Carmen Romero Quero is the director of the Teatro a Mil theatre festival, which she founded in 1994. It is now regarded as the most important interdisciplinary theatre festival in South America. Over the years, the festival has not only opened up to new disciplines but has also expanded to the districts outside the Santiago metropolitan region in order to reach civil society across the country. Carmen Romero Quero is also the founder and general director of the Fundación Teatro a Mil, with which she has made a significant contribution to the internationalisation of the performing arts in South America and cultural exchange between South America and other continents. Dialogue with Germany is particularly important to her, and over the years she has not only invited well-established artists from Germany to Chile but has also inspired numerous co-productions with German theatres. She is particularly keen to make theatre in Chile accessible to everyone and to promote theatre work as part of the general education system.
Justification of the award
Thirty years ago, Carmen Romero Quero founded Teatro a Mil, one of the most important international theatre festivals in Latin America. She impressed the jury as an interdisciplinary curator who brings the global avant-garde of theatre production to Chile. Dialogue with Germany is particularly important to her, as illustrated by the numerous co-productions she has initiated with HAU Hebbel am Ufer in Berlin and Kampnagel in Hamburg, among others. She is one of Chile’s major public intellectuals and gives a great deal of space to society’s discussion of issues such as human rights, inequality, and the consequences of the 1973 military coup. With various initiatives, she promotes the education of children and young people as well as decentralised cultural work in the various regions of Chile.
