EFFEA Jury

Darrel Toulon (Vienna, AT), Artistic Practitioner, Researcher and Educator currently attached to Anton Bruckner Private University, Linz. Founding Artistic Director of 'the alpha group’ based in Vienna. He is an Artist supported by Arts and Health Austria, and is internationally active as Cultural Manager, Project Leader and Consultant, developing docu-dance theatre as a participatory tool for creating socially and politically relevant performance art.

His seminal and ongoing Docu-Dance-Theatre project U IME OCA, with Children Born of War in Bosnia, has been performed at SARTR Sarajevo; Srebrenica and Tuzla National Theater, and was invited to the Osijek Peace Awards 2020 in Croatia. “OTINO ONYWALO ILUM” with Children Born in Captivity in Northern Uganda was performed at Bayimba Festival Lunkulu Island.

In 2024 he designed and led a “Peace-Building with Performance Arts” Residency at Mindanao State University, Philippines. Toulon was a featured Artist as part of “SUBSTANZ“ Exhibition at Künstlerhaus Wien (2024-25). Other recent projects have been about and with young adults with NEET status (Not in Education, Employment or Training), and persons with Lebensborn family inheritance.

As Choreographer and Stage Director, he has re-interpreted major existing works for large urban stages as well as creating his own original pieces using biographies, lived experiences and life-stories of marginalised and silenced populations in remote rural locations. Darrel Toulon was awarded the First Austrian Dance Production Special Prize (2002). His Community Dance Project “THROUGH THE OPEN DOOR” (2015), created with Unaccompanied Minor Refugees resident in Graz was nominated as “Place of Respect 2016”. He was awarded the Styrian Golden Cross of Honour in 2016.