Sasha Waltz receives the German Dance Award 2024

The choreographer, dancer and director Sasha Waltz is being awarded the German Dance Award 2024, which is endowed with €20,000, for her international appeal, her commitment to the structures of the independent dance scene and, above all, for her artistically unique and disciplinary-bursting oeuvre. The award ceremony will take place as part of a multifaceted dance gala on Saturday, October 12 at 7 pm at the Aalto-Theater Essen – organized by the Dachverband Tanz Deutschland.

The jury’s statement on the award: »As a dancer, choreographer and director whose life and work is centered in Berlin, she has been a key figure in the development of contemporary dance since the early 1990s. To this day, she has continued to develop her distinctive choreographic signature and aesthetic vision. Sasha Waltz is undisputedly one of Germany’s most renowned dance artists, both nationally and internationally. […] In close collaboration with her life and work partner Jochen Sandig, she has repeatedly opened up new spaces for dance including the founding of the Sophiensæle (1996) and the Radialsystem (2006) and attracted new audiences for dance both nationally and internationally. With Sasha Waltz & Guests, a company structure has been created that enables the artist to collaborate on large international projects as well as experiment with new forms and in which the company’s dancers are also empowered to be creative.

Sasha Waltz is a choreographer, dancer and director. She studied dance and choreography in Amsterdam and New York. Together with Jochen Sandig she founded the company Sasha Waltz & Guests in 1993 and was cofounder of the Sophiensaele (1996) and the Radialsystem (2006), two spaces for performing arts in Berlin. From 2000-2004 she was a member of the artistic direction of the Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz. In the season 2019/20 Sasha Waltz was director of the Berlin State Ballet together with Johannes Öhman. The development of innovative, interdisciplinary forms of performance and creation is an important focus of her artistic work, which ranges from internationally renowned dance pieces such as the »Travelogue« trilogy (1993-95) or »Körper« (2000) to choreographed operas (e.g. »Dido & Aeneas«, 2005) and exploratory dialogue projects (e.g. »Dialoge 09 – Neues Museum«). A central moment in her current choreographic work is the fusion of choreography and music (i.e. »SYM-PHONIE MMXX«, 2022 or »Beethoven 7«, 2023). In spring 2024, Sasha Waltz dedicated herself to Johann Sebastian Bach’s »St. John Passion« (BWV 245) to mark the 300th anniversary of its premiere. The production by the Opéra de Dijon in co-production with Sasha Waltz & Guests and the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées opened the Salzburg Easter Festival on March 22, 2024.

At the same time Sasha Waltz is committed to the transfer of dance knowledge and dance as a medium of social and socio-political understanding. In 2021, Sasha Waltz created the choreography »In C« based on Terry Riley‘s revolutionary and open score by the same name, which has since not only been successfully performed nationally and internationally, but has also developed into its own system with a growing community. The work consists of 53 choreographic figures that were recorded as video tutorials to facilitate the transfer of knowledge. Participatory, diverse, international and sustainable »In C« projects, workshop formats and ever new structures have developed and continue to develop from the material worldwide.

Sasha Waltz is a member of the Academy of Arts Berlin since 2013. In 2021 she was awarded the French cultural order »Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres«. Sasha