ITI-Centre Prize awarded on World Theatre Day

The German Centre of the International Theatre Institute is pleased to announce this Year's Recipient of the World Theatre Day Prize

If there is anything that characterizes the artistic efforts of the composer and director Heiner Goebbels it is crossing boundaries. His music theatre works, his concerts and installations are not only visible on international stages, their point of departure is the encounter between international theatre artists and international artistic cooperation. His work draws equally from Gertrude Stein, Heiner Müller and the texts of Elias Canetti and Alain Robbe-Grillets. His productions arise in conjunction with African and Greek musicians, the Ensemble Modern, with actor André Wilms, Swedish performer Charlotte Engelkes, Israeli video artist Michal Rovner, based in New York, and the Japanese musician Yumiko Tanaka. In addition to his domicile of choice, Lausanne's Théatre Vidy, the long list of Heiner Goebbels' co-producers and partners include schauspielfrankfurt, Festival d'Automne Paris, the Vienna Festwochen and Berlin's Festspiele / spielzeiteuropa.

The work of Heiner Goebbels crosses the borders between music, theatre, and the plastic arts. It combines and deconstructs musical material and texts alike, playing with the conventions of the theatre and drawing inspiration from discourses on contemporary art. In Goebbels' compositions and performances there is a merger of music and mise-en-scene, sound and light - an offer to the listener/spectator to participate actively in the performance. Breaking down the barrier to this essential partner in the creative process is the explicit intention of these works of art. They cross the strategies of our perception, transgress the limits of experience and what we think we know.

For many years Heiner Goebbels has focused on artistic exchange, passing on his own expertise and promoting young people. He has held a professorial chair at Giessen's Institute for Applied Theatre Studies since 1999. He is a member of the Academy of Performing Arts and the Academy of Arts in Berlin and a co-founder of the Hessian Theatre Academy. Also worthy of note is Goebbels' curatorial work at places such as the Akademie Musiktheater Heute as well as his service on the jury of the Plateaux Festival at Frankfurt's Künstlerhaus Mousonturm.

On the occasion of World Theatre Day 2006 ITI Germany is proud to honour Heiner Goebbels as one of the most renowned German artists whose international works cannot be confined to any one genre or country.