Jury statement
Das The jury is delighted to award the German Dance Prize to Rafaële Giovanola in recognition of 25 years of exceptional artistic achievement and her pioneering contribution to contemporary dance.
In 2000, when Rafaële Giovanola and her partner Rainald Endraß were invited to the Avignon Off Festival, their company needed a name. At that time, she was creating a garden performance using cloth wrapped around the body, which reminded her of a cocoon. Thus, the CocoonDance Company was born. Since then, Rafaële Giovanola has pursued an uncompromising artistic path, insisting on challenging pre-existing perceptions of the body, human presence, and relationships.
Her extraordinary stamina in observing and exploring a single topic is what makes her work unmistakable. Her relentless curiosity and ability to merge unfamiliar movement practices give rise to kaleidoscopic creatures: figures that exist between human and insect, plant and avatar, or machine—magical beings unlike any seen before. She is at home in the search for a body that does not yet exist.
In 2004/2005, the Ballsaal in Bonn became the home of CocoonDance. Since then, Rafaële Giovanola has created nearly 50 works within the framework of the Ballsaal and, since 2020, as Associate Artist at the Théâtre du Crochetan in the Swiss Alpine city of Monthey, her hometown. She has developed educational formats in both cities through junior companies, where anybody is welcome to join. This reflects her dedication to connecting dance with young people, giving them access to the art form, and making dance accessible to everyone. The same commitment also inspired the development of the MoveApp.
Like the name of her company, she has created her own cocoon within the dance world.
The jury celebrates Rafaële Giovanola not only for her outstanding body of work, but also for her enduring influence on contemporary dance. Her artistic legacy continues to inspire future generations and enrich the field with imagination, rigor, and originality.
Jury Statement
Dancer, teacher, choreographer, ballet director – Martin Schläpfer has dedicated his life to dance.
Whether as a dancer in Basel under Heinz Spoerli or as chief choreographer and ballet director at the Stadttheater Bern, at ballettmainz at the Staatstheater Mainz, at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf and Duisburg, and at the Vienna State Ballet – Martin Schläpfer has consistently developed artistic expression of the highest calibre. Through this struggle, exploration and creation, he has impressed as a dancer and led the ballet companies with which he worked as a choreographer and director to excellence.
Cultivating classical technique is just as important to him as developing his own movement language from it. The use of pointe shoes is just one example of how classical technique and vocabulary are reflected upon and re-contextualised within the choreographic exploration of the present. Martin Schläpfer has shaped generations of dancers who engage with the times, ‘face the wind’, contribute passionately and, at the same time, detach themselves from their own selves.
For decades, Martin Schläpfer has brought his creations to the stage almost without respite. His choreographic oeuvre comprises over 80 works created for his ensembles, as well as world premieres for the Bavarian State Ballet Munich, Het Nationale Ballet Amsterdam and the Stuttgart Ballet.
He saw his dual role as choreographer and director as an essential link – enabling him to shape the structures for the art form and to facilitate its development. Martin Schläpfer has not only strengthened the visibility and structures of the companies with which he has worked. With the initiative for the Ballet Centre of the Oper am Rhein Düsseldorf/Duisburg (built in 2013/14), he set a special example – for the future of ballet and for contemporary working conditions in dance.
When he stepped down as director of the Vienna State Ballet in June 2025, Martin Schläpfer could look back on 50 years of dance work, including 31 consecutive seasons as ballet director. The Swiss-born artist has shaped and transformed the dance and ballet landscape in Germany in an extraordinary way – both in terms of artistic development and institutional structures.
The jury of the German Dance Prize honours Martin Schläpfer with the Honour for Lifetime Achievement.
Jury statement
Anyone who tries to find a category for Joy Alpuerto Ritter’s dance quality, expressive power, and fields of activity will inevitably fail. She impresses not only in her own works and within the styles and companies of others, but also as a workshop leader and mediator within communities. Born in Los Angeles, raised in Freiburg, and accompanied there by cultural practices such as traditional Filipino folk dance on her mother’s side, the dancer transcends stylistic boundaries. She completed her dance diploma at the Palucca School in Dresden. Her artistic path has led her to collaborate with choreographers such as Christoph Winkler, Constanza Macras, and Yui Kawaguchi.
She has expanded her practice by participating in dance battles, engaging with their rules and aesthetics, and is therefore closely connected to both the voguing and hip-hop scenes. The success of her ability to move fluidly between styles is particularly evident in engagements such as with Cirque du Soleil, as a dancer and aerial artist for the Michael Jackson Immortal World Tour, as choreographer for the Friedrichstadt-Palast Berlin production Falling | In Love, and as dancer and rehearsal director for the globally touring Akram Khan Company.
How does Joy Alpuerto Ritter dance in her own distinctive voice? In her work Oz – The Magic Within Us (2025), created for Theater Junges Tanzhaus in Berlin-Neukölln, she dances the Lion—tentatively padding across the stage in search of courage. In the piece Babae (2022), she brings Mary Wigman’s Witch Dance to the stage, catapulting this icon of modern dance into the 21st century through a choreographic commentary that combines voguing and traditional Filipino dance.
Joy Alpuerto Ritter is a boundary-crosser who effortlessly moves between genres, stages, and spheres of activity – commenting on them, serving them, or merging them – always with her own signature: a powerful lightness.
With great appreciation for her work, the jury of the German Dance Award 2027 therefore honours Joy Alpuerto Ritter in the category “Outstanding Performer.” Congratulations.
