TdJW Director Winnie Karnofka: “Equality is a sustained struggle”

Director Vinnie Karnofka speaks of equality, proudly saying that many women work in her home just like men. Karnofka has been working as an art director at Theater Der Jung Weld in Leipzig since the beginning of this season. This prevailed against the other 43 applicants.

Running a female theater is still rare in this country. According to a study by the German Cultural Council a few years ago, 80 percent of directors in Germany were men. Kharnoffka says a lot has happened in the last few years, but there is still a lot of room for improvement today when it comes to equality in the world of drama.

“Equal rights are far from where they should be. This struggle to ensure that they treat each other equally is a constant one,” the director said. Some ideas are also debatable. But always discussing equal opportunities creatively and trying things out is an important step in the right direction. When he grew up in the former GTR, he was at least strongly influenced by the ideal idea that all people are equal.

Vinnie Karnofka was born in 1978 in Muhlhausen, Thuringia. His grandfather was an art director. On the one hand, he grew up with him in a classic patriarchy, he says. On the other hand, there is an image that does not restrict women in any way. “Women around me – but men – have always told me: You can take anything. That’s why I never thought there was anything stopping me from doing it.”

The fact that DDJW now has a director in Vinnie Karnofka is also a signal to the outside world. She sees herself as an important position that has a broad impact on other women. Prior to his directorial career, Karnofka says women never played a major role in him in the male-led theater world, and he has been working at a theater in the Leipzig Lindenov district since 2013. You don’t have to deal with it much.

As a woman, she never felt backward in her career. “Of course there were important situations, but for both men and women. It has nothing to do with gender,” he says, explaining this with the public management system established in theaters.

Prior to finishing Kharnoffka at DDJW, he worked as a playwright in Weimar, Kelsenkirchen and Kottingen theaters. Fortunately, Karnofka avoided the discriminatory experiences of returning as a woman in her career path. But he says it was his personal experience. She knows the most negative stories from co-workers – not only about abuse of power, but also about issues related to adjusting working conditions with the family in the theatrical world.

The DDJ director says that the topic that connects work and family is often more focused on children’s and youth theaters than other theaters. Women in management positions in this theater branch are also not uncommon. According to Karnofka, this is not just an attempt to make work more family-friendly. Women often simply identify with the form of theater production in young plays, which is fundamentally different from adult theater, they explain.

Vinnie Karnofka has been heading to the Young World Theater since September 2020. For the first time since she became art director, she took her role as a woman in the theater more actively. As she puts it, especially how she wants to use her role as a female manager: “What expectations are being brought to me now – unspoken -? Do I want to meet these expectations? Why, do you want to meet them if I do not, then? It bothers me now.” ”

Anyway, she wants to convey to the young audience of her home the values ​​given in her own “liberated development”. “When a young man comes to us, regardless of whether I’m a girl or a boy – we want to provide an environment: he tells me: Find your way, try your way. Whatever you try, it’s not right for you to hurt anyone else in any way.” He called it a safe place, an environment where there is no discrimination.