The Swiss Grand Award for the Performing Arts / Hans Reinhart Ring 2021 goes to Martin Zimmermann.

Many thanks to the Federal Office of Culture and to all the people involved who made all the projects possible!

The award ceremony took place on October 28, 2021 at the new Théâtre du Jura in Delémont. The award ceremony can be viewed here.

Martin Zimmermann is a talented figure. His incomparable way of “staging” is difficult to categorise: he unquestionably has the capacity to permeate the various artistic disciplines of physical theatre, dance, circus and scenic installation with imagination and precision, and engage them in dialogue. His works deal with human sensibility, contradictions, weaknesses, fragility and violence. The multi-layered complexity of interwoven human relationships is wittily and absurdly derailed and de-dramatised, giving the audience a different vision of dialogue and reflection. He says: “In my work, bodies have material properties and objects a human dimension.” That combination opens up manifold potentials. Martin Zimmermann’s works are like kaleidoscopic images, in which multiple forms are created from a single beam of light.

Guillaume Guilherme, Chair of the Dance Jury
Nunzia Tirelli, jury member