Jury - TAG DER CLUBKULTUR

Jury

The cultural awards for Berlin clubs and collectives as part of TAG DER CLUBKULTUR 2026 will be decided this year by two independent juries, each made up of five members who are deeply rooted in the city’s club scene. All jury members bring unique expertise and perspectives from across the many spheres of club culture: Music journalism and label work, soundsystem culture and ballroom, community building and activism, curatorial practice and cultural management. Local roots meet international perspectives; decades of scene experience meet new voices and perspectives. Different genres, social positions and professional backgrounds come together with a common attitude: to make club culture visible as a multi-layered, progressive and significant cultural practice.

Jury for Clubs

Aida Baghernejad

Journalist, Host

Aida Baghernejad is an award-winning freelance journalist writing and speaking in German and English for regional, national and international publications about music, film and the politics of sound. She hosts various podcast and event formats and explored in 2024 as a Thomas Mann Fellow at the Thomas Mann House in Los Angeles how political themes are negotiated in popular culture discourse. Her culture and discourse newsletter Recommended Reading is published regularly online.

Daniel Wang

DJ, author, music journalist

Daniel Wang has been involved in nightclubs and dance music for over three decades. Originally from California, he has been a Berliner for 23 years, with an ongoing residency at Paloma in Kreuzberg and a long history of DJ sets at clubs including Ostgut, Schwuz and Cocktail d'Amore. Alongside his releases on Balihu, Environ, and Rush Hour Records, he has always been active in journalism about club culture. His article about the opening night of Berghain in 2005 remains one of the most quoted texts on Berlin nightlife.

DARWIN

DJ, Label Founder, Promoter

Born in Canada, Darwin found her way into dance music after moving to London, before relocating to Berlin where she founded her label SPE:C in 2015 and launched the party REEF in 2016. The boundary-pushing party brought bass music’s alien energy into the heart of the techno capital, which now calls Berghain home. Her sets blend soundsystem culture with hypnotic intensity across genres. In 2024 she launched ABYSS, a Sunday soundsystem series combining transcendental dance music with breathwork and healing practices.

Ixa Psyborg

Rapper, Electronic Musician, Multigenre Producer, Multidisciplinary Artist

From Philadelphia, based in Berlin for the last decade. With her instantly recognizable UV light/neon aesthetic, she is known for her experimental approach to popular styles of music, and lyrics that explore personal and social issues through a lens of science fiction, astronomy, and psychedelic spirituality. She got her first taste of Berlin in 2012 as a production assistant, performer and DJ for Drop Dead Festival and upon moving to Berlin, began performing and DJ'ing for Berlin drag icon Pansy and The House of Presents. She has produced for and participated in projects at the Deutsche Oper, Zurich Schauspielhaus, Theater des Westens and Volksbühne, and toured with legendary artist Peaches as a technician in 2022, appearing in the subsequent documentary chronicling the experience.

Electric Indigo

DJ, Musician, Composer

Susanne Kirchmayr aka Electric Indigo is a DJ, composer, and musician from Vienna, Austria, who has performed in 46 countries around the globe since 1989. Her name stands for an intelligent and distinctive interpretation of techno and electronic music. In 1998 she founded the transnational network female:pressure, which connects women, non-binary and transgender people in electronic music. As a composer, she has received several awards, including the Kunstpreis Musik 2020 of the Republic of Austria.

Jury for collectives

Ayosha Kortlang

Space Designer, Kurator, Community Organizer, Co-Founder THF Radio

Ayosha Kortlang is a cultural organiser and space researcher rooted in Berlin's independent cultural infrastructure. As co-founder of THF Radio, he runs one of the city's most vibrant community radio projects, broadcasting from the Torhaus at Tempelhof Airport. Through Alte Feuerwache Tempelhof and various spaces in and around Berlin, he creates environments where club culture, political practice and collective making converge.

Immy

Music Licensing, DJ, Curator, Promoter, Music Historian

Immy is a lifelong student of music history with a deep passion for the NYC music scenes of 1969-1999. Raised in Canada and living in Berlin since 2009, she collects and plays everything from ambient, soul, funk, disco & reggae to house, techno, electro, hardcore and progressive trance. Her passion for nightlife and music history have led her to research the last 60 years and integrate anything she found interesting into her record collection. She is also active behind the scenes, taking care of sound and archiving at tracey and doing artist care at Horst Festival, Fusion Festival and Whole Festival. She recently co-founded a queer nightlife archive to preserve Berlin's rich club culture for future generations.

Melissa Perales

Promoter, Curator, Community Builder

Melissa Perales is a Chicago-born, Berlin-based curator, promoter, and community builder. Since 1995, she has supported artists and shaped Berlin’s independent music scene through projects including M:Soundtrack, Music Pool Berlin, DURCHLÜFTEN and Torstraßen Festival. Her work focuses on transcultural exchange, artist development, and strengthening sustainable cultural communities.

Sophie Yukiko

Artist, Author, House Mother

Sophie Yukiko is a German-American artist and author working in film and theatre. In her work she connects ritual practices with subculture, negotiating through dance and text. As a dancer she became part of the ballroom scene and dedicated herself from then on to contexts of political art. As a co-founder of the German scene, she is Mother of an international house. Her now 80 kids, the members of House of Laveaux, are active in six countries. In June 2025 she received the scene distinction Legend.

Zuri Maria Daiß

Cultural Producer, Curator, CTM Press Officer

Zuri Maria Daiß is a cultural producer and curator at the intersection of music, club culture and public discourse. As press officer of CTM Festival, founder of the agency Zuri & Maria and operator of the platform The Only Good System, she brings together artist management, event organisation and curatorial practice. Her focus lies on bass culture, electronic music, cultural networks and community building in Berlin and internationally. She develops formats, festivals and discourse programmes, connecting artists, collectives and cultural initiatives.