Theaterpreis des Bundes
HELLERAU – European Center for the Arts receives the Theaterpreis des Bundes, worth €200,000. The theater impresses with a clearly defined program that combines artistic quality and social responsibility. As an important venue for international perspectives and innovative residencies, the theater provides strong impetus.
“THE Theaterpreis des Bundes IS A VERY SPECIAL HONOR FOR US, AS IT REPRESENTS A GREAT APPRECIATION OF THE WORK OF MANY PEOPLE IN FRONT OF, ON, AND BEHIND THE STAGE. SO WE CAN REJOICE TOGETHER WITH THE ARTISTS AND OUR AUDIENCE! THE AWARD IS AN IMPORTANT RECOGNITION OF THE INTERNATIONAL WORK OF THE HELLERAU PRODUCTION HOUSE IN DRESDEN AND STRENGTHENS OUR COOPERATION WITH INDEPENDENT ARTISTS, PARTNERS AND NETWORKS NATIONALLY AND INTERNATIONALLY.”
Jury statement
HELLERAU has achieved an impressive programmatic balancing act: as a central production, residency and guest performance venue for the independent performing arts in eastern Germany, it combines regional roots with international perspectives and repeatedly takes a decisive stance in relation to its social environment. As a beacon of the independent performing arts and a promoter of artistic excellence, HELLERAU is reaching new heights and engaging in broad dialogue by combining artistic quality with social responsibility and political sensitivity. The center also repeatedly shines a spotlight on the artistic scenes in Central and Eastern Europe: Since Carena Schlewitt took over as artistic director in 2018, the program has focused on the transformation processes in Eastern Europe and eastern Germany since the collapse of the socialist state systems. The “Nebenan” series, for example, showcases contemporary art from regions where artists work under difficult political conditions, such as Ukraine, Hungary and Slovakia. Another unique feature is the center’s international and interdisciplinary residency program, which offers an artistic home to up to 40 artists from eastern Germany and Europe each year.
The special architecture of the historic festival hall itself repeatedly becomes the starting point for artistic work – for example, with the “Tanzformen” festival, which links to HELLERAU’s history as a place of physical and movement art. Under the title “Empowering Bodies,” choreographic works were recently brought together that understand dance as an expression of individual body images and as a form of resistance against social and political conditions.
HELLERAU counters the current tendency toward simplification with in-depth thematic explorations. With the project “SCHICHTEN,” for example, the center is dedicated to artistic practices of remembrance and commemoration, the transmission of war-time experiences and traumas, the silence in one’s own family narratives, and, in doing so, always reappraising the history of the institution itself – for example, with the Jewish Chamber Orchestra and its project on the forgotten composer Józef Koffler and the österreichische Ensemble für neue Musik, with its concert program “Musik versus Barbarei.”
Despite financial pressures and political attacks, time and again HELLERAU has succeeded in realizing an ambitious, independent and substantial program, thereby consistently standing up for the freedom of the arts.
HELLERAU is being awarded the Theaterpreis des Bundes for its outstanding programmatic achievements – the jury looks forward to further inspiration from the garden city and congratulates Carena Schlewitt and the center’s entire team for their services to the performing arts.
