Koo Ja-ya wins International Ibsen Award, becoming first Asian and youngest ever recipient

Gunhild Kilde, secretary general of the International Ibsen Award

'She asks questions with compassion and humor, not anger'

Korean theater follows K-dramas and K-pop onto the world stage

Gunhild Kilde, secretary general of the International Ibsen Award [Provided by PAMS 2026]

"In an age when bigger and louder is taken to mean better, Koo Ja-ya shows us a different way of looking at the world."

Gunhild Kilde, secretary general of the International Ibsen Award, was visiting South Korea for the first time to attend the 2026 Performing Arts Market in Seoul (PAMS) when she met with reporters at the National Theater of Korea on Wednesday. She described the thinking behind Koo's selection in those terms, adding that "in an era of culture wars and deepening polarization, what we were looking for was not the loudest voice in the room, but the compassion and kindness our times so desperately need."

The International Ibsen Award was established by the Norwegian government in 2007 and is presented every two years. Often called the Nobel Prize of theater, it carries a prize of 2.5 million Norwegian kroner (about $261,000). Past recipients since the inaugural award to legendary director Peter Brook in 2008 include Ariane Mnouchkine, Jon Fosse and Peter Handke.

Koo Ja-ya, 42, is the award's 11th recipient. A playwright, composer and video artist based in Ghent, Belgium, she becomes both the first person of Asian descent and the youngest person ever to receive the honor.

"The fact that she is the first and the youngest is itself significant," Kilde said. "Koo is in the middle of her career and performing all over the world. She has come to Norway twice, and she has been to Australia, New York, Edinburgh and Avignon. She is a rising star everyone is talking about."

What the jury found running through Koo's body of work is what it calls "the space in between." Kilde said the world today is too often trapped in binary thinking — for or against, with no room in between. "This year's International Ibsen Award honors theater as that space in between," she said. "We chose her because theater is a place where people gather, where we can imagine and awaken what we do not yet know."

Koo divides her life between Seoul and Ghent, and her work asks questions of identity — what it means to be a migrant, a person living on the border between worlds. The jury saw her personal trajectory as a device that opens a space for dialogue with others. "Her works ask, 'Where do I belong?' — a Korean living in Europe, inhabiting that space in between," Kilde said. "She does not only tell her own story. She keeps that space open so that we, as human beings, can talk to each other." Performing in Korean even before European audiences, Koo has left untranslatable four-character Korean idioms — such as one used in her work "Cuckoo" — on stage as they are. The jury's citation reads: "Not everything can be translated or made to fit. It is precisely in that gap, that space in between, where Koo Ja-ya's theater lives."

Koo Ja-ya, the first person of Asian descent and the youngest recipient ever of the International Ibsen Award, often called the Nobel Prize of theater [Provided by the International Ibsen Award]

Kilde called Koo's selection "a bold choice by the jury at a time of culture wars, deepening polarization and shrinking arts budgets." She said the more digital the world becomes, the more people need a theater where they can sit together and listen to a story. "We all interpret the same story differently, but we need each other," she said. "Giving the award to Koo is a declaration that culture is needed to bring people together."

There is also an intriguing irony in the fact that an award bearing Ibsen's name has gone to an artist who has critically examined the Western theatrical canon. In her 2020 work "A History of Korean Theater," Koo traces how Western theater arrived in Korea and displaced its traditional forms. Kilde said the apparent contradiction dissolves on closer inspection. "This award is not about Ibsen's plays — it is about his legacy, the spirit of truth and the spirit of freedom," she said. "Ibsen did not preach or judge. He asked questions. Koo Ja-ya is the perfect recipient for this year."

Koo's work tackles weighty subjects without losing its humor, and it is intimate, delicate and even playful. Her 2017 piece "Cuckoo" used a conversation with three hacked electric rice cookers to explore the isolation felt by the generation that came of age after the Asian financial crisis. In her 2024 work "Haribo Kimchi," she brings a street-food stall onto the stage and fries kimchi pancakes on it. Those who have seen it describe it as "very fun — theater for a young, new generation of audiences."

"Koo's work is very political, but it does not look angry," Kilde said. "She shows how colonial power and global power shape our lives, yet within the work you see possibility and hope."

At the award ceremony at the National Theatre in Oslo on Sept. 26, Koo's acceptance speech in Korean left a strong impression on the audience. "We see faster. We judge faster. We take sides faster," she said. "Compared to that, theater is surprisingly slow and inefficient. Perhaps it is precisely because of that inefficiency that I still believe in theater." Kilde noted that Koo performs on stage herself in every production and always speaks in Korean. "That is everything her art is saying," she said.

Interest in Korean content has never been higher across the global cultural world. Koo's achievement follows "Parasite" sweeping the Academy Awards, the rise of BTS and Blackpink, and Han Kang's Nobel Prize in Literature — and her next project takes her into K-pop territory, with a premiere targeted for June next year. "The explosion of creativity running through the Korean arts scene as a whole is deeply impressive," Kilde said. "After Han Kang's Nobel Prize, K-dramas and K-pop, the theater world is now looking to Korea too. The timing is perfect."

shee@heraldcorp.com