The German Dance Award honors exceptional dance personalities in Germany. At the end of March, the jury (Chairperson: Dr. Patricia Stöckemann) selected this year’s recipients. The German Dance Prize 2022 for Marco Goecke and Christoph Winkler is endowed with 10,000 euros, respec-tively. The honorary prize for Reinhild Hoffmann is also endowed with 10,000 euros. The honorary award for Aktion Tanz is accompanied by a grant of 5,000 euros.

The award ceremony for Germany’s highest recognition in the field of dance – German Dance Prize 2022 – will take place at the Aalto Theater in Essen on Saturday, October 15, 2022.

With this year’s German Dance Prize bestowed on two recipients, the jury deliberately intends to honor two artists jointly. One artist, who choreographs mainly for established theaters and the other artist, who creates his work as part of the independent dance scene. For this decision, the jury explains:
 
"What stands out about Goecke's work is its contribution to the development of modern dance. First, by the dance vocabulary’s originality and distinctiveness for which he is known and which is repeatedly evident in the way he explores and interprets human movement. Goecke produces work that is also deeply contemplative and emotional. Each individual gesture, at once feverish and powerfully fluid, is a compellingly unusual image every time."

"Christoph Winkler's artistic works encompass a wide spectrum of the most diverse formats and approaches: uncompromising and unconditional, they range from political subject matter in the conflict between fascism and criticism of capitalism to poverty in old age, to very personal issues. He is interested in choreographic research for new forms, in the friction between dance and con-cept, questioning dramaturgical topics, not without demonstrating great humor, always in search of movement and story, with a great love for unadorned sound and blunt music, solid and fierce.”

The jury recognizes dancer, choreographer and director Reinhild Hoffmann with an honorary award for her life's work.
Excerpt from the jury’s statement:
"Reinhild Hoffmann belongs to the pioneering generation of German dance theater. Her artistic work has been of outstanding importance for dance in Germany. She has contributed to emanci-pating dance as a genre and anchoring it in art and society. As a dancer, choreographer and direc-tor, she has developed her own choreographic language of unmistakable pictorial imagination with great inventiveness from the 1970s onward."

To recognize its distinguished development in dance, this year’s jury has selected the non-profit organization Aktion Tanz – Bundesverband Tanz in Bildung und Gesellschaft e.V. (Action Dance – National Dance Association for Education and Society) in honor of the association's commitment to bring dance into our society. This award is endowed with 5,000 euros.

Further detailed information on the German Dance Award and this year's award winners can be found on the newly designed website www.deutschertanzpreis.de (in German and English).

Press release