Apart from its renowned opera houses, theaters, and ballet ensembles, Berlin is known for its wealth of very diverse dance and theater groups. Right now, there are somewhere between 250 and 300 theater and dance ensembles in the city, some of which meet the highest of professional standards and enjoy an international reputation. The Berlin Senate currently spends €9 million a year to support this independent theater and dance scene, with €4.7 million going to four-year concept financing and €4.6 million to fund individual projects, basic support, venues, and artists starting out.
The legal basis for support for Berlin’s independent theater and dance scene is the “General Directive on Support for Berlin Theaters and Theater and Dance Groups Operating under Private Law,” which was issued by the Berlin House of Representatives in 1998 and modified in 2008. The following overviewsummarizes the criteria for the various types of support.
Making support for the independent theater and dance scene as transparent and accessible as possible is the most important goal of this directive. To this end, various categories of support, each with different time limits, were established, along with application and award procedures based on evaluation by juries of experts.
The idea was to achieve a balance in funding policy that would help to preserve established groups of proven quality and, at the same time, make it possible to react to new developments in the theater and dance scene by setting new priorities that may also transcend genre boundaries.
As a result, the directive distinguishes between two types of support: longer-term concept financing, on the one hand, and short-term project financing, on the other, which is provided as funding for basic support, venues, individual projects, and artists starting out, regardless of genre.
Applicants for concept and project financing are evaluated by different juries at different times. However, this support structure is also based on the principle of interconnecting channels that not only allow movement between the various support systems, but are expressly set up to facilitate it.
Expert opinions and jury decisions can be found under “Funding recipients”.
Detailed information on how to apply can be found under “Applications and information”.
Deadlines for applications can be found in this overview.
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