The Goethe Medal, the most important prize in Germany's foreign cultural policy, was awarded in Weimar on Wednesday, August 28, in the presence of the Minister of Culture, Arts and Heritage, Carolina Arredondo Marzán, German authorities and the winners from North Macedonia, Mexico and Chile.
In the context of the award ceremony, the world premiere of the play VACA by Chilean playwright Guillermo Calderón took place at the prestigious Kunstfest Weimar, which had two performances in Weimar.
The Goethe Medal is a recognition that dates back to 1955, is awarded once a year, and seeks to highlight candidates who highlight the artistic work and work on cultural policies in their countries of origin. This is the first time that a Chilean woman receives this award.
In a ceremony with 200 guests from around the world, the Goethe Medal 2024 was awarded on Wednesday, August 28 -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's birthday- at the Weimarhalle congress center in the city of Weimar, Germany, where the director and co-founder of the Teatro a Mil Festival, Carmen Romero Quero, became the first Chilean woman to receive the award. She was joined by art historian and cultural manager Iskra Geshoska, from North Macedonia, and Mexican literary translator and interpreter Claudia Cabrera.
Amid applause, the Goethe Medal 2024 was presented by the president of the Goethe-Institut, Carola Lentz, to Carmen Romero Quero, highlighting the contribution of the cultural manager to the development of the performing arts in Chile and in international circuits .
"Of the 31 years of the Teatro a Mil Festival, in 20 we have counted with the participation of Germany. Countless directors, playwrights, companies and actors have impressed us, moved us, moved us. They have also left us perplexed, sometimes with rage or full of discomfort. If there is a nation that coincides with our vision that the performing arts are fundamental in the life of a country and its citizens, it is Germany, whose cultural institutions, especially the Goethe-Institut Chile, we have to thank for having accompanied and welcomed our artists from Chile and Latin America during the dark times of the dictatorship and in all these years of democratic reconstruction. We celebrate this cultural policy open to the international that we hope will be maintained, because we need it to continue opening European circuits to Latin American arts", said Carmen Romero Quero, general director of Fundación Teatro a Mil and co-founder of the Teatro a Mil International Festival, She also thanked the Chilean authorities present at the ceremony -the Minister of Cultures, Arts and Heritage, Carolina Arredondo, and the Chilean Ambassador to Germany, Magdalena Atria-, her family, who also accompanied her in Weimar, and the team of Fundación Teatro a Mil, especially her partner, friend and co-founder of Teatro a Mil, Evelyn Campbell.
"Carmen Romero takes Chile to the stages of the world, and at the same time, brings to Chile the vanguard of international performing arts. She constantly generates excellent collaborations and has a gift for recognizing emerging artists. I admire her work for the promotion of cultural education, because creative exchange and face-to-face communication between people are an essential part of democracy, values that we share with Fundación Teatro a Mil," says Verena Lehmkuhl, director of the Goethe-Institut Chile.
With almost seven decades of history, the Goethe Medal has been awarded to great historical figures from 70 countries, such as Dogan Akhanlı, Daniel Barenboim, Pierre Bourdieu, David Cornwell aka John le Carré, Princess Marilyn Douala Manga Bell, Elvira Espejo Ayca, Ernst Gombrich, Sofia Gubaidulina, Ágnes Heller, Wen Hui, Neil MacGregor, Ian McEwan, Ariane Mnouchkine, Tali Nates, Shirin Neshat, Sandbox Collective (Nimi Ravindran and Shiva Pathak), Irina Scherbakowa, Jorge Semprún, Yoko Tawada, Robert Wilson, Helen Wolff and Chilean Antonio Skármeta. The jury, made up of specialists in science, art and culture, based its decision on the relevance of the nominees in cultural policy and their artistic work in their respective countries .
The ceremony was also attended by Carolina Arredondo Marzán, Minister of Culture, Arts and Heritage of Chile; Katja Keul, Federal Minister of Foreign Affairs of Germany; Benjamin Immanuel Hoff, Chancellor of the State of Thuringia, Head of the State Chancellery and Minister of Culture, Federal and European Affairs of Thuringia; and the Mayor of Weimar, Peter Kleine.
"With this Goethe Medal 2024 the career and management of Carmen Romero is recognized, but also the cultural work that represents our country in the world is valued, since this award is the most important of the German foreign cultural policy. From our Ministry of Culture, Arts and Heritage we value this well-deserved recognition to a woman who has done a fundamental and essential work in the Chilean cultural field. It is a distinction for the work of a renowned cultural manager who has undoubtedly strengthened the national scene," emphasizes Carolina Arredondo Marzán, Minister of Culture, Arts and Heritage.
Carmen Romero and the other two recipients of the medal, Claudia Cabrera and Iskra Geshoska, participated in various activities related to the award in Weimar and Berlin, including a discussion on cultural diversity and artistic work in their respective countries.
VACA has its world premiere at leading German festival
The Kunstfest Weimar, an interdisciplinary arts festival held annually in the city of Weimar, Germany, where different artistic expressions are presented that allow audiences to be part of innovative scenic proposals, will continue until September 6. Among them, the world premiere of VACA, the most recent creation of Chilean playwright and director Guillermo Calderón, took place this week at the Redoute space of the National Theater of Weimar. The play, co-produced by Fundación Teatro a Mil, ArtsEmerson (United States) and with the support of the Goethe-Institut, premiered on August 25 with a cast made up of Luis Cerda, Camila Brito and Francisca Lewin, who bring to life a satire on the media and the limits of human cruelty. The play, which was applauded in its two performances in Weimar, will arrive in Chile in January 2025 for the Teatro a Mil International Festival.
As part of the premiere of VACA, on Monday, August 26, Guillermo Calderón and Carmen Romero participated in a discussion with Thomas Oberender, president of the Goethe Medal Commission.
Biography of Carmen Romero Quero
Carmen Romero Quero, born in 1958 in La Calera, is a world reference in the field of cultural management in the performing arts. She is co-founder of the Teatro a Mil International Festival and the Teatro a Mil Foundation, a leading Chilean institution in the cultural field. With more than 30 years of history, the festival has presented theater, dance, performance and contemporary music of excellence, setting trends in Latin America and Europe.
Since 1994, Romero has been an activist advocate for high quality art accessible to all. In 2004, she co-created the aforementioned foundation, with the aim of expanding cultural capital in her country and democratizing access to the arts through training, dissemination and creation projects, promoting cultural networks for global collaboration. His work has earned him outstanding international awards and recognitions.
About the evaluation committee
Candidates are nominated by the Goethe-Instituts around the world in consultation with the German diplomatic missions abroad. On the basis of these nominations, the Goethe Medal Award Committee (expert jury), composed of personalities from science, art and culture in Germany, draws up a selection which is confirmed by the Executive Board of the Goethe-Institut.
The committee for the award of the Goethe Medal 2024 consisted of René Aguigah (presenter and head of the department "Literature, Philosophy, Religion" at Deutschlandfunk Kultur, Berlin), Olga Grjasnowa (writer, Vienna), Julia Grosse (Artistic Director Contemporary And, Berlin), Anna Henckel-Donnersmarck (Curator and Director of Berlinale Shorts, Berlin), Matthias Lilienthal (Playwright and Director, Munich/Berlin), Thomas Oberender (Author and Curator, Berlin), Antje Rávik Strubel (Author, Potsdam), Andrea Zschunke (Head of Music WDR3, Cologne); on behalf of the Federal Foreign Office Stefan Rössel (Delegate for Foreign Cultural Policy); on behalf of the Goethe-Institut: Carola Lentz (President of the Goethe-Institut) and Johannes Ebert (Secretary General of the Goethe-Institut).
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