Press Release - RUTH - The German World Music Prize has been awarded annually on the first weekend in July during the Rudolstadt Festival since 2002. Since 2020, the festival's ten-member organisation team has decided on this award, which is endowed with a total of 5,000 euros.
This year it will be awarded twice: To the musician Ezékiel Wendtoin Nikiema, alias Ezé, who comes from Burkina Faso and lives in Dresden, and to the dance master Sigrid Doberenz - she will be awarded the RUTH honour for her life's work.

Jury Statement on Ezé:

‘'My love for this country is a conscious decision, a signal to all the people who don't want to welcome me. This country belongs to me too! No, Ezé won't let it get him down, even though he was thrown out of the tram by a Pegida supporter shortly after his arrival in Dresden. The experience contributed to his blackness, to the conscious perception of his skin colour as a political dimension. This spurred him on immensely to take up the topic in his songs and get involved: against racism and the shift to the right. Ezé sings about flight and migration, the climate crisis, masculinity and vulnerability - predominantly in German, occasionally in French or in his native language Mòoré. He celebrates his migration background and his individuality in a pointed and humorous way, but always in such a way that there is no doubt about his attitude. ‘I'm German too, in my own way,’ says Ezé. And that is a very, very good thing, because with his humanity and as a socially, culturally and politically active person, he is a great asset to this country. We are therefore grateful to award him the RUTH 2025.’

Jury Statement on Sigrid Doberenz:

‘What is often said about the beginnings of participatory dance in the GDR, namely that visitors were prejudiced against active dancing and inhibited from dancing themselves, certainly did not apply to Sigrid Doberenz: the Leipzig native was a bundle of energy and had no inhibitions about moving. Nor was she afraid to approach visitors to dance events and classes and encourage them to dance along - regardless of whether they were big or small, young or old, or suffering from a disability. There was only one thing she was strict about: simply hopping around was not an option, the whole thing had to have a hand and foot. The technical, methodical and dance knowledge and skills that she herself had acquired in her training as a dance master also characterised her teaching of folk dances: Aesthetics, character and behaviour in dance were essential. This flowed into her workshops as well as into the three dance books (Das Taubenhaus 1996, Der Gänsereigen 2000, Der Froschkanon 2008) and a folk dance course on DVD (Das Federbett 2003), which she published. Participatory folk dance in the GDR was a phenomenon and is still in a class of its own today. Often copied and never equalled. Sigrid Doberenz played a decisive role in this. She has more than earned the honorary RUTH 2025 for this.’