: What role does art play in our times?
© Dorothea Tuch
30 Jul 2025
Under the title “The Art of Staying Many,” playwright and writer Sascha Marianna Salzmann, performance artist and founder of the Center for Political Beauty Philipp Ruch, and FAZ feature editor and author Simon Strauß discussed the role of art. Sophie Gartmann was a guest in the audience—an essayistic reflection.
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C the Unseen - Vlog zur Kulturhauptstadt Chemnitz 2025
© Lora Ganeva + Rike Oehlrich
30 Jul 2025
Die Kulturhauptstadt Chemnitz 2025 hat sich das Motto "C the Unseen" gegeben. Lora Ganeva und Rike Oehlrich haben Passant*innen in den Straßen Chemnitz nach ihrem Verständnis des Slogans gefragt.
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Where East German mopeds and pedigree poodles meet
© Silvan Hagenbrock
30 Jul 2025
Parking spaces, workshops and social meeting places – the garage yards in Chemnitz are much more than ordinary car parks. Built in the GDR era, they exude a feeling that’s often hard to find these days: a genuine sense of community. As part of the city’s Capital of Culture program, the garage owners are opening their wooden doors to the public and to art. A reportage by Ella Rendtorff
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