Ruhrtriennale hosts Mortier Next Generation Award 2025

The Ruhrtriennale is hosting the Mortier Next Generation Award 2025 in cooperation with the Mortier Awards association. It is aimed at young artists and supports projects and productions that are inspired by Gerard Mortier’s visions or continue them.  

The winner will be given the opportunity to stage the submitted project as part of the Ruhrtriennale 2026. Prize money of 30,000 euros will be made available for this purpose. Winning the Mortier Next Generation Award is also associated with a fellowship of several months at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin.

Artists can apply until November 15, 2024, at mortier-awards@gmx.at. Anyone under the age of 35 by the submission deadline can take part. All applications must include a project description and a cost calculation for the project. Further details on the scope and form of the application and the terms and conditions of the competition can be found on the Mortier Awards website at www.mortierawards.eu/awards/next-generation-award. The award decision will be made by an independent jury in the first quarter of 2025. 

The Mortier Next Generation Award was created to keep the legacy of theatre visionary Gerard Mortier, who died in 2014, alive in the present day. It is awarded every two years by the Mortier Awards Association. The award honours people who strive to find new ways of artistic expression in the spirit of Mortier.

For more than three decades, Gerard Mortier was head of opera houses with a rich tradition and was the founding director of the Ruhrtriennale. ‘Making theatre means breaking through the routine of everyday life, questioning the acceptance of economic, political and military violence as status quo, sensitising the community (...) and affirming that the world can be better than it is‘, he writes in his latest book Dramaturgie einer Leidenschaft.

Every year, the Ruhrtriennale – the festival of the arts – invites contemporary artists to transform the monumental industrial architecture of the Ruhr metropolis into spectacular venues for theatre, dance, performance, concerts, installations and visual arts. This year, the Ruhrtriennale starts on August 16 and ends on September 15.

With best regards,

Stephanie Noack