The International Ibsen Prize is something like the Nobel Prize for theatre, awarded every two years by the Norwegian government and endowed with 2.5 million crowns, the equivalent of almost 260,000 euros. This year, the Australian Back to Back Theater will be honored with it. Based in Geelong, near Melbourne, the inclusive theater company tours the world with its innovative, humanistic, critically acclaimed productions and performs at major theater festivals. The fact that the Ibsen Prize, which was launched in 2007, is not euro-centric was already evident at the last award in 2020, when the US playwright and performance artist Taylor Mac was honored with it. The previous award winners were famous European directors, music theater and author personalities: Peter Brook, Ariane Mnouchkine, Jon Fosse, Heiner Goebbels, Peter Handke, Christoph Marthaler and the British theater group Forced Entertainment – yes, in fact there is only one woman among them.
Founded in 1987, Back to Back Theater (BtBT) is a neurodiverse ensemble under the artistic direction of Bruce Gladwin. It is mainly made up of people who, as they put it themselves, “are perceived as disabled”. The jury’s statement for the Ibsen Prize states that the collective’s work is “exciting, disturbing and thought-provoking”. The BtBT gives a voice to social and political concerns. It inspires us to be “better artists and better people”.
For many years, BtBT’s acclaimed productions have included the live art performance “Small Metal Objects,” in which the actors mingle with passers-by in a public space while the audience follows the scene through headphones. The boundary between reality and theatricality blurs and perception is put to the test. Or “Ganesh Versus the Third Reich”: In it, the elephant-headed Hindu god Ganesh travels to Nazi Germany to retrieve the swastika, the swastika misused by the Nazis. At the same time, the actors also tell the making-of of this story and address themselves and their disabilities.
The Ibsen Prize will be awarded at the National Theater in Oslo in September.