Jury statement
Following the life of a novel character, observing her weaknesses and strengths and preparing a stage for her stages - this is what Christian Spuck did in 2023 with Bovary, his first production with the Staatsballett Berlin.
Flaubert's novel Madame Bovary was read in the ballet hall and questions about ‘how in space’ were explored. Spuck entrusted the title role to Weronika Frodyma, for whom Bovary then became a steppingstone in 2024: Promotion to first soloist and award as Dancer of the Year in the magazine Tanz.
Even before Christian Spuck took over as artistic director of the Staatsballett Berlin, audiences in Stuttgart, Zurich and around the world knew him as a choreographer with a talent for music. Christian Spuck was trained in the John Cranko tradition, gained experience in contemporary movement language, for example with Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, established himself as a choreographer at numerous theatres, worked successfully as an opera director of great composers from the Baroque to the present day and was celebrated as director of the Zurich Ballet.
Every change of artistic director poses the fundamental question for an entire theatre: What will change? What will remain? Above all: how? In Berlin, Christian Spuck chose a sympathetic path that drew audiences back into the theatres and gave the Berlin company the chance to change its style: As an artist and advocate of the arts at the same time, Spuck was able to shape the Staatsballett Berlin with a varied programme and new formats for encounters with artists and audiences, combining the long familiar with the still uncertain. At the same time, new dialogue formats with audiences and artists get to the bottom of questions about the uncomfortable.
Spuck remains in conversation, in dialogue with people. He shapes and pursues this path with the intuition of a dancer, the curiosity of a choreographer and the vision of an artistic director.
The jury is delighted to award Christian Spuck the German Dance Award for his courageous, clear, persistent and outstandingly successful new start with the Staatsballett Berlin!
Jury Statement
Gabriele Brandstetter is undoubtedly the pioneer of dance studies. Her great, internationally recognized achievement is the establishment of the subject as an independent university discipline.
Trained in theatre and literary studies, she devoted herself to dance from an interdisciplinary perspective at an early stage. In her work, she always combines aspects of theatre, music, art and literature studies, thus cultivating a way of thinking that transcends and overcomes disciplinary boundaries with dance at the centre.
The stages of her impressive career speak for themselves: after professorships at the universities of Giessen and Basel, she was appointed to the Institute for Theatre Studies at the Free University of Berlin. There, in 2003, she founded Germany's first Master's degree course in dance studies - with a decidedly cultural studies focus - as well as the Centre for Movement Research. Gabriele Brandstetter has initiated countless collaborations between dance, art and science, accepted international guest professorships and is the recipient of high-calibre awards (including the Federal Cross of Merit).
In her publications, but also in the research projects, exhibitions, conferences and festivals for which she is responsible, dance never coagulates into mere theory; it always remains a living movement. Gabriele Brandstetter's approach to dance is characterized by precise observation and the exchange between artists and academics on an equal footing.
This last point is characterized by the establishment of the Valeska Gert Guest Professorship at the FU Berlin, which she initiated in cooperation with the AdK and the DAAD. For 20 years, students have had the opportunity to work closely with well-known dance artists for a semester and thus train their theoretical considerations in practice.
Gabriele Brandstetter has literally set thinking - not only, but above all about dance - in dynamic motion(s) and has thus changed and expanded the concept of science as a whole. The central place that dance studies has been given in the round of the arts and humanities over the decades is inextricably linked to her person. With this in mind, the jury of the German Dance Award honours Professor Gabriele Brandstetter with the award for outstanding development in dance.
Jury statement
Tadashi Endo's life is deeply connected with Butoh dance. Tadashi Endo is a great master of this dance. Butoh is expressive dance, radical and expressive, and was founded in Japan in the 1950s by Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno. Butoh is not limited to fixed forms or techniques, but emphasises the emotional connection of the dancer with his body and the world that arises in the moment of the dance.
After studying at the Max Reinhard Seminar in Vienna, Tadashi Endo worked at various German theatres. However, he soon began to search for freedom in theatre creation, which he finally found in his encounter with Kazuo Ono.
MA is "the emptiness", "that between things", an "in between", which Tadashi Endo makes visible in very subtle transformations and which he radiates with extreme concentration and body control. All of this turns his dance into a representation of motionless movement. His body is at rest even though he is dancing. He does not dance - he is danced.
As artificial as his dance is, Tadashi Endo is closely connected to the world we live in. His pieces deal with the pandemic, war and drowning people in the Mediterranean. They are about the search for the soul of humanity, about human solidarity, about the path to a great community.
Tadashi Endo has brought this message of the strength and fragility of humanity to the dance, theatre and opera stages. In Germany, he became known to a large audience in ‘Kirschblüten-Hanami’ by Doris Dörrie.
Tadashi Endo is a great master and teacher of Butoh. With his MAMU Festival and the Butoh Centrum MAMU, dance has found space and perception, a home and a centre in Germany. From here, he has inspired dancers in Germany and Europe and brought his art to the world.
For this outstanding contribution to the dance scene, the jury of the German Dance Award will posthumously honour Tadashi Endo with the Lifetime Achievement Award.
