Creativity
Prince Claus Award 2007
Faustin Linyekula with Papy Ebotani and Djodjo Kazadi in The Dialogue Series III, Dinozord 2006.
© Sammy Baloji, courtesy of Faustin Linyekula
The Prince Claus Fund for Culture and Development was established, on 6 September 1996, to mark the 70th birthday of H.R.H. Prince Claus, husband of Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands. Since 1997 it awards artists, thinkers and cultural organisations in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean.
The Prince Claus Fund has given an award to Faustin Linyekula for his overall commitment to the Congo, outstanding choreography, his courageous return to his country and his innovative stimulation of cultural life, despite the instability and turbulence that prevail.
The choreographer from Kisangani uses movements, texts, images and sounds to communicate and raise awareness of the experience of living in the midst of a conflict that has gripped his country for decades. He describes himself as a storyteller. His performances are strong and feature avant-garde language, noted the jury honouring Linyekula in December 2007.
For ten years now, the Prince Claus Fund has attributed a prize of €100,000 to outstanding individuals and organisations from Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean in the field of culture and development. Many individuals worldwide are invited to put names forward and upon research, a restricted jury selects a few candidates, among which a winner is chosen and receives his or her award at a cermony held in the presence of Dutch royalty in Amsterdam. In 2007, the Prince Claus Award set out to honour artists and organisations working to counteract the destructive power of conflict, promoting beauty, dialogue and respect, dignity and self-esteem in the face of devastation.
Ten lesser prizes of €25,000 were given to, inter alia, the theatre-producer and cultural revolutionary, Augusto Boal (Brazil), the actor and poet Patricia Ariza working in Colombia, the Tanzanian cartoonist Gado, the artistic group Ars Aevi (Bosnia and Herzegovina), the The Sudanese Writers Union (Sudan), and the Radio Isanganiro founded in 2002 in Burundi by a group of journalists.
