Jury

Sofie Luckhardt works in artistic production, dramaturgy, and cultural work. Between 2017 and 2019, she was involved in the production of Tanz im August – International Festival Berlin. From 2018 until the end of 2022, she was part of the performance group THE AGENCY. From 2020 until mid-2025, she worked closely with caner teker. Since 2023, she has also supported artists such as Ana Lessing Menjibar and collaboratively develops thematic formats with fellow collaborators. In 2020, she participated in the Academy for Performing Arts Producers, and in 2021 co-moderated the alumni group on working structures. In 2023, she was among the participants in the Cifas Producers Academy as part of Kunstenfestivaldesarts. Between 2020 and 2024, she served on the board of ID_Frankfurt e.V. Since 2020, she has been active in produktionsbande – network performing arts producers, serving on the interim coordination team and, from 2022 until September 2025, on the coordination team with a focus on formats. Since September 2025, she has been Artistic Advisor to the Artistic Director Felix Rothenhäusler at Theater Freiburg.

André Schallenberg is from Jena and studied Applied Theatre Studies in Giessen. From 2009 to 2011, he worked as a research associate at the Chair of Theatre Research at the University of Hamburg (under Nikolaus Müller-Schöll) before becoming Head of the Artistic Production Office of the Ruhrtriennale under the artistic direction of Heiner Goebbels in 2011. Starting in 2014, he worked as a project manager at PACT Zollverein in Essen, where he was, among other responsibilities, overall project manager for Tanzplattform Deutschland 2018. Since 2018, he has been Program Director for Theatre and Dance at HELLERAU – European Centre for the Arts in Dresden.

Honji Wang is a choreographer and dancer born and raised in Germany with Korean roots. Her artistic practice is grounded in hip-hop and shaped by early influences from martial arts and ballet. In 2010, together with Sébastien Ramirez, she founded the dance company Wang Ramirez, of which she is Artistic Director. The company develops its own dance theater productions and has created choreographies for external companies and institutions, pursuing an approach that combines movement, light, and technical stage elements such as rigging into a coherent artistic expression. In 2013, Wang Ramirez received the New York Dance and Performance Award in the category “Outstanding Performance.”

Heike Wrede has been working as a freelance dancer, choreographer and dance educator for over 25 years. Currently she is based in Kassel. She received her training in Stuttgart and San Francisco at the DanceVision Institute, has worked with BodyCartography Project, Rosy Simas and Antje Pfundtner in various productions in Germany and the USA. Her own choreographic works have been presented in Germany, Austria and the United States. She conveys her approach of combining authentic movement with the creative process in various contexts, including at ImPulsTanz in Vienna, and is currently exploring it further in collaboration with a transatlantic working group. As a founding member of tanz*werk Kassel e.V., she was active on the board for several years. Within the framework of the funding programme ‘Kopf hoch, Kassel’, established to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, she contributed as a jury member in the field of art and culture. Since 2023, she has been a member of the newly founded Cultural Advisory Council of the City of Kassel, where she represents the dance and theatre sector.

The choreographer, dancer, curator, speaker and activist Raphael Moussa Hillebrand was born in Hong Kong. He grew up in Berlin with German and West African roots. Starting out in the field of hip-hop, he completed a master’s degree in choreography at the University of the Arts – HZT Berlin in 2014. His work fuses movement and language, resulting in creative journeys through decolonial narratives that encourage audiences to stop and think. For over 20 years, he has been building creative connections with dancers worldwide as a member of the groups Battle Squad and Animatronik, as well as through collaborations with various arts institutions. As a creative force and founding member of the hip-hop party Die Urbane, he advocates for decolonisation, empowerment and cultural diversity. In 2020, he was awarded the German Dance Prize for outstanding artistic achievements. His latest theatre piece ‘2050 – Our Utopias’ premiered at Radialsystem Berlin in October 2024.

Sofie Luckhardt works in artistic production, dramaturgy and cultural practice. Between 2017 and 2019 she was involved in the production of ‘Tanz im August – Internationales Festival Berlin’. From 2018 until the end of 2022, she was a member of the performance collective ‘THE AGENCY’. She collaborated closely with caner teker from 2020 until mid-2025. Since 2023, she has also been working with artists such as Ana Lessing Menjibar and developing theme-based formats together with collaborators. She took part in the Academy for Performing Arts Producer in 2020 and co-moderated the alumni group on working structures in 2021. In 2023, she was a participant in the Cifas Producers Academy as part of the Kunstenfestivaldesarts. From 2020 to 2024, she was on the board of ID_Frankfurt e.V. Since 2020, she has been active within ‘produktionsbande – netzwerk performing arts producers’, where she was part of the interim coordination team and the contact person for the ‘Fokus Formate’ since 2022. As of September 2025, she will take on the role of artistic advisor to the artistic director Felix Rothenhäusler at the Freiburg theatre.

Following her degree in general and applied linguistics, Melanie Suchy worked for institutions that fund arts and culture, including the German Music Council and the Performing Arts Fund. She later completed a master’s degree in music theatre, theatre and dance criticism at the Hessian Theatre Academy in Frankfurt am Main and has been working as a freelance journalist and critic since 2006. She writes mainly about dance, performance and theatre for local and regional newspapers (such as Rhein-Main-Zeitung/FAZ, Wiesbadener Kurier), for trade journals (tanz, Die Deutsche Bühne) and internet portals, as well as for festival publications, from her home bases in Frankfurt am Main and Düsseldorf. She has been the editor of the Festschriften for the German Dance Award since 2018 and is a regular member of selection panels for awards, funding programmes and festivals, including the German Dance Platforms 2010 and 2022, and Augenblick Mal! 2015. She also teaches a course on ‘Tanz aktuell’ at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen.

Heike Wrede has been working as a freelance dancer, choreographer and dance educator for over 25 years, currently based in Kassel. She received her training in Stuttgart and San Francisco at the DanceVision Institute, has worked with BodyCartography Project, Rosy Simas and Antje Pfundtner in various productions in Germany and the USA. Her own choreographic works have been presented in Germany, Austria and the United States. She conveys her approach of combining authentic movement with the creative process in various contexts, including at ImPulsTanz in Vienna, and is currently exploring it further in collaboration with a transatlantic working group. As a founding member of tanz*werk Kassel e.V., she was active on the board for several years. Within the framework of the funding programme ‘Kopf hoch, Kassel’, established to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, she contributed as a jury member in the field of art and culture. Since 2023, she has been a member of the newly founded Cultural Advisory Council of the City of Kassel, where she represents the dance and theatre sector.

Esther Boldt works as an author and as a dance and theatre critic for different media outlets including nachtkritik.de, Theater heute, tanz Zeitschrift, Deutschlandfunkkultur and HR2 Kultur. She has also written essays on contemporary aesthetics in the performing arts for various publications and is co-editor of the three-volume series ‘Radical Proximity’, which was published to mark the 20^th anniversary of PACT Zollverein in Essen. She teaches theatre criticism at the universities of Frankfurt and Mainz and, together with Philipp Schulte, has been leading the part-time higher education programme ‘Akademie für zeitgenössischen Theaterjournalismus’ (Academy for Contemporary Theatre Journalism) since 2019, which was initiated by the Alliance of International Production Houses. She has served on various selection panels, including for the German Dance Platform 2014, the Else Lasker-Schüler Prize and the 2019 Autorentheatertage at the Deutsches Theater.

The choreographer, dancer, curator, speaker and activist Raphael Moussa Hillebrand was born in Hong Kong. He grew up in Berlin with German and West African roots. Starting out in the field of hip-hop, he completed a master’s degree in choreography at the University of the Arts – HZT Berlin in 2014. His work fuses movement and language, resulting in creative journeys through decolonial narratives that encourage audiences to stop and think. For over 20 years, he has been building creative connections with dancers worldwide as a member of the groups Battle Squad and Animatronik, as well as through collaborations with various arts institutions. As a creative force and founding member of the hip-hop party Die Urbane, he advocates for decolonisation, empowerment and cultural diversity. In 2020, he was awarded the German Dance Prize for outstanding artistic achievements. His latest theatre piece ‘2050 – Our Utopias’ premiered at Radialsystem Berlin in October 2024.

Hanna Knell studied theatre, film and media studies, visual anthropology and theatre and orchestra management in Frankfurt am Main and Seville. Since 2010, she has worked at Künstler:innenhaus Mousonturm, at the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts and in the independent dance and performance scene in Hessen, among other places. From 2018 to 2021, she was co-director of the experimental production venue Frankfurt LAB while also, in 2018, being part of the senior management team of the site-specific festival IMPLANTIEREN. Since 2021, she has been working as an advisor at the Crespo Foundation, responsible for the fields of dance, art as social practice and cultural education.

Philipp Schaus is a dance dramaturg and curator. Currently he is working at tanzhaus nrw in Düsseldorf, where he curates the young talent platform ‘Now&Next’ and is part of the organisation’s overall programming team. He co-curated the programme series ‘dances of transgression’ (2024/2025) and ‘Raving Choreographies’ (2023), as well as the festival ‘Volume Up’ (2022) together with Olivia Hyunsin Kim, and the the festival ‘Moving Concrete’ (2021) together with the collective nutrospektif. With Sebastian Matthias, he developed and realised the research laboratory ‘Post Internet Dances’ (2023). He is co-founder of the digital climate art conference ‘#ClimArtCon’ (2019) and a fellow of the International Summer Program at the Watermill Center in New York City/USA. In 2023/2024, he was awarded the Marie Zimmermann Fellowship for dramaturgy. He has worked for the Gorki Theatre in Berlin, the Munich Kammerspiele, the Zadar Snova Festival in Croatia and for Robert Wilson.

Following her degree in general and applied linguistics, Melanie Suchy worked for institutions that fund arts and culture, including the German Music Council and the Performing Arts Fund. She later completed a master’s degree in music theatre, theatre and dance criticism at the Hessian Theatre Academy in Frankfurt am Main and has been working as a freelance journalist and critic since 2006. She writes mainly about dance, performance and theatre for local and regional newspapers (such as Rhein-Main-Zeitung/FAZ, Wiesbadener Kurier), for trade journals (tanz, Die Deutsche Bühne) and internet portals, as well as for festival publications, from her home bases in Frankfurt am Main and Düsseldorf. She has been the editor of the Festschriften for the German Dance Award since 2018 and is a regular member of selection panels for awards, funding programmes and festivals, including the German Dance Platforms 2010 and 2022, and Augenblick Mal! 2015. She also teaches a course on ‘Tanz aktuell’ at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen.