The general assembly of the German ITI Centre and the election of the new presidium took place on November 10, as part of the euro-scene Leipzig festival. President Yvonne Büdenhölzer (Director of Suhrkamp Theater Verlag) as well as Vice Presidents Holger Schultze (Director of the Heidelberg Theatre and Orchestra) and Tobias Veit (Director of the Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz, Berlin) were unanimously confirmed in their positions for a further three years.
The General Assembly was preceded by the awarding of the Prize of the German ITI 2024 to the KULA Compagnie on November 9. Yvonne Büdenhölzer and Managing Director Thomas Engel presented the €3,000 prize to 15 company members who were present and three more connected via video.
‘21 actors from Germany, France, Italy, Russia, Israel, Iran and Afghanistan have countered speechlessness with a seven-language response to the world's obsession with the demons of the past,’ said the laudatory speech for “Dibbuk- zwischen (zwei) Welten”, one of KULA's most recent works.
Afghan actress Tahera Rezaie gave the acceptance speech on behalf of the 50-strong theatre ensemble. She was part of the Simorgh Theatre from Herat and, like the other women in the theatre group, had to go underground after the Taliban seized power in 2021. With the support of the KULA Compagnie, she was able to flee to Germany. According to the artist, exile gave her a completely new perspective on working on stage and plays an even more important role for her today than it did in Afghanistan. ‘It's a place to tell unheard stories, sometimes even a place to scream.’
Photo: Tom Dachs