Irina-Simona Bârcă is a dramaturge and mediator. Born and raised in Romania, she studied acting in Bucharest and theater pedagogy at Osnabrück University of Applied Sciences. After working in Münster and Berlin, she was a dramaturge at the FFT (Forum Freies Theater) in Düsseldorf from 2017 to 2024, where she was responsible for the Young FFT section, including the programmatic focus "The Theater of Digital Natives". She has worked with pulk fiktion, Ives Thuwis, subbotnik, Leute wie die, machina eX and PINSKER + BERNHARDT, among others. She is part of various juries in German-speaking countries (Spielarten NRW, kicks! Theaternetzwerk Schweiz, Landesbüro freie darstellende Künste NRW) and was a member of the board of trustees at the Augenblick mal! 2021. As a lecturer, she gives seminars and training courses. Since January 2024, she has been Head of Artistic Mediation and Participation at Theater an der Parkaue.

After training as an actress in Munich and many years on stage, her love of directing and managing her own projects took over. Stations as assistant director and production manager for musical theater at home and abroad followed. 2013 foundation of the theater label WIR.Jetzt! In 2015, the first theater piece "Talk Talk- Journey Without Escape" was created, an adaptation of the novel Talk Talk by T.C.Boyle for WIR.Jetzt! In 2017 followed a new adaptation of the fairy tale "Der Gestiefelte Kater" for Theater und Philharmonie Thüringen. In 2018, an adaptation of the myths surrounding the Flying Dutchman. The production "Der Fliegende Holländer" for the Klang! Festival Bielefeld was awarded the Förderpreis Klassik. Production management and dramaturgy for theater projects in urban areas followed, as well as artistic direction of the Theaterhaus TiG7 in Mannheim. 2010 to present as freelance director for drama and cross-discipline projects. Since February 2021 Managing Director of the Bad Hersfeld Festival.

Chang Nai Wen has lived in Germany for 18 years. She was the first Asian student to be accepted for the drama theater directing program at the Theaterakademie Hamburg and has been seen as a Taiwanese director in the spoken word theaters of the German-speaking world. This experience led her to question the politics around her and consider how to create an environment that was less hierarchical and more about collaboration and diversity. In 2008, she founded "SdF - Sisyphus, the Flying Elephant" in Berlin, an independent project-based transcultural group specializing in immersive, participatory and interactive creation. In 2010, she was invited to participate in the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab in New York, which inspired her to pursue the idea of collaboration between international directors. Thus, in 2011 she became a co-founder of the international directors' collective "World Wide Lab" with 12 other directors from 9 countries. As an internationally working artist, Nai Wen prefers a creative process that uses her artistic muscles along with her cross-cultural insights to create works that encourage dialogue and reveal different perspectives. In addition to her artistic work, she is a strong advocate for a cultural environment of equality, inclusion, and diversity.

Sabine Gehm is artistic director of the international festival TANZ Bremen and in the management team of the Tanzpakt project 'MV tanzt an'.

From 2006 to 2016, together with Katharina von Wilcke, she directed the first four editions of the international dance congress of the German Federal Cultural Foundation (Berlin 2006, Hamburg 2009, Düsseldorf 2013, Hannover 2016).

A graduate in cultural studies, she was program dramaturg and director of various festivals (including Junge Hunde, Independance Days, Tanzplattform Deutschland 2000) at Kampnagel Hamburg from 1994 to 2001 and coordinated, among other things, the international performing arts network 'Junge Hunde', which she co-founded, from 2001 to 2005.

Before that, she worked as an organization manager at the International Summer Theater Festival Hamburg.

As a freelance curator and cultural manager, she conceived and was responsible for international exchange projects, think tanks, laboratories and academies for KSB, BFDK, DTD, among others. She is on the board of the Dachverband Tanz Deutschland and was chair of the board of trustees at the Fonds Darstellende Künste from 2015 to 2020, for which she led the decision-making processes in 2020 (including publication of the handout on jury procedures). She is active as a reviewer and member of various juries of nationwide and international programs and works as a mentor in an advisory capacity for various artists and projects.

Ute Gröbel (*1983 in Erlangen) is dramaturg and artistic co-director of HochX Theater and Live Art in Munich. She was deputy director of the dramaturgy course at the August Everding Theater Academy until 2016. In 2021, she completed advanced training in theater and music management at LMU Munich; in the same year, HochX was awarded the Theaterpreis des Bundes. In 2022, she co-directed the Freischwimmen meets Rodeo Festival with Antonia Beermann and will also be artistically responsible for the 2024 and 2026 Rodeo Festivals together with her.

Martina Grohmann, born in Mödling near Vienna, studied theater at the University of Vienna. She began as a production manager at steirischer herbst in '98 and '99. From 2000 on, she was engaged as a dramaturg at Staatstheater Kassel, at LTT Tübingen, at Theater Heidelberg, where she directed the venue zwinger1 for author's theater and projects from 2005 to 2007, and at Theater Basel. She has also worked as a guest dramaturge at the Schaubühne Berlin and the Schauspiel Frankfurt. Her work focuses on contemporary drama, play development, and interdisciplinary formats and festivals. Since August 2013, she has been the artistic director of Theater Rampe together with Marie Bues.

Seta-Elizabeth Guetsoyan, M.A., studied theater studies and art history at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum. She worked in different theater and cultural institutions as a dramaturg, researcher and production manager in a number of different projects (Theater der Welt, Schauspielhaus Bochum, Ruhrtriennale or also in the Capital of Culture team of the city of Herne).

From 2012 to 2018, she managed the Documentation Center of the German Forum for Figure Theater and Puppetry Art and the production of the festival FIDENA - Figurentheater der Nationen.

Since 2019, she has directed the Figurentheater-Kolleg, a continuing education institution for performing and visual arts with a focus on puppet theater, and the Rottstr5-Kunsthallen, a space for transdisciplinary art and cultural-political discourse, in Bochum.

Katja Herlemann studied theater and dance studies as well as comparative literature at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum and at the University of Antwerp. From 2011 to 2013 she worked at the Goethe-Institut in Munich and in Prague. In 2013 she was in charge of the mediation program at the Foreign Affairs Festival of the Berliner Festspiele, before moving to the Theater und Orchester Heidelberg for the 2013/14 season. There she curated and organized the international Heidelberg Stückemarkt and was on the selection committee for the playwright competition. From 2016 - 2019 she was dramaturg and curator of the contemporary drama section at Schauspiel Leipzig. There she realized play developments and premieres with, among others, Thomas Köck, Enis Maci, and E.L. Karhu, and directed the young playwrights' festival 4+1. Since 2019 she has been dramaturg at Schauspiel Frankfurt, where she continues her collaboration with Claudia Bauer, among others. She is part of the management team of the 11th edition of the festival "Politik im Freien Theater", which will take place in Frankfurt in fall 2022.

Joy Kristin Kalu holds a doctorate in theater studies, is a dramaturge and curator for international performative arts. She currently works as a visiting professor for the theory of performative arts at the Berlin University of the Arts. Until summer 2023, she was head dramaturge for theater and performance at the Sophiensælen in Berlin. There she curated the festivals "Save your Soul" (2018), "Freischwimmer*innen. The Future is Female" (2019), "Risk & Resilience" (2020) and "Leisure & Pleasure" (2023) and conceived and moderated the ongoing discourse series "Politics of Love. Representation in Theater and Society". Her book "Aesthetics of Repetition. Die US-amerikanische Neo-Avantgarde und ihre Performances" was published in 2013 (Transcript). She is co-editor of the volumes "Theater als Intervention. Politiken ästhetischer Praxis" (Theater der Zeit 2015), "Kunst und Alltag" (De Gruyter 2017), and "OPENINGS. Sophiensaele 2011-2021" (Alexander Verlag 2021).

Joy Kristin Kalu has researched and taught at Freie Universität Berlin and New York University and has worked at various cultural institutions in Germany and the USA, including the Actors' Gang in Los Angeles, Berlin's Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, New York's Wooster Group and Kunst-Werke Berlin. Most recently, she was a member of the board of trustees of the Fonds Darstellende Künste (2018-2022), the jury of the Forced Entertainment Award (2018), the Stückemarkt of the Berlin Theatertreffen (2018) and the advisory board of the Impulse Theaterfestival 2017.

Geboren 1975, begann er 1994 in unterschiedlichen Funktionen hauptsächlich in den darstellenden Künsten zu arbeiten. Am Anfang hat er viel in Staats- und Stadttheatern gelernt und arbeitet seit 2003 selbständig als Autor, Kurator, Dramaturg und Regisseur. Hier hat er besonders viel Erfahrung als Regisseur von Galen und Charity-Veranstaltungen gesammelt, die wichtige Inhalte und große Unterhaltung miteinander präsentieren. 2013 hat er für das Performing Arts Programm Berlin (PAP) den Branchentreff der Freien Darstellenden Künste Berlin mitkonzipiert und zusammen mit anderen bis 2017 geleitet. Für das PAP konzipiert er auch weiterhin Fachtagungen, die spezifische Themen für ein professionelles Publikum vertiefen.

2016 hat er für das PAP zusammen mit der re:publica die Performersion gegründet, ein Format für Kooperationen der digitalen und der darstellenden Künste, das er seitdem auch mit einem inzwischen internationalen Fokus fortführt.

Die kuratorische Arbeit an der Schnittstille zwischen digitalen und analogen Künsten setzt er in Laborformaten für die Technologiestiftung Berlin u.a. oder als Mitglied des Culture Track Teams der re:publica um. Vermittelnd arbeitet er in diesem Spannungsfeld auch als Beiratsmitglied der bbw – University for Applied Sciences, des Berlinforums der Stiftung Zukunft Berlin, als Speaker oder Workshopgeber.

Friedrich Kirschner is a director and software developer. He uses interactionism as a theoretical and video games as a technological basis for participatory social simulations. As a professor for digital media, he leads the master's program Game and Object at the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts.

Lucien Lambertz (they/them), born 1983 in Unna, studied theater and media studies at the Ruhr University Bochum from 2003-2007. During his studies he worked for the Ruhrfestspiele Recklinghausen and Schauspiel Essen and worked as a musician and freelance dramaturge for various scenic projects. From 2008, they worked as an event manager and project manager for Zeppelin University Friedrichshafen, where they subsequently completed a Master's degree in Communication & Cultural Management from 2008 to 2010. Lucien Lambertz has been working at Kampnagel Hamburg since 2010. As Artistic Coordinator and Dramaturg, they are now primarily responsible for coordinating the season program and for the areas of queer performance, participation projects and cross-genre theater formats, with a focus on local-international collaborations; also for cooperation projects with scientific and foundation partners. They supervised the long-term EU project ACT-Art, Climate Transition and regularly various other national and international collaborations at Kampnagel.

Lucien Lambertz has worked as a coach, mentor and guest lecturer since 2010, including at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater/ Theaterakademie, University of Hamburg, University of Witten/Herdecke, Zeppelin University Friedrichshafen, Ruhr University Bochum and as part of the Claussen-Simon Foundation's stART.up scholarship program. He also regularly serves on juries in the field of performing arts.

Bettina Masuch studied theater studies in Giessen. After working as a dramaturg at the Kaaitheater in Brussels and the Theaterhaus Jena, she moved to the Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz in Berlin in 1998, where she worked as a dramaturg for productions by Frank Castorf, Christoph Schlingensief and René Pollesch, among others. In 2002 and 2003 she was production dramaturge for the choreographer Meg Stuart at the Schauspielhaus Zürich. From 2003 to 2008, Bettina Masuch worked as a dance curator for Berlin's Theater Hebbel am Ufer. Until 2008, she was a member of the artistic direction of the renowned dance festival "Tanz im August" and was also responsible for its 25th anniversary edition in 2013. She was artistic director of the Springdance Festival in Utrecht from 2009 to 2013. From January 2014, Bettina Masuch was artistic director of tanzhaus nrw in Düsseldorf, which was awarded the "Theaterpreis des Bundes" under her directorship in 2017. She is the editor and author of various specialist publications and holds teaching positions at national and international universities. Bettina Masuch is a member of various juries and expert commissions, including the German Federal Cultural Foundation, the Fonds Darstellende Künste and the Goethe-Institut. She has been Artistic Director of the Festspielhaus St. Pölten since fall 2022.

Freelance director and artistic project manager Frauke Meyer was born in Dresden. She studied musical theater directing at the Hamburg University of Music and Theater. She then worked at San Francisco Opera and Theater Basel, where she took her first staging steps. From 2005-2013 she was engaged as scenic director at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, where she developed various productions. At the same time, she began working as a freelance director for the Theater Dortmund and the Winter Opera Potsdam, for example, and was internationally responsible for scenic takeovers in Montpellier, Istanbul or Luxembourg. Since 2013 she has been working as a freelance director and project developer at houses and institutions such as the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Bavarian State Opera, the Royal Opera House, the Cologne Early Music Festival, the Theater Bonn, the Cologne Baroque Orchestra , the sound art festival bonnhoeren, the Sommerblut Festival or as part of the BTHVN2020. Frauke Meyer teaches dramaturgical project development within the course of studies "Music Mediation - Music in Context" at the Anton Bruckner Private University Linz, dramaturgical teaching at the Rostock University of Music and Theatre and is committed to the equal rights of female artists within the Women's Cultural Office NRW.

After her studies at the Humboldt University in Berlin, she worked as a research assistant at the Academy of Arts of the GDR. In 1996 she was co-founder and until 2003 curator of the theater festival "reich & berühmt". From 1997 to 2002 she was head of the theater/performance department at Podewil, Center for Contemporary Arts in Berlin. Here she realized various co-productions, guest performances and international festivals, including the 1997 festival "Live Art - New theatre for the 90s" with young British performers.

She worked at the Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz from 2002 to 2011, mainly as curator for the Volksbühne im Prater. In 2010 and 2012 she was artistic director of the theater festival "Favoriten" in Dortmund and during the season 2011/2012 dramaturg at the Residenztheater Munich.

Various publications, including: René Pollesch, "Liebe ist kälter als das Kapital," Hamburg 2009 and Postdramatic Theater in Portraits/Gob Squad "What are you looking at?", Berlin 2020.

- 1958 born in Potsdam

- since 1981 as a puppeteer, later also as an actor, in different free Potsdam projects

- from 1985 - 1987 he completed the course of studies "Leader of a Folk Art Collective" in puppetry at the "Central House for Cultural Work" in Leipzig.

- 1993 -1998 fabrik Potsdam public relations and venue manager

- 1995 co-founder of the Landesverband Freier Theater Brandenburg e.V. (state association of independent theaters)

- since 1998 Managing Director of the Landesverband Freier Theater Brandenburgs e.V.

Wilma Renfordt (*1982, grew up in the Ruhr area) studied theater, art history and literature at the Free University of Berlin; graduated with a thesis on theater in the public space of the city. In 2008-2013 she was dramaturg of the theater group copy & waste, and in 2009-2013 artistic-scientific assistant at the project office Friedrich von Borries in Berlin. Further collaborations include Daniel Hellmann, Kiriakos Hadjiioannou, Rimini Protokoll, and the theory and practice community Dr. Fahimi. She wrote, among others, a companion volume to the exhibition "Wohnungsfrage" of the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin (2015) and a volume on artistic research ("Klimakunstforschung", Merve, 2011). For the 2017 festival edition, she was dramaturg at steirischer herbst in Graz. Since 2017 she is dramaturg at Impulse Theater Festival.

Matthias Schulze-Kraft is the artistic director of the LICHTHOF Theater, a venue and production center for independent theater in Hamburg. A director by training, he has been working in the theater in a wide variety of functions and production contexts since 1986. Stations included the Ulmer Theater, the Pocket Opera Company Nuremberg, the Schauspiel Frankfurt and various independent productions. Since 2006 the LICHTHOF Theater Hamburg, from 2008 as artistic director. After further education studies as "Culture and Education Manager" (HWP Hamburg) and various other further education (Change Manager, Management Trainer, Business Coach, Quality Manager), he developed his second professional pillar as a lecturer, consultant and coach since 2000, primarily in the qualification of managers and in organizational consulting. Since 2019, he has been a member of the board of the Bundesverband Freier Darstellender Künste (BFDK). From 2014 to 2019 he was chairman of the board of trustees of the Fonds Darstellende Künste, he was a jury member of, among others, the "Theaterpreis des Bundes" (2019), the "Reload" program of the Kulturstiftung des Bundes (2020) and the Körber Studio Junge Regie (2021).

Ella Steinmann studied philosophy and religious studies in Bochum. After working as a project officer in the field of cultural education at Stiftung Mercator in Essen, she moved in 2016 to the Zukunftsakademie NRW, an association for diversity in art, culture, and cultural education. In addition to advising and accompanying cultural institutions, she designed further education and exchange formats there. In the Master Scenic Research in Bochum, she is working on the possibilities of knowledge acquisition through performative art forms. Since July 2019, she is one of the two agents for diversity development within the program "360° - Fonds für Kulturen der neuen Stadtgesellschaft" of the German Federal Cultural Foundation at Theater Oberhausen.

Felizitas Stilleke is a freelance dramaturg, artist and curator. She directs conferences, such as the B.A.L.L. - Bundesweites Artist Labor of the Labore 2022, the Branchentreff 2019-2021, the Bundesforum 2017 or the RATSCHLAG DER VIELEN 2019, and takes over festival dramaturgies (Berliner Theatertreffen 2018, Impulse Theaterfestivals 2017 (under Florian Malzacher) or together with Johanna Yasirra Kluhs the theater festival FAVORITEN 2014) and is on the road as a production dramaturg in NRW, Berlin, Amsterdam and Zurich. She completed her Bachelor of German Studies/Education in Bochum and a Master in Cultural Poetics at the Wilhelms University in Münster. In 2018/19, she studied "Expanded Curation" as part of the international master's program at DAS theatre in Amsterdam. In 2020, she launched a series of podcast sessions at Ballhaus Ost titled "The Mother in Me is the Mother in You," in which she subjects the topic of not-yet/not-more/maybe/maternity to a collective rededication of discourse.

After studying figure theater and dramaturgy, Kora Tscherning's guest engagements took her to the Staatstheater Stuttgart, the Semperoper Dresden, and the Volkstheater Bautzen, among others. Since 2011 she has been working freelance in the group "FigurenKombinat". Parallel to this, she took over the direction of the "Figure Theater" division at the Landesbühnen Sachsen in 2016. Since the 2019/20 season, Kora Tscherning has been the puppet theater director of the Meiningen State Theater and strives to bring sophisticated puppet theater to Meiningen and the region with wit and verve.

Birgit Walkenhorst studied theater in Mainz, Frankfurt/Main, Reading and Bologna. She has researched, taught and published in this subject. She worked for various stage publishers; as an editorial assistant, she was in charge of the INTHEGA playbill journals. She participated in the organization and communication teams of international festivals (Mousonturm, KJTZ, Staatstheater Wiesbaden). From 2011 to 2015 she was responsible for public relations and program planning at the International Theater Frankfurt. Since 2015, she has been managing director of the state association of professional independent theaters in Rheinland-Pfalz, laprofth.

Jessica Samantha Starr Weisskirchen began her theater career as an assistant director at the Theater und Orchester Heidelberg and later moved to the Nationaltheater Mannheim. Here she realized her first works during her assistantship (DIE TONIGHT, LIVE FOREVER or DAS PRINZIP NOSFERATU by Sivan Ben Yishai, 2020) and as a director (EIN KÖRPER FÜR JETZT UND HEUTE by Mehdi Moradpour, 2021). In 2022 she opened the season of Theater Dortmund with WOYZECK, and in 2023 she will open the season in the 'Box' of Deutsches Theater Berlin. She is founder of the assistierenden-netzwerk and meanwhile board member of the ensemble-netzwerk e.V. She is initiator and founder of the assistierenden-festival SUMMER UP and jury member of the Prozessförderung of the Fonds Darstellende Künste. In 2022, she successfully completed the Master of Arts degree program, Theater and Orchestra Management, at the HfMDK in Frankfurt am Main. This year, the Kulturpolitische Gesellschaft is publishing the anthology "Systemkritik! Essays für eine Kulturpolitik der Transformation" with her article "Nur die Bretter, die die Welt bedeuten".

Freelance theater maker since 1994; Tom Wolter is a founding member of the free ensemble p&s and since 2017 artistic director of the WUK Theater Quartier in Halle; since 2014 artistic director of the Student Theater of the University of Halle; producer of interventions and interactions in public space; so far 115 own theater productions as actor/director/writer for all ages; Cooperations with various theaters nationwide, including junges theater Göttingen, theaterhaus Stuttgart, Theater unter dem Dach Berlin, Projekttheater Dresden, moritzbastei Leipzig, Theater an der Angel Magdeburg, Puppentheater Halle, Oper Halle and others; acting teacher at various institutions, workshops on politics, theater and acting, improvisation nationwide and internationally; lecturer so far at a. o. among others at the Theaterakademie Sachsen, the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Leipzig, Uni Halle and the Hochschule Merseburg; Tom Wolter is involved in cultural and local politics. He has been a city councilor in Halle (Saale) for MitBürger e.V. since 2005, and has been the parliamentary group leader of MitBürger & Die PARTEI since 2019; he has been a board member of the Federal Association of Independent Performing Arts since 2015. Since 2019, he has been a member of the Board of Trustees of the Standing Conference of German-Speaking Drama Schools and the Theater Advisory Board of the Free State of Thuringia.

Stephan Wunsch ist Puppenspieler, Figurenbildner und Regisseur. Er studierte Philosophie und Germanistik in Aachen und belegte Seminare in Figurenspiel und Figurenbau auf Hof Lebherz. 2003 gründete er die Bühne theater rosenfisch. Seitdem produziert er zahlreiche Inszenierungen für Kinder und Erwachsene; außerdem Regiearbeiten, Figurenbau und Bühnenmusik für andere Bühnen.

Neben dieser Tätigkeit ist er Teil der Redaktion von ‚Das andere Theater‘, die offizielle Zeitschrift des UNIMA-Zentrums der Bundesrepublik Deutschland e.V., die zwei Mal jährlich erscheint.

Fatima Çalışkan is a moderator, artist and author. Her focus is on art and cultural policy issues on which she writes analyses and essays, among others for the Kulturpolitische Gesellschaft, or develops satirical texts for independent productions. She is co-founder and co-editor of the biennial magazine YallahSalon. As a presenter, she plays the entire keyboard of conversation and presentation formats for stage, audio and video. As a performer and dramaturge, she collaborates with various projects in the independent scene. Other positions include advising and accompanying projects for the Interkultur Ruhr funding fund, co-directing the advisory office of the Performing Arts Program of the LAFT Berlin, co-directing the FAIRSTAGE model project, and jury activities at the federal and state levels.

Chang Nai Wen has lived in Germany for 18 years. She was the first Asian student to be accepted for the drama theater directing program at the Theaterakademie Hamburg and has been seen as a Taiwanese director in the spoken word theaters of the German-speaking world. This experience led her to question the politics around her and consider how to create an environment that was less hierarchical and more about collaboration and diversity. In 2008, she founded "SdF - Sisyphus, the Flying Elephant" in Berlin, an independent project-based transcultural group specializing in immersive, participatory and interactive creation. In 2010, she was invited to participate in the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab in New York, which inspired her to pursue the idea of collaboration between international directors. Thus, in 2011 she became a co-founder of the international directors' collective "World Wide Lab" with 12 other directors from 9 countries. As an internationally working artist, Nai Wen prefers a creative process that uses her artistic muscles along with her cross-cultural insights to create works that encourage dialogue and reveal different perspectives. In addition to her artistic work, she is a strong advocate for a cultural environment of equality, inclusion, and diversity.

Sabine Gehm is artistic director of the international festival TANZ Bremen and in the management team of the Tanzpakt project 'MV tanzt an'.

From 2006 to 2016, together with Katharina von Wilcke, she directed the first four editions of the international dance congress of the German Federal Cultural Foundation (Berlin 2006, Hamburg 2009, Düsseldorf 2013, Hannover 2016).

A graduate in cultural studies, she was program dramaturg and director of various festivals (including Junge Hunde, Independance Days, Tanzplattform Deutschland 2000) at Kampnagel Hamburg from 1994 to 2001 and coordinated, among other things, the international performing arts network 'Junge Hunde', which she co-founded, from 2001 to 2005.

Before that, she worked as an organization manager at the International Summer Theater Festival Hamburg.

As a freelance curator and cultural manager, she conceived and was responsible for international exchange projects, think tanks, laboratories and academies for KSB, BFDK, DTD, among others. She is on the board of the Dachverband Tanz Deutschland and was chair of the board of trustees at the Fonds Darstellende Künste from 2015 to 2020, for which she led the decision-making processes in 2020 (including publication of the handout on jury procedures). She is active as a reviewer and member of various juries of nationwide and international programs and works as a mentor in an advisory capacity for various artists and projects.

Ute Gröbel (*1983 in Erlangen) is dramaturg and artistic co-director of HochX Theater and Live Art in Munich. She was deputy director of the dramaturgy course at the August Everding Theater Academy until 2016. In 2021, she completed advanced training in theater and music management at LMU Munich; in the same year, HochX was awarded the Theaterpreis des Bundes. In 2022, she co-directed the Freischwimmen meets Rodeo Festival with Antonia Beermann and will also be artistically responsible for the 2024 and 2026 Rodeo Festivals together with her.

Martina Grohmann, born in Mödling near Vienna, studied theater at the University of Vienna. She began as a production manager at steirischer herbst in '98 and '99. From 2000 on, she was engaged as a dramaturg at Staatstheater Kassel, at LTT Tübingen, at Theater Heidelberg, where she directed the venue zwinger1 for author's theater and projects from 2005 to 2007, and at Theater Basel. She has also worked as a guest dramaturge at the Schaubühne Berlin and the Schauspiel Frankfurt. Her work focuses on contemporary drama, play development, and interdisciplinary formats and festivals. Since August 2013, she has been the artistic director of Theater Rampe together with Marie Bues.

After studying teaching, Matthias Grön founded the Oldenburg University Theater (OUT) and led OUT as artistic director. In the 2001/2002 season, he moved to the Oldenburg State Theater. He is dramaturg at the Oldenburg State Theater and directs the Young State Theater there. He has also appeared as a director on various occasions.

Seta-Elizabeth Guetsoyan, M.A., studied theater studies and art history at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum. She worked in different theater and cultural institutions as a dramaturg, researcher and production manager in a number of different projects (Theater der Welt, Schauspielhaus Bochum, Ruhrtriennale or also in the Capital of Culture team of the city of Herne).

From 2012 to 2018, she managed the Documentation Center of the German Forum for Figure Theater and Puppetry Art and the production of the festival FIDENA - Figurentheater der Nationen.

Since 2019, she has directed the Figurentheater-Kolleg, a continuing education institution for performing and visual arts with a focus on puppet theater, and the Rottstr5-Kunsthallen, a space for transdisciplinary art and cultural-political discourse, in Bochum.

Katja Herlemann studied theater and dance studies as well as comparative literature at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum and at the University of Antwerp. From 2011 to 2013 she worked at the Goethe-Institut in Munich and in Prague. In 2013 she was in charge of the mediation program at the Foreign Affairs Festival of the Berliner Festspiele, before moving to the Theater und Orchester Heidelberg for the 2013/14 season. There she curated and organized the international Heidelberg Stückemarkt and was on the selection committee for the playwright competition. From 2016 - 2019 she was dramaturg and curator of the contemporary drama section at Schauspiel Leipzig. There she realized play developments and premieres with, among others, Thomas Köck, Enis Maci, and E.L. Karhu, and directed the young playwrights' festival 4+1. Since 2019 she has been dramaturg at Schauspiel Frankfurt, where she continues her collaboration with Claudia Bauer, among others. She is part of the management team of the 11th edition of the festival "Politik im Freien Theater", which will take place in Frankfurt in fall 2022.

Geboren 1975, begann er 1994 in unterschiedlichen Funktionen hauptsächlich in den darstellenden Künsten zu arbeiten. Am Anfang hat er viel in Staats- und Stadttheatern gelernt und arbeitet seit 2003 selbständig als Autor, Kurator, Dramaturg und Regisseur. Hier hat er besonders viel Erfahrung als Regisseur von Galen und Charity-Veranstaltungen gesammelt, die wichtige Inhalte und große Unterhaltung miteinander präsentieren. 2013 hat er für das Performing Arts Programm Berlin (PAP) den Branchentreff der Freien Darstellenden Künste Berlin mitkonzipiert und zusammen mit anderen bis 2017 geleitet. Für das PAP konzipiert er auch weiterhin Fachtagungen, die spezifische Themen für ein professionelles Publikum vertiefen.

2016 hat er für das PAP zusammen mit der re:publica die Performersion gegründet, ein Format für Kooperationen der digitalen und der darstellenden Künste, das er seitdem auch mit einem inzwischen internationalen Fokus fortführt.

Die kuratorische Arbeit an der Schnittstille zwischen digitalen und analogen Künsten setzt er in Laborformaten für die Technologiestiftung Berlin u.a. oder als Mitglied des Culture Track Teams der re:publica um. Vermittelnd arbeitet er in diesem Spannungsfeld auch als Beiratsmitglied der bbw – University for Applied Sciences, des Berlinforums der Stiftung Zukunft Berlin, als Speaker oder Workshopgeber.

Since 2015, Kira Kirsch has been Artistic Director and Managing Director of brut in Vienna, a production and performance venue for the independent Austrian and international theater, performance and dance scene. From 2007-2015 she was dramaturg or head dramaturg and curator of the contemporary art festival steirischer herbst in Graz. She co-founded the monothematic magazine BOB and co-edited the reader Truth is Concrete. A Handbook for Artistic Strategies in Real Politics, which deals with current movements of politically engaged art and artistic activism on an international level.

Friedrich Kirschner is a director and software developer. He uses interactionism as a theoretical and video games as a technological basis for participatory social simulations. As a professor for digital media, he leads the master's program Game and Object at the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts.

Josa Kölbel was himself a professional artist, trained at the renowned national circus center in Chalons-en-Champagne, France, and was active throughout Europe for several years. Since 2015 he is managing director of Berlin Circus Production - Hilliger Kölbel GbR and co-director of the Berlin Circus Festival, which takes place annually at Tempelhofer Feld and gathers productions, artists and positions of contemporary circus. He also curated the Circusschiene at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele, worked as a course instructor at ETAGE, as an artist supervisor at the MGB and has been a mentor for the Berlin LAFT since 2020.

Lucien Lambertz (they/them), born 1983 in Unna, studied theater and media studies at the Ruhr University Bochum from 2003-2007. During his studies he worked for the Ruhrfestspiele Recklinghausen and Schauspiel Essen and worked as a musician and freelance dramaturge for various scenic projects. From 2008, they worked as an event manager and project manager for Zeppelin University Friedrichshafen, where they subsequently completed a Master's degree in Communication & Cultural Management from 2008 to 2010. Lucien Lambertz has been working at Kampnagel Hamburg since 2010. As Artistic Coordinator and Dramaturg, they are now primarily responsible for coordinating the season program and for the areas of queer performance, participation projects and cross-genre theater formats, with a focus on local-international collaborations; also for cooperation projects with scientific and foundation partners. They supervised the long-term EU project ACT-Art, Climate Transition and regularly various other national and international collaborations at Kampnagel.

Lucien Lambertz has worked as a coach, mentor and guest lecturer since 2010, including at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater/ Theaterakademie, University of Hamburg, University of Witten/Herdecke, Zeppelin University Friedrichshafen, Ruhr University Bochum and as part of the Claussen-Simon Foundation's stART.up scholarship program. He also regularly serves on juries in the field of performing arts.

Andreas Lübbers *28.05.1961

High school diploma. Apprenticeship as bank clerk. Studied German language and literature as well as art history - all in Hamburg. Years of travel: 1991 - 2003 dramaturg at several German-speaking theaters. Back in Hamburg: 2003 foundation of the Hamburger Sprechwerk - until today active board member of the association // 2005 - 2009 board member of the Dachverband Freier Theater (today DfdK) // 2009 foundation and until 2022 board member Hamburg Hoch 11 e.V. (representing creative industry players in Hamburg) // 2010 foundation and board of WIESE eG // 2014 foundation member and board of Trägerverein "hauptsache frei" // Since 2015 active in "flausen+ - Bundesnetzwerk" // 2020 opening "Theatrales Produktions- und Bildungszentrum WIESE eG" - since then executive board member. Goal: Increase public and political recognition of independent theater work and form a strong association of small and medium-sized venues at the federal level.

Bettina Masuch studied theater studies in Giessen. After working as a dramaturg at the Kaaitheater in Brussels and the Theaterhaus Jena, she moved to the Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz in Berlin in 1998, where she worked as a dramaturg for productions by Frank Castorf, Christoph Schlingensief and René Pollesch, among others. In 2002 and 2003 she was production dramaturge for the choreographer Meg Stuart at the Schauspielhaus Zürich. From 2003 to 2008, Bettina Masuch worked as a dance curator for Berlin's Theater Hebbel am Ufer. Until 2008, she was a member of the artistic direction of the renowned dance festival "Tanz im August" and was also responsible for its 25th anniversary edition in 2013. She was artistic director of the Springdance Festival in Utrecht from 2009 to 2013. From January 2014, Bettina Masuch was artistic director of tanzhaus nrw in Düsseldorf, which was awarded the "Theaterpreis des Bundes" under her directorship in 2017. She is the editor and author of various specialist publications and holds teaching positions at national and international universities. Bettina Masuch is a member of various juries and expert commissions, including the German Federal Cultural Foundation, the Fonds Darstellende Künste and the Goethe-Institut. She has been Artistic Director of the Festspielhaus St. Pölten since fall 2022.

Freelance director and artistic project manager Frauke Meyer was born in Dresden. She studied musical theater directing at the Hamburg University of Music and Theater. She then worked at San Francisco Opera and Theater Basel, where she took her first staging steps. From 2005-2013 she was engaged as scenic director at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, where she developed various productions. At the same time, she began working as a freelance director for the Theater Dortmund and the Winter Opera Potsdam, for example, and was internationally responsible for scenic takeovers in Montpellier, Istanbul or Luxembourg. Since 2013 she has been working as a freelance director and project developer at houses and institutions such as the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Bavarian State Opera, the Royal Opera House, the Cologne Early Music Festival, the Theater Bonn, the Cologne Baroque Orchestra , the sound art festival bonnhoeren, the Sommerblut Festival or as part of the BTHVN2020. Frauke Meyer teaches dramaturgical project development within the course of studies "Music Mediation - Music in Context" at the Anton Bruckner Private University Linz, dramaturgical teaching at the Rostock University of Music and Theatre and is committed to the equal rights of female artists within the Women's Cultural Office NRW.

After her studies at the Humboldt University in Berlin, she worked as a research assistant at the Academy of Arts of the GDR. In 1996 she was co-founder and until 2003 curator of the theater festival "reich & berühmt". From 1997 to 2002 she was head of the theater/performance department at Podewil, Center for Contemporary Arts in Berlin. Here she realized various co-productions, guest performances and international festivals, including the 1997 festival "Live Art - New theatre for the 90s" with young British performers.

She worked at the Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz from 2002 to 2011, mainly as curator for the Volksbühne im Prater. In 2010 and 2012 she was artistic director of the theater festival "Favoriten" in Dortmund and during the season 2011/2012 dramaturg at the Residenztheater Munich.

Various publications, including: René Pollesch, "Liebe ist kälter als das Kapital," Hamburg 2009 and Postdramatic Theater in Portraits/Gob Squad "What are you looking at?", Berlin 2020.

- 1958 born in Potsdam

- since 1981 as a puppeteer, later also as an actor, in different free Potsdam projects

- from 1985 - 1987 he completed the course of studies "Leader of a Folk Art Collective" in puppetry at the "Central House for Cultural Work" in Leipzig.

- 1993 -1998 fabrik Potsdam public relations and venue manager

- 1995 co-founder of the Landesverband Freier Theater Brandenburg e.V. (state association of independent theaters)

- since 1998 Managing Director of the Landesverband Freier Theater Brandenburgs e.V.

Wilma Renfordt (*1982, grew up in the Ruhr area) studied theater, art history and literature at the Free University of Berlin; graduated with a thesis on theater in the public space of the city. In 2008-2013 she was dramaturg of the theater group copy & waste, and in 2009-2013 artistic-scientific assistant at the project office Friedrich von Borries in Berlin. Further collaborations include Daniel Hellmann, Kiriakos Hadjiioannou, Rimini Protokoll, and the theory and practice community Dr. Fahimi. She wrote, among others, a companion volume to the exhibition "Wohnungsfrage" of the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin (2015) and a volume on artistic research ("Klimakunstforschung", Merve, 2011). For the 2017 festival edition, she was dramaturg at steirischer herbst in Graz. Since 2017 she is dramaturg at Impulse Theater Festival.

Beata Anna Schmutz was born in Gdansk, Poland in 1975. After studying German at the University of Gdańsk, she continued her university education in the subjects of art history, educational science and literature at the Ruprecht Karls University in Heidelberg. She is the artistic director of numerous theater, art and media education projects and was a cultural education employee at the Haus der Jugend Heidelberg from 2005 to 2016, where she headed the art and theater departments. Freelance director and dramaturg since 2006, university lecturer in the fields of aesthetic education, post-dramatic theater and performance. In 2005 she founded the theater and performance group RAMPIG, where she works as a director and dramaturg. From 2016 to 2018 she was head of the Volkstheater department at the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe. Since 2018 she has been directing the Mannheim City Ensemble at the National Theater Mannheim. Member of the board of the Dramaturgical Society since 2016.

Philipp Schulte is a professor specializing in scenography and performance theory at the Norwegian Theatre Academy (Fredrikstad), visiting professor of scenography at the Karlsruhe University of Design, and managing director of the Hessian Theatre Academy (Frankfurt/M.). He studied Applied Theatre Studies in Bergen (Norway) and Giessen, where he received his PhD in 2011. After receiving his doctorate, he worked as a research assistant in Giessen for eight years. Since 2012, he has directed international festival campus and academy formats that he conceived (Ruhrtriennale, Theaterformen Hannover/Braunschweig, KunstFestSpiele Herrenhausen (together with Antonia Rohwetter)). As a freelance writer and dramaturg, he has worked for zaungäste ensemble (Frankfurt/M.), Liam Al-Zafari (Oslo), Mamoru Iriguchi (Edinburgh), Andreas Bachmair (Amsterdam), Mathias Max Herrmann (Hannover), and the inclusive performance collective I Can Be Your Translator (Dortmund), among others. He has published numerous essays and books. Schulte has taught and lectured theater theory at various universities and art colleges in Germany and Norway. He lives in Frankfurt am Main.

Ella Steinmann studied philosophy and religious studies in Bochum. After working as a project officer in the field of cultural education at Stiftung Mercator in Essen, she moved in 2016 to the Zukunftsakademie NRW, an association for diversity in art, culture, and cultural education. In addition to advising and accompanying cultural institutions, she designed further education and exchange formats there. In the Master Scenic Research in Bochum, she is working on the possibilities of knowledge acquisition through performative art forms. Since July 2019, she is one of the two agents for diversity development within the program "360° - Fonds für Kulturen der neuen Stadtgesellschaft" of the German Federal Cultural Foundation at Theater Oberhausen.

After studying figure theater and dramaturgy, Kora Tscherning's guest engagements took her to the Staatstheater Stuttgart, the Semperoper Dresden, and the Volkstheater Bautzen, among others. Since 2011 she has been working freelance in the group "FigurenKombinat". Parallel to this, she took over the direction of the "Figure Theater" division at the Landesbühnen Sachsen in 2016. Since the 2019/20 season, Kora Tscherning has been the puppet theater director of the Meiningen State Theater and strives to bring sophisticated puppet theater to Meiningen and the region with wit and verve.

Anna Volkland studied dramaturgy in Leipzig (2009 diploma thesis "Theater ohne Bühne") and dance studies in Berlin. She has since worked as a dramaturge and curator for drama, dance, and unusual theatrical formats, among other things, and has been writing about theater and dance since 2010. From 2014 to 2020, she was a research associate at the Berlin University of the Arts, where she began conducting research on the history of institutional critique in urban theater in the FRG and GDR since the late 1960s. There she also initiated, among others, the biennial symposium "Performances of [Femininity] in the Performing Arts" (2016 - 2022 ff) and supported the qualification program Artist Training for refugee artists* as module leader for Performing Arts until 2019. She teach(es) among others critical theater history, extended performance analysis or experimental interdisciplinary artistic practice and teaches as guest lecturer, since 2019 for example at the HfS "Ernst Busch" Berlin. From 2016 texts, later also lectures on questions of power-critical, democratic modes of organization and (artistic) work in theater.

Birgit Walkenhorst studied theater in Mainz, Frankfurt/Main, Reading and Bologna. She has researched, taught and published in this subject. She worked for various stage publishers; as an editorial assistant, she was in charge of the INTHEGA playbill journals. She participated in the organization and communication teams of international festivals (Mousonturm, KJTZ, Staatstheater Wiesbaden). From 2011 to 2015 she was responsible for public relations and program planning at the International Theater Frankfurt. Since 2015, she has been managing director of the state association of professional independent theaters in Rheinland-Pfalz, laprofth.

Jessica Samantha Starr Weisskirchen began her theater career as an assistant director at the Theater und Orchester Heidelberg and later moved to the Nationaltheater Mannheim. Here she realized her first works during her assistantship (DIE TONIGHT, LIVE FOREVER or DAS PRINZIP NOSFERATU by Sivan Ben Yishai, 2020) and as a director (EIN KÖRPER FÜR JETZT UND HEUTE by Mehdi Moradpour, 2021). In 2022 she opened the season of Theater Dortmund with WOYZECK, and in 2023 she will open the season in the 'Box' of Deutsches Theater Berlin. She is founder of the assistierenden-netzwerk and meanwhile board member of the ensemble-netzwerk e.V. She is initiator and founder of the assistierenden-festival SUMMER UP and jury member of the Prozessförderung of the Fonds Darstellende Künste. In 2022, she successfully completed the Master of Arts degree program, Theater and Orchestra Management, at the HfMDK in Frankfurt am Main. This year, the Kulturpolitische Gesellschaft is publishing the anthology "Systemkritik! Essays für eine Kulturpolitik der Transformation" with her article "Nur die Bretter, die die Welt bedeuten".

Freelance theater maker since 1994; Tom Wolter is a founding member of the free ensemble p&s and since 2017 artistic director of the WUK Theater Quartier in Halle; since 2014 artistic director of the Student Theater of the University of Halle; producer of interventions and interactions in public space; so far 115 own theater productions as actor/director/writer for all ages; Cooperations with various theaters nationwide, including junges theater Göttingen, theaterhaus Stuttgart, Theater unter dem Dach Berlin, Projekttheater Dresden, moritzbastei Leipzig, Theater an der Angel Magdeburg, Puppentheater Halle, Oper Halle and others; acting teacher at various institutions, workshops on politics, theater and acting, improvisation nationwide and internationally; lecturer so far at a. o. among others at the Theaterakademie Sachsen, the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Leipzig, Uni Halle and the Hochschule Merseburg; Tom Wolter is involved in cultural and local politics. He has been a city councilor in Halle (Saale) for MitBürger e.V. since 2005, and has been the parliamentary group leader of MitBürger & Die PARTEI since 2019; he has been a board member of the Federal Association of Independent Performing Arts since 2015. Since 2019, he has been a member of the Board of Trustees of the Standing Conference of German-Speaking Drama Schools and the Theater Advisory Board of the Free State of Thuringia.

Born in Odenwald in 1982, studied psychology in Berlin and Paris and speech and musical theater direction at the Theaterakademie "August Everding" in Munich. Doctorate (ongoing) "Culture, Operation and Resonance" with Hartmut Rosa and Friedrich von Borries, HfBK Hamburg. Scholarship holder of the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes, the Gabriele-Oehmisch-Stiftung and the Akademie Musiktheater Heute of the Deutsche Bank Foundation.

As a freelance dramaturg, he has worked for a variety of productions in Germany and abroad (including Kampnagel, Schaubühne, Schauspielhaus Zürich, Theater Basel, Alfortville Paris). As founder, director and dramaturg he developed a number of site-specific productions with the independent group O-Team (including "HermannSchlachten" at the Stuttgart Wagenhallen, "Blaupause" in the former editorial building of the Süddeutsche Zeitung or "Kirschgärten" at the Hofgut Oberfeld Darmstadt) and most recently "Flüchtlinge" at the Thalia Theater Hamburg.

From 2011 to 2013 he was head dramaturge/member of the artistic direction at Theaterhaus Jena and in the 2014/2015 season drama director at Staatstheater Darmstadt. He has worked as festival curator and dramaturge (Rodeo Festival Munich, Datterich Festival Darmstadt, Wiesbaden Biennale) and lecturer (LMU and HfMT Munich, HfMT Leipzig, TU Darmstadt, JGU and HfMT Frankfurt, JGU Mainz, EAH and FSU Jena). Zipf directed JenaKultur from 2016 to 2022. Since the 2022/23 season, he has been executive director at Kampnagel Hamburg.

Beate Baron has been Professor of Music Theater at the HfM Saar since 2021. She taught at the HfM Hanns Eisler Berlin, the MH Lübeck and the HMT Rostock. Beate Baron studied directing with Götz Friedrich Hfmt Hamburg and directing and interdisciplinary composition at the HfM "Hanns Eisler" Berlin and works as a director for music theater and opera, as well as a curator. Her artistic works arise in the field of tension between music theater, installations, opera and video. She has developed award-winning productions for a wide variety of venues and festivals, including the Ruhrtriennale, Festspielhaus Hellerau, Radial System, Staatsoper Berlin, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Oper Frankfurt, Theater Freiburg, and many others. A long and intensive artistic collaboration connected her with Götz Friedrich, Hans Neuenfels and Jürgen Flimm.

Fatima Çalışkan is a moderator, artist and author. Her focus is on art and cultural policy issues on which she writes analyses and essays, among others for the Kulturpolitische Gesellschaft, or develops satirical texts for independent productions. She is co-founder and co-editor of the biennial magazine YallahSalon. As a presenter, she plays the entire keyboard of conversation and presentation formats for stage, audio and video. As a performer and dramaturge, she collaborates with various projects in the independent scene. Other positions include advising and accompanying projects for the Interkultur Ruhr funding fund, co-directing the advisory office of the Performing Arts Program of the LAFT Berlin, co-directing the FAIRSTAGE model project, and jury activities at the federal and state levels.

Chang Nai Wen has lived in Germany for 18 years. She was the first Asian student to be accepted for the drama theater directing program at the Theaterakademie Hamburg and has been seen as a Taiwanese director in the spoken word theaters of the German-speaking world. This experience led her to question the politics around her and consider how to create an environment that was less hierarchical and more about collaboration and diversity. In 2008, she founded "SdF - Sisyphus, the Flying Elephant" in Berlin, an independent project-based transcultural group specializing in immersive, participatory and interactive creation. In 2010, she was invited to participate in the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab in New York, which inspired her to pursue the idea of collaboration between international directors. Thus, in 2011 she became a co-founder of the international directors' collective "World Wide Lab" with 12 other directors from 9 countries. As an internationally working artist, Nai Wen prefers a creative process that uses her artistic muscles along with her cross-cultural insights to create works that encourage dialogue and reveal different perspectives. In addition to her artistic work, she is a strong advocate for a cultural environment of equality, inclusion, and diversity.

Sabine Effmert was trained as a puppeteer under Prof. Werner Knödgen at the Stuttgart University of Music and Performing Arts. In 2003 she attended the master classes in puppet animation at the Akademia Teatralna in Bialystok, Poland. In 2010 she was a guest student at the ABK Stuttgart in the Intermedial Design course. After receiving her diploma in 2005, she worked primarily as a freelance artist with a focus on figure play, image and movement across disciplines. In addition to collaborating with the light artist and director Joachim Fleischer, she has worked for the
for the Konzertdirektion Landgraf, with Stefanie Oberhoff / Gütesiegel Kultur, the Zimmertheater Tübingen, the Staatstheater Stuttgart. Designs were created, for example, for the theater tri-bühne Stuttgart, the LTT, the Puppentheater Gera. From 2019 to 2020 she was employed at the HMDK Stuttgart in the course of studies in figure theater as a member of the management staff with Prof. Stephanie Rinke. Since 2022, she has been head of the artistic operations office and the Ansbacher Puppenspiele at the Theater Ansbach.

Since 1994 artistic director and director of the Theater Mummpitz in Nuremberg and since 2000 artistic director of the biennial European-Bavarian children's theater festival "panoptikum". In addition, continuously active in the field of cultural policy as well as in various national and international associations for the promotion of professional children's and youth theater. Among other things, she was a long-standing board member and deputy chairwoman of the German ASSITEJ e.V. until January 2022.

Member of the Nuremberg Education Advisory Board, since 2009 responsible for the conceptualization , implementation and project management of the 1st Nuremberg Kulturrucksack.

Since 2019/2020 responsible for the project development "Mummpitz macht Schule. Klasse."

Since January 2022 artistic director of the three-year Jupiter project "Memories" in cooperation with CIE Gare centrale/Belgium, AdDK Regensburg and Theater Mummpitz.

Since 2022 member of the board of trustees of the Fonds Darstellende Künste.

Yunus Ersoy, who grew up in Zurich, is a dramaturg*. After completing a BA, Yunus studied for an MA at the University of Zurich (Cultural Analysis) and Applied Theater Studies in Giessen.

In 2009 Ersoy was a founding member of "oimoi - junges theater zürich", is still a member of the board of directors, and has been involved in over 10 oimoi productions on and off stage. At the Schauspielhaus Zürich, Ersoy has been part of choruses in plays by René Pollesch, among others.

Ersoy organizes festivals (including Queer Week in 2021-2023) and has performed own works with the collective Mora Vegesture at Künstlerhaus Mousonturm, with Camila Rhodi at the FACT Festival in Budapest, and with Josef Mehling at 48h Neukölln in Berlin. In 2020, Jil Dreyer, Ersoy and Mehling presented the theater performance None of This at the Grätsche Festival in Zurich.

After an internship at Studio Я, Ersoy worked as an assistant and then as a dramaturg at the Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin since the middle of the 2018/19 season, working with directors Yael Ronen, Hakan Savaş Mican, and Paul Spittler, among others.

In the 2023/24 season, Ersoy will work as a dramaturg* at the Schauspielhaus Zürich with Suna Gürler and Joana Tischkau.

Sabine Gehm is artistic director of the international festival TANZ Bremen and in the management team of the Tanzpakt project 'MV tanzt an'.

From 2006 to 2016, together with Katharina von Wilcke, she directed the first four editions of the international dance congress of the German Federal Cultural Foundation (Berlin 2006, Hamburg 2009, Düsseldorf 2013, Hannover 2016).

A graduate in cultural studies, she was program dramaturg and director of various festivals (including Junge Hunde, Independance Days, Tanzplattform Deutschland 2000) at Kampnagel Hamburg from 1994 to 2001 and coordinated, among other things, the international performing arts network 'Junge Hunde', which she co-founded, from 2001 to 2005.

Before that, she worked as an organization manager at the International Summer Theater Festival Hamburg.

As a freelance curator and cultural manager, she conceived and was responsible for international exchange projects, think tanks, laboratories and academies for KSB, BFDK, DTD, among others. She is on the board of the Dachverband Tanz Deutschland and was chair of the board of trustees at the Fonds Darstellende Künste from 2015 to 2020, for which she led the decision-making processes in 2020 (including publication of the handout on jury procedures). She is active as a reviewer and member of various juries of nationwide and international programs and works as a mentor in an advisory capacity for various artists and projects.

Rabea Grand studied cultural studies with a focus on sociology at the Fernuni Hagen (BA) and at the University of Lucerne (MA). She worked for the Foundation Schloss Leuk, at the Dampfzentrale Bern, at Reso - Tanznetzwerk Schweiz as well as for the theater festival AUAWIRLEBEN, where she was responsible for the artistic program of the festival from 2014-2017 together with the artistic director. She is co-founder of Residenz Tanz Leuk and was a member of the Theater Commission of the City of Zurich from 2015-2017. Since 2012 she has worked as a production manager of theater, dance and performance artists, including Lea Moro (Berlin/Zurich), Nils Amadeus Lange (Zurich) and Cosima Grand (Zurich/Wallis). Since fall 2017, she has been working as part of the program group as well as an artistic collaborator at Theater Spektakel in Zurich. Since 2020 she has been working at the Gessnerallee Zurich, first as artistic and managing co-leader, from May 2021 she will be responsible for the coordination of the artistic program of the Gessnerallee.

Ute Gröbel (*1983 in Erlangen) is dramaturg and artistic co-director of HochX Theater and Live Art in Munich. She was deputy director of the dramaturgy course at the August Everding Theater Academy until 2016. In 2021, she completed advanced training in theater and music management at LMU Munich; in the same year, HochX was awarded the Theaterpreis des Bundes. In 2022, she co-directed the Freischwimmen meets Rodeo Festival with Antonia Beermann and will also be artistically responsible for the 2024 and 2026 Rodeo Festivals together with her.

After studying teaching, Matthias Grön founded the Oldenburg University Theater (OUT) and led OUT as artistic director. In the 2001/2002 season, he moved to the Oldenburg State Theater. He is dramaturg at the Oldenburg State Theater and directs the Young State Theater there. He has also appeared as a director on various occasions.

Seta-Elizabeth Guetsoyan, M.A., studied theater studies and art history at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum. She worked in different theater and cultural institutions as a dramaturg, researcher and production manager in a number of different projects (Theater der Welt, Schauspielhaus Bochum, Ruhrtriennale or also in the Capital of Culture team of the city of Herne).

From 2012 to 2018, she managed the Documentation Center of the German Forum for Figure Theater and Puppetry Art and the production of the festival FIDENA - Figurentheater der Nationen.

Since 2019, she has directed the Figurentheater-Kolleg, a continuing education institution for performing and visual arts with a focus on puppet theater, and the Rottstr5-Kunsthallen, a space for transdisciplinary art and cultural-political discourse, in Bochum.

Julius Heinicke is Professor of Cultural Policy and holds the UNESCO Chair "Cultural Policy for the Arts in Development" at the University of Hildesheim. From 2017-2020, he was Professor of Applied Cultural Studies at Coburg University of Applied Sciences in the project "Coburger Weg", which was awarded the Genius Loci Prize of the Stifterverband in 2019. After studying cultural studies and theater, he completed his doctorate at Humboldt University in Berlin on theater and politics in Zimbabwe and then researched and taught for four years at the Institute for Theater Studies at Freie Universität Berlin. Since 2017, he has led the research project "Interfaces between High Culture and Cultural Education" and habilitated in 2019 with the paper " Sorge um das Offene: Verhandlungen von Vielfalt mit und im Theater" (Concern for the Open: Negotiating Diversity with and in Theater), published by Theater der Zeit.

Alexandra Henn is a German-French cultural manager. After completing her Master's degree in Cultural and Media Management at the FU Berlin and in Barcelona, she has worked both in the institutional sector and in the independent scene. After four years at the Institut français (office for theater and dance), she discovered her passion for contemporary circus and joined Chamäleon Berlin, where she has been a consultant to the artistic director and project manager since 2017, focusing on funding, touring, artist* residencies and networking. In the Bundesverband Zeitgenössischer Zirkus (BUZZ) she is involved in the AG Kulturpolitische Vernetzung, in the Veranstalterinnenforum and in the Städtepol Berlin. She also accompanies artists as a mentor.

Katja Herlemann studied theater and dance studies as well as comparative literature at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum and at the University of Antwerp. From 2011 to 2013 she worked at the Goethe-Institut in Munich and in Prague. In 2013 she was in charge of the mediation program at the Foreign Affairs Festival of the Berliner Festspiele, before moving to the Theater und Orchester Heidelberg for the 2013/14 season. There she curated and organized the international Heidelberg Stückemarkt and was on the selection committee for the playwright competition. From 2016 - 2019 she was dramaturg and curator of the contemporary drama section at Schauspiel Leipzig. There she realized play developments and premieres with, among others, Thomas Köck, Enis Maci, and E.L. Karhu, and directed the young playwrights' festival 4+1. Since 2019 she has been dramaturg at Schauspiel Frankfurt, where she continues her collaboration with Claudia Bauer, among others. She is part of the management team of the 11th edition of the festival "Politik im Freien Theater", which will take place in Frankfurt in fall 2022.

Katrin Hylla studied Applied Theater Studies in Giessen. Prior to that, she worked as an actress, director, and assistant director in Berlin's independent scene, including at HAU, Theaterdiscounter, as well as municipal and state theaters (Maxim Gorki Theater, Hessisches Landestheater Marburg, and others). Until March 2021, she worked at the independent venue TNT in Marburg as part of the artistic direction and management. In 2016 she founded the festival FÜR DICH FÜR DICH FÜR DICH, a format for contemporary positions and performances extended by working grants. As a director, she realizes plays with children, among others, and was awarded the prize of the Hessische Theatertage 2017 for it. She likes to initiate and stage formats that are open to professional and non-professional performers and musicians of all ages. For example, she created Die erste Kinderpartei Deutschland (Germany's first children's party), the audio installation Heimat #3 on a beer mountain made of 2000 beer crates, or is currently working on Bootsballet with brass music on the Werdersee in Bremen. Katrin Hylla is partly active as a lecturer e.g. at the HAWK Hildesheim and Uni Gießen. At the moment she is preparing her work as artistic director of the Schwankhalle Bremen, which she will lead in a trio from August 23.

Geboren 1975, begann er 1994 in unterschiedlichen Funktionen hauptsächlich in den darstellenden Künsten zu arbeiten. Am Anfang hat er viel in Staats- und Stadttheatern gelernt und arbeitet seit 2003 selbständig als Autor, Kurator, Dramaturg und Regisseur. Hier hat er besonders viel Erfahrung als Regisseur von Galen und Charity-Veranstaltungen gesammelt, die wichtige Inhalte und große Unterhaltung miteinander präsentieren. 2013 hat er für das Performing Arts Programm Berlin (PAP) den Branchentreff der Freien Darstellenden Künste Berlin mitkonzipiert und zusammen mit anderen bis 2017 geleitet. Für das PAP konzipiert er auch weiterhin Fachtagungen, die spezifische Themen für ein professionelles Publikum vertiefen.

2016 hat er für das PAP zusammen mit der re:publica die Performersion gegründet, ein Format für Kooperationen der digitalen und der darstellenden Künste, das er seitdem auch mit einem inzwischen internationalen Fokus fortführt.

Die kuratorische Arbeit an der Schnittstille zwischen digitalen und analogen Künsten setzt er in Laborformaten für die Technologiestiftung Berlin u.a. oder als Mitglied des Culture Track Teams der re:publica um. Vermittelnd arbeitet er in diesem Spannungsfeld auch als Beiratsmitglied der bbw – University for Applied Sciences, des Berlinforums der Stiftung Zukunft Berlin, als Speaker oder Workshopgeber.

Since 2015, Kira Kirsch has been Artistic Director and Managing Director of brut in Vienna, a production and performance venue for the independent Austrian and international theater, performance and dance scene. From 2007-2015 she was dramaturg or head dramaturg and curator of the contemporary art festival steirischer herbst in Graz. She co-founded the monothematic magazine BOB and co-edited the reader Truth is Concrete. A Handbook for Artistic Strategies in Real Politics, which deals with current movements of politically engaged art and artistic activism on an international level.

Sebastian Kirsch, born 1980, works as a theater and literary scholar as well as a publicist and has taught in Bochum, Düsseldorf, Stockholm, and Vienna. He received his PhD from Ruhr-Universität Bochum in 2011 with a study on the history of central perspective (Das Reale der Perspektive, published 2013) and habilitated in 2018 with the thesis Chor-Denken. Sorge, Wahrheit, Technik (published 2020). With a research project on Hermann Broch, Kirsch was associated with the Department of German at New York University as a Lynen Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in 2019/2020; in 2021, he was a Humboldt Fellow at the Leibniz Center for Literary and Cultural Research in Berlin. Kirsch was editor of Theater der Zeit from 2007-2013, and was also a regular columnist for the journal until 2017. He has worked as a dramaturg with Hans-Peter Litscher and Johannes Schmit, among others.

Friedrich Kirschner is a director and software developer. He uses interactionism as a theoretical and video games as a technological basis for participatory social simulations. As a professor for digital media, he leads the master's program Game and Object at the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts.

Josa Kölbel was himself a professional artist, trained at the renowned national circus center in Chalons-en-Champagne, France, and was active throughout Europe for several years. Since 2015 he is managing director of Berlin Circus Production - Hilliger Kölbel GbR and co-director of the Berlin Circus Festival, which takes place annually at Tempelhofer Feld and gathers productions, artists and positions of contemporary circus. He also curated the Circusschiene at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele, worked as a course instructor at ETAGE, as an artist supervisor at the MGB and has been a mentor for the Berlin LAFT since 2020.

Daniela Koß is a cultural scientist M.A. and has been working at the Foundation of Lower Saxony since 2010, where she is responsible for funding theater and socioculture. In her work, she advises numerous actors and designs and oversees innovative funding programs. These include socioK_change, a program that accompanies transformation processes in socioculture, and also the festival of independent theater "Best OFF," which under her direction shows the best productions of the Lower Saxony scene every two years. In addition to numerous lectures and articles, the Handbook of Socioculture was published under her leadership in 2015 and the publication on developments in rural areas Vital Village in 2017 in collaboration with Prof. Wolfgang Schneider and Beate Kegler. She is a member of various juries and teaches on the topics of cultural financing and change management.

Andreas Lübbers *28.05.1961

High school diploma. Apprenticeship as bank clerk. Studied German language and literature as well as art history - all in Hamburg. Years of travel: 1991 - 2003 dramaturg at several German-speaking theaters. Back in Hamburg: 2003 foundation of the Hamburger Sprechwerk - until today active board member of the association // 2005 - 2009 board member of the Dachverband Freier Theater (today DfdK) // 2009 foundation and until 2022 board member Hamburg Hoch 11 e.V. (representing creative industry players in Hamburg) // 2010 foundation and board of WIESE eG // 2014 foundation member and board of Trägerverein "hauptsache frei" // Since 2015 active in "flausen+ - Bundesnetzwerk" // 2020 opening "Theatrales Produktions- und Bildungszentrum WIESE eG" - since then executive board member. Goal: Increase public and political recognition of independent theater work and form a strong association of small and medium-sized venues at the federal level.

After graduating from high school, Anne Maar worked as a museum attendant in Berlin, made short films (together with Björn Melhus and Andreas Fröhlich) and wrote a screenplay together with Andreas Fröhlich, which unfortunately was never filmed. In 1991 she moved to a small idyllic village in Lower Franconia. Many assistant directorships and a few directorships at the theater followed. In 1993 her first children's book was published, several more followed, including children's theater plays (together with Christian Schidlowsky). Since 2003 she has directed the Theater Schloss Maßbach - Unterfränkische Landesbühne, founded by her grandparents Lena Hutter and Oskar Ballhaus.

Freelance director and artistic project manager Frauke Meyer was born in Dresden. She studied musical theater directing at the Hamburg University of Music and Theater. She then worked at San Francisco Opera and Theater Basel, where she took her first staging steps. From 2005-2013 she was engaged as scenic director at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, where she developed various productions. At the same time, she began working as a freelance director for the Theater Dortmund and the Winter Opera Potsdam, for example, and was internationally responsible for scenic takeovers in Montpellier, Istanbul or Luxembourg. Since 2013 she has been working as a freelance director and project developer at houses and institutions such as the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Bavarian State Opera, the Royal Opera House, the Cologne Early Music Festival, the Theater Bonn, the Cologne Baroque Orchestra , the sound art festival bonnhoeren, the Sommerblut Festival or as part of the BTHVN2020. Frauke Meyer teaches dramaturgical project development within the course of studies "Music Mediation - Music in Context" at the Anton Bruckner Private University Linz, dramaturgical teaching at the Rostock University of Music and Theatre and is committed to the equal rights of female artists within the Women's Cultural Office NRW.

Helge-Björn Meyer has been in demand as a dramaturg, performer and curator at a wide variety of festivals and theaters in Germany and abroad. He has received national and international awards for his artistic projects. From 2018 to 2019 he was managing director of the Landesbüro Freie Theater Sachsen, and from 2019 to 2021 he headed the Servicetelle FREIE SZENE Sachsen for the interests of the independent performing arts in the Free State of Saxony.

llja Mirsky studied Cognitive Science at the University of Tübingen, Politics, Literature and Psychology at the University of Haifa (Israel) and Performance Studies at the University of Hamburg. He teaches on immersive media and digital dramaturgy at ADK Ludwigsburg, University of Tübingen and University of Arts Helsinki. From 2019 to 2022, he was dramaturg and also a regular programmer at the Institute for Theaterale Zukunftsforschung (ITZ) at the Zimmertheater in Tübingen. Since the 2022/2023 season, he has been dramaturg and digital dramaturg at the Residenztheater in Munich.

Michael v. zur Mühlen has been directing cross-genre drama, opera and contemporary music theater since 2004 at the Forum Neues Musiktheater of the Staatsoper Stuttgart, the Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz Berlin, the Oper Leipzig, the Nationaltheater Weimar, the DT Göttingen, the Staatstheater Darmstadt, the Staatsoper Berlin and the Oper Halle, among others. In the 2016/17 - 2020/21 seasons, he was director and chief dramaturg in the management team of the Halle Opera, whose advanced program has received great attention throughout Germany during this time and has been honored several times with prizes and awards. For example, in the 17/18 season review of the magazine Die Deutsche Bühne, Oper Halle received the most mentions in the category "Most convincing theater work away from large theater centers" and was awarded the Theaterpreis des Bundes in 2019. In addition to his work as a director and curator, Michael v. zur Mühlen teaches in the fields of directing, dramaturgy and theater theory. In 2019, he held the Bertolt Brecht Guest Professorship of the City of Leipzig.

- 1958 born in Potsdam

- since 1981 as a puppeteer, later also as an actor, in different free Potsdam projects

- from 1985 - 1987 he completed the course of studies "Leader of a Folk Art Collective" in puppetry at the "Central House for Cultural Work" in Leipzig.

- 1993 -1998 fabrik Potsdam public relations and venue manager

- 1995 co-founder of the Landesverband Freier Theater Brandenburg e.V. (state association of independent theaters)

- since 1998 Managing Director of the Landesverband Freier Theater Brandenburgs e.V.

Sarah Reimann studied dramaturgy at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy" Leipzig and theater studies at the Freie Universität Berlin. After various positions as a freelance dramaturg, including at the FFT Düsseldorf, she has been working at HAU Hebbel am Ufer since 2012, meanwhile as curator for the digital stage HAU4 (www.hau4.de). Together with Annemie Vanackere she is the editor of the volume: "Utopia and Feminism" (Matthes & Seitz Berlin).

Wilma Renfordt (*1982, grew up in the Ruhr area) studied theater, art history and literature at the Free University of Berlin; graduated with a thesis on theater in the public space of the city. In 2008-2013 she was dramaturg of the theater group copy & waste, and in 2009-2013 artistic-scientific assistant at the project office Friedrich von Borries in Berlin. Further collaborations include Daniel Hellmann, Kiriakos Hadjiioannou, Rimini Protokoll, and the theory and practice community Dr. Fahimi. She wrote, among others, a companion volume to the exhibition "Wohnungsfrage" of the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin (2015) and a volume on artistic research ("Klimakunstforschung", Merve, 2011). For the 2017 festival edition, she was dramaturg at steirischer herbst in Graz. Since 2017 she is dramaturg at Impulse Theater Festival.

Carena Schlewitt was born in Leipzig in 1961. Since 2018, she has been the artistic director of HELLERAU - European Center for the Arts in Dresden.

She was Director of Kaserne Basel from 2008-2018 and Artistic Director of the Basel International Theater Festival (since 2012). She studied theater at the Humboldt University in Berlin and worked at the Academy of Arts in East Berlin from 1985 to 1993. She worked as dramaturge, curator and deputy artistic director at various independent production houses (Podewil Berlin; FFT Düsseldorf; HAU Berlin) and at international festivals (Theater der Welt; HAU Berlin).

The focal points of her work have included the transformation processes in East Germany, Eastern Europe and China and the development of theater in Poland, France and Italy as well as live art and performance art. She has served on various juries, including for the "Impulse" festival; for the German-Polish expert panel of the Kulturstiftung des Bundes as well as for the "Doppelpass" program of the Kulturstiftung des Bundes; she was a member of the expert commission of the Swiss cultural foundation Pro Helvetia.

Carena Schlewitt is a member of the Saxon Academy of Arts, the Saxon Cultural Senate and a member of the Expert Advisory Board for Performing Arts and Music at the Cultural Foundation of the Free State of Saxony.

Beata Anna Schmutz was born in Gdansk, Poland in 1975. After studying German at the University of Gdańsk, she continued her university education in the subjects of art history, educational science and literature at the Ruprecht Karls University in Heidelberg. She is the artistic director of numerous theater, art and media education projects and was a cultural education employee at the Haus der Jugend Heidelberg from 2005 to 2016, where she headed the art and theater departments. Freelance director and dramaturg since 2006, university lecturer in the fields of aesthetic education, post-dramatic theater and performance. In 2005 she founded the theater and performance group RAMPIG, where she works as a director and dramaturg. From 2016 to 2018 she was head of the Volkstheater department at the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe. Since 2018 she has been directing the Mannheim City Ensemble at the National Theater Mannheim. Member of the board of the Dramaturgical Society since 2016.

Philipp Schulte is a professor specializing in scenography and performance theory at the Norwegian Theatre Academy (Fredrikstad), visiting professor of scenography at the Karlsruhe University of Design, and managing director of the Hessian Theatre Academy (Frankfurt/M.). He studied Applied Theatre Studies in Bergen (Norway) and Giessen, where he received his PhD in 2011. After receiving his doctorate, he worked as a research assistant in Giessen for eight years. Since 2012, he has directed international festival campus and academy formats that he conceived (Ruhrtriennale, Theaterformen Hannover/Braunschweig, KunstFestSpiele Herrenhausen (together with Antonia Rohwetter)). As a freelance writer and dramaturg, he has worked for zaungäste ensemble (Frankfurt/M.), Liam Al-Zafari (Oslo), Mamoru Iriguchi (Edinburgh), Andreas Bachmair (Amsterdam), Mathias Max Herrmann (Hannover), and the inclusive performance collective I Can Be Your Translator (Dortmund), among others. He has published numerous essays and books. Schulte has taught and lectured theater theory at various universities and art colleges in Germany and Norway. He lives in Frankfurt am Main.

Theresa Schütz, born 1986, theater scholar and theater journalist. After studying German Literature and Cultural Studies (BA) at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and Theater Studies (MA) at Freie Universität Berlin and Université Paris-8, she worked as a research assistant at the Collaborative Research Center Affective Societies. Dynamics of Living Together in Moving Worlds at the Free University of Berlin. As part of this, she completed her PhD in 2021 on strategies of audience engagement in contemporary immersive theater ("Theater der Vereinnahmung," Berlin 2022). She has continued her work at the SFB since 2021 as a postdoctoral researcher with a project on forms of life of artist collectives.

Since 2013 she has also been writing regularly in theater journalism, primarily for the magazine Theater der Zeit, and since 2022 also for nachtkritik.de. In 2019/20, she was a participant in the first Academy for Contemporary Theater Journalism, sponsored by the Bündnis internationaler Produktionshäuser.

Linda Vahldieck has been project manager of the funding program "Promoting Connections" of the Federal Association of Independent Performing Arts since 2021. Previously, she worked as administrative project manager for EU-funded projects at Tanzbüro Berlin since 2018 and has held various project management positions in Berlin in the field of cultural and educational policy since 2008, e.g. in cooperation with the German UNESCO Commission as well as Goethe Institutes and DAAD offices abroad. Since 2011 she has been a member of the board of trustees for LUCKY TRIMMER, an annual dance and performance festival in Berlin, and since 2013 she has also served on its board of directors, responsible for production management as well as press and public relations. In 2021 she was a jury member for the Turin edition of SOLOCOREOGRAFICO, a solo dance festival in Frankfurt am Main, Turin and Lyon.

Anna Volkland studied dramaturgy in Leipzig (2009 diploma thesis "Theater ohne Bühne") and dance studies in Berlin. She has since worked as a dramaturge and curator for drama, dance, and unusual theatrical formats, among other things, and has been writing about theater and dance since 2010. From 2014 to 2020, she was a research associate at the Berlin University of the Arts, where she began conducting research on the history of institutional critique in urban theater in the FRG and GDR since the late 1960s. There she also initiated, among others, the biennial symposium "Performances of [Femininity] in the Performing Arts" (2016 - 2022 ff) and supported the qualification program Artist Training for refugee artists* as module leader for Performing Arts until 2019. She teach(es) among others critical theater history, extended performance analysis or experimental interdisciplinary artistic practice and teaches as guest lecturer, since 2019 for example at the HfS "Ernst Busch" Berlin. From 2016 texts, later also lectures on questions of power-critical, democratic modes of organization and (artistic) work in theater.

Birgit Walkenhorst studied theater in Mainz, Frankfurt/Main, Reading and Bologna. She has researched, taught and published in this subject. She worked for various stage publishers; as an editorial assistant, she was in charge of the INTHEGA playbill journals. She participated in the organization and communication teams of international festivals (Mousonturm, KJTZ, Staatstheater Wiesbaden). From 2011 to 2015 she was responsible for public relations and program planning at the International Theater Frankfurt. Since 2015, she has been managing director of the state association of professional independent theaters in Rheinland-Pfalz, laprofth.

Silvia Werner studied English (M.A.) and Finnish (B.A.) with a focus on literary studies at the University of Cologne. As a cultural manager, she has worked for many years primarily in the field of contemporary dance in North Rhine-Westphalia, nationwide and internationally, accompanying productions and collaborating with artists. This work was complemented by teaching assignments both at the University of Cologne and at the Center for Contemporary Dance (ZZT) in Cologne.
Since 2021, she has headed the FESTIVALFRIENDS association based in Dortmund, whose goal is the nationwide, supraregional networking of festival makers and artists.

Freelance theater maker since 1994; Tom Wolter is a founding member of the free ensemble p&s and since 2017 artistic director of the WUK Theater Quartier in Halle; since 2014 artistic director of the Student Theater of the University of Halle; producer of interventions and interactions in public space; so far 115 own theater productions as actor/director/writer for all ages; Cooperations with various theaters nationwide, including junges theater Göttingen, theaterhaus Stuttgart, Theater unter dem Dach Berlin, Projekttheater Dresden, moritzbastei Leipzig, Theater an der Angel Magdeburg, Puppentheater Halle, Oper Halle and others; acting teacher at various institutions, workshops on politics, theater and acting, improvisation nationwide and internationally; lecturer so far at a. o. among others at the Theaterakademie Sachsen, the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Leipzig, Uni Halle and the Hochschule Merseburg; Tom Wolter is involved in cultural and local politics. He has been a city councilor in Halle (Saale) for MitBürger e.V. since 2005, and has been the parliamentary group leader of MitBürger & Die PARTEI since 2019; he has been a board member of the Federal Association of Independent Performing Arts since 2015. Since 2019, he has been a member of the Board of Trustees of the Standing Conference of German-Speaking Drama Schools and the Theater Advisory Board of the Free State of Thuringia.

Beate Baron has been Professor of Music Theater at the HfM Saar since 2021. She taught at the HfM Hanns Eisler Berlin, the MH Lübeck and the HMT Rostock. Beate Baron studied directing with Götz Friedrich Hfmt Hamburg and directing and interdisciplinary composition at the HfM "Hanns Eisler" Berlin and works as a director for music theater and opera, as well as a curator. Her artistic works arise in the field of tension between music theater, installations, opera and video. She has developed award-winning productions for a wide variety of venues and festivals, including the Ruhrtriennale, Festspielhaus Hellerau, Radial System, Staatsoper Berlin, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Oper Frankfurt, Theater Freiburg, and many others. A long and intensive artistic collaboration connected her with Götz Friedrich, Hans Neuenfels and Jürgen Flimm.

Fatima Çalışkan is a moderator, artist and author. Her focus is on art and cultural policy issues on which she writes analyses and essays, among others for the Kulturpolitische Gesellschaft, or develops satirical texts for independent productions. She is co-founder and co-editor of the biennial magazine YallahSalon. As a presenter, she plays the entire keyboard of conversation and presentation formats for stage, audio and video. As a performer and dramaturge, she collaborates with various projects in the independent scene. Other positions include advising and accompanying projects for the Interkultur Ruhr funding fund, co-directing the advisory office of the Performing Arts Program of the LAFT Berlin, co-directing the FAIRSTAGE model project, and jury activities at the federal and state levels.

Janis El-Bira, born in Braunschweig in 1986, studied philosophy and history in Berlin and has since worked as a journalist and presenter with a focus on theater. He is an editor for the theater portal nachtkritik.de and a presenter and editor for the program "Rang 1 - Das Theatermagazin" on Deutschlandfunk Kultur. In addition, texts and contributions for various newspapers and radio stations. From 2016 to 2021 he headed the journalistic project for young talent "Theatertreffen-Blog" at the Berliner Festspiele. Jury activities include the Mülheim Drama Prize 2021, the Fast Forward 2021 festival in Dresden, and the Politik im Freien Theater 2022 festival in Frankfurt am Main.

Since 1994 artistic director and director of the Theater Mummpitz in Nuremberg and since 2000 artistic director of the biennial European-Bavarian children's theater festival "panoptikum". In addition, continuously active in the field of cultural policy as well as in various national and international associations for the promotion of professional children's and youth theater. Among other things, she was a long-standing board member and deputy chairwoman of the German ASSITEJ e.V. until January 2022.

Member of the Nuremberg Education Advisory Board, since 2009 responsible for the conceptualization , implementation and project management of the 1st Nuremberg Kulturrucksack.

Since 2019/2020 responsible for the project development "Mummpitz macht Schule. Klasse."

Since January 2022 artistic director of the three-year Jupiter project "Memories" in cooperation with CIE Gare centrale/Belgium, AdDK Regensburg and Theater Mummpitz.

Since 2022 member of the board of trustees of the Fonds Darstellende Künste.

Sabine Gehm is artistic director of the international festival TANZ Bremen and in the management team of the Tanzpakt project 'MV tanzt an'.

From 2006 to 2016, together with Katharina von Wilcke, she directed the first four editions of the international dance congress of the German Federal Cultural Foundation (Berlin 2006, Hamburg 2009, Düsseldorf 2013, Hannover 2016).

A graduate in cultural studies, she was program dramaturg and director of various festivals (including Junge Hunde, Independance Days, Tanzplattform Deutschland 2000) at Kampnagel Hamburg from 1994 to 2001 and coordinated, among other things, the international performing arts network 'Junge Hunde', which she co-founded, from 2001 to 2005.

Before that, she worked as an organization manager at the International Summer Theater Festival Hamburg.

As a freelance curator and cultural manager, she conceived and was responsible for international exchange projects, think tanks, laboratories and academies for KSB, BFDK, DTD, among others. She is on the board of the Dachverband Tanz Deutschland and was chair of the board of trustees at the Fonds Darstellende Künste from 2015 to 2020, for which she led the decision-making processes in 2020 (including publication of the handout on jury procedures). She is active as a reviewer and member of various juries of nationwide and international programs and works as a mentor in an advisory capacity for various artists and projects.

Lea Goebel is a dramaturg at Schauspiel Köln. She studied German, Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies as well as English Studies in Bonn and at the Université Paris-Sorbonne. At Schauspiel Köln she worked with Luk Perceval, Frank Castorf, Jürgen Flimm and Mina Salehpour, among others. She is part of the core team of dramaturgie-netzwerk, where she advocates for fair working structures and cultural-political renewal in municipal theater. Since 2021, she has curated the "Netzmarkt" for the Heidelberg Stückemarkt, which honors three productions of digital theater. Together with the "Digital Dramaturgy" initiative, she explores new ways of digital storytelling.

At the age of 20, Martha came to Saarbrücken to study and was so thrilled by the proximity to France and the Saarland festival landscape that she is still here. After various internships and (part-time) jobs at the Max Ophüls Preis film festival, other Saarland cultural institutions and event agencies, among others, she finally landed at the PERSPECTIVES Festival, Franco-German festival of stage arts, in 2009. In the meantime, her responsibilities have grown, she co-founded the festival LOOSTIK, German-French festival for young audiences, saw thousands of plays, gives workshops and sits on various juries.

Geboren 1975, begann er 1994 in unterschiedlichen Funktionen hauptsächlich in den darstellenden Künsten zu arbeiten. Am Anfang hat er viel in Staats- und Stadttheatern gelernt und arbeitet seit 2003 selbständig als Autor, Kurator, Dramaturg und Regisseur. Hier hat er besonders viel Erfahrung als Regisseur von Galen und Charity-Veranstaltungen gesammelt, die wichtige Inhalte und große Unterhaltung miteinander präsentieren. 2013 hat er für das Performing Arts Programm Berlin (PAP) den Branchentreff der Freien Darstellenden Künste Berlin mitkonzipiert und zusammen mit anderen bis 2017 geleitet. Für das PAP konzipiert er auch weiterhin Fachtagungen, die spezifische Themen für ein professionelles Publikum vertiefen.

2016 hat er für das PAP zusammen mit der re:publica die Performersion gegründet, ein Format für Kooperationen der digitalen und der darstellenden Künste, das er seitdem auch mit einem inzwischen internationalen Fokus fortführt.

Die kuratorische Arbeit an der Schnittstille zwischen digitalen und analogen Künsten setzt er in Laborformaten für die Technologiestiftung Berlin u.a. oder als Mitglied des Culture Track Teams der re:publica um. Vermittelnd arbeitet er in diesem Spannungsfeld auch als Beiratsmitglied der bbw – University for Applied Sciences, des Berlinforums der Stiftung Zukunft Berlin, als Speaker oder Workshopgeber.

Since 2015, Kira Kirsch has been Artistic Director and Managing Director of brut in Vienna, a production and performance venue for the independent Austrian and international theater, performance and dance scene. From 2007-2015 she was dramaturg or head dramaturg and curator of the contemporary art festival steirischer herbst in Graz. She co-founded the monothematic magazine BOB and co-edited the reader Truth is Concrete. A Handbook for Artistic Strategies in Real Politics, which deals with current movements of politically engaged art and artistic activism on an international level.

Daniela Koß is a cultural scientist M.A. and has been working at the Foundation of Lower Saxony since 2010, where she is responsible for funding theater and socioculture. In her work, she advises numerous actors and designs and oversees innovative funding programs. These include socioK_change, a program that accompanies transformation processes in socioculture, and also the festival of independent theater "Best OFF," which under her direction shows the best productions of the Lower Saxony scene every two years. In addition to numerous lectures and articles, the Handbook of Socioculture was published under her leadership in 2015 and the publication on developments in rural areas Vital Village in 2017 in collaboration with Prof. Wolfgang Schneider and Beate Kegler. She is a member of various juries and teaches on the topics of cultural financing and change management.

Andreas Lübbers *28.05.1961

High school diploma. Apprenticeship as bank clerk. Studied German language and literature as well as art history - all in Hamburg. Years of travel: 1991 - 2003 dramaturg at several German-speaking theaters. Back in Hamburg: 2003 foundation of the Hamburger Sprechwerk - until today active board member of the association // 2005 - 2009 board member of the Dachverband Freier Theater (today DfdK) // 2009 foundation and until 2022 board member Hamburg Hoch 11 e.V. (representing creative industry players in Hamburg) // 2010 foundation and board of WIESE eG // 2014 foundation member and board of Trägerverein "hauptsache frei" // Since 2015 active in "flausen+ - Bundesnetzwerk" // 2020 opening "Theatrales Produktions- und Bildungszentrum WIESE eG" - since then executive board member. Goal: Increase public and political recognition of independent theater work and form a strong association of small and medium-sized venues at the federal level.

Florian Malzacher is a freelance curator, dramaturg and writer.He is currently working on projects such as Training for the Future (with Jonas Staal) and The Art of Assembly, a series of talks and conversations about the potential of assemblies in art, activism and politics.

2012 - 2017 he was Artistic Director of the Impulse Theater Festival, before that seven years Head Dramaturg/Curator of the festival steirischer herbst.

As a dramaturg, he has worked with Rimini Protokoll, Lola Arias (ARG), Mariano Pensotti (ARG), and regularly with the Nature Theater of Oklahoma (USA), among others.

Recent publications include Not Just a Mirror. Looking for the Political Theatre of Today (2015), Empty Stages, Crowded Flats. Performativity as Curatorial Strategy (with Joanna Warsza, 2017), and Gesellschaftsspiele. Political Theatre Today (2020). His books and texts have been translated into 15 languages.

Website

Freelance director and artistic project manager Frauke Meyer was born in Dresden. She studied musical theater directing at the Hamburg University of Music and Theater. She then worked at San Francisco Opera and Theater Basel, where she took her first staging steps. From 2005-2013 she was engaged as scenic director at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, where she developed various productions. At the same time, she began working as a freelance director for the Theater Dortmund and the Winter Opera Potsdam, for example, and was internationally responsible for scenic takeovers in Montpellier, Istanbul or Luxembourg. Since 2013 she has been working as a freelance director and project developer at houses and institutions such as the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Bavarian State Opera, the Royal Opera House, the Cologne Early Music Festival, the Theater Bonn, the Cologne Baroque Orchestra , the sound art festival bonnhoeren, the Sommerblut Festival or as part of the BTHVN2020. Frauke Meyer teaches dramaturgical project development within the course of studies "Music Mediation - Music in Context" at the Anton Bruckner Private University Linz, dramaturgical teaching at the Rostock University of Music and Theatre and is committed to the equal rights of female artists within the Women's Cultural Office NRW.

Michael Müller is part of the artistic direction and management of TD Berlin. The theater and production house has its focus on text- and language-based performances. As a dramaturg, he works in a variety of contexts and curates the Monologfestival, which co-produces 10 new solo productions on a current theme every two years. Among other things, he is committed to the development of the cultural locations Alte Münze and Molkenmarkt in Berlin.

Anke Politz grew up in Saxony-Anhalt and came to Berlin in 1996 to study. For several years she worked as a cultural manager for various musicians until she found her professional home at Chamäleon Theater in 2004. Starting as head of the marketing and PR department, she took over as director in 2007 and as artistic director in 2011, and has since served as shareholder and artistic director of the non-profit structure. She is 2nd chair of the Federal Association of Contemporary Circus and particularly active in the field of cultural policy work and structural promotion of circus arts. As co-leader of the international working group MICC "The Utopians", she founded a mentoring program for circus artists in 2021, which focuses on expanding equal access towards more representation and diversity. With Chameleon, she is the producer behind contemporary circus formats such as the piece Raven by the Berlin-based company still hungry and the piece Julieta by Mexican clown Gabriela Muñoz. As a stage, co-production partner or residency venue, the Chameleon sets sustainable impulses to strengthen artistic creation in contemporary circus and connect it close to society. In 2020, Anke Politz was awarded the stage hero prize of the Aktionsbündnis Darstellende Künste.

Mable Preach has been present in the Hamburg art scene for many years - as a director or choreographer, as a curator and networker. She is the initiator of the festival for urban BIPoC youth culture FORMATION**NOW and director of the cultural and youth association Lukulule. Most recently, she showed her directorial work EMB*RACE YOUR CROWN** as part of the season opening at Kampnagel. In her work she critically engages with racism and (neo-)colonialism, promotes empowerment and produces alternative images and narratives to the white mainstream.

- 1958 born in Potsdam

- since 1981 as a puppeteer, later also as an actor, in different free Potsdam projects

- from 1985 - 1987 he completed the course of studies "Leader of a Folk Art Collective" in puppetry at the "Central House for Cultural Work" in Leipzig.

- 1993 -1998 fabrik Potsdam public relations and venue manager

- 1995 co-founder of the Landesverband Freier Theater Brandenburg e.V. (state association of independent theaters)

- since 1998 Managing Director of the Landesverband Freier Theater Brandenburgs e.V.

Sarah Reimann studied dramaturgy at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy" Leipzig and theater studies at the Freie Universität Berlin. After various positions as a freelance dramaturg, including at the FFT Düsseldorf, she has been working at HAU Hebbel am Ufer since 2012, meanwhile as curator for the digital stage HAU4 (www.hau4.de). Together with Annemie Vanackere she is the editor of the volume: "Utopia and Feminism" (Matthes & Seitz Berlin).

Wilma Renfordt (*1982, grew up in the Ruhr area) studied theater, art history and literature at the Free University of Berlin; graduated with a thesis on theater in the public space of the city. In 2008-2013 she was dramaturg of the theater group copy & waste, and in 2009-2013 artistic-scientific assistant at the project office Friedrich von Borries in Berlin. Further collaborations include Daniel Hellmann, Kiriakos Hadjiioannou, Rimini Protokoll, and the theory and practice community Dr. Fahimi. She wrote, among others, a companion volume to the exhibition "Wohnungsfrage" of the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin (2015) and a volume on artistic research ("Klimakunstforschung", Merve, 2011). For the 2017 festival edition, she was dramaturg at steirischer herbst in Graz. Since 2017 she is dramaturg at Impulse Theater Festival.

Beata Anna Schmutz was born in Gdansk, Poland in 1975. After studying German at the University of Gdańsk, she continued her university education in the subjects of art history, educational science and literature at the Ruprecht Karls University in Heidelberg. She is the artistic director of numerous theater, art and media education projects and was a cultural education employee at the Haus der Jugend Heidelberg from 2005 to 2016, where she headed the art and theater departments. Freelance director and dramaturg since 2006, university lecturer in the fields of aesthetic education, post-dramatic theater and performance. In 2005 she founded the theater and performance group RAMPIG, where she works as a director and dramaturg. From 2016 to 2018 she was head of the Volkstheater department at the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe. Since 2018 she has been directing the Mannheim City Ensemble at the National Theater Mannheim. Member of the board of the Dramaturgical Society since 2016.

Philipp Schulte is a professor specializing in scenography and performance theory at the Norwegian Theatre Academy (Fredrikstad), visiting professor of scenography at the Karlsruhe University of Design, and managing director of the Hessian Theatre Academy (Frankfurt/M.). He studied Applied Theatre Studies in Bergen (Norway) and Giessen, where he received his PhD in 2011. After receiving his doctorate, he worked as a research assistant in Giessen for eight years. Since 2012, he has directed international festival campus and academy formats that he conceived (Ruhrtriennale, Theaterformen Hannover/Braunschweig, KunstFestSpiele Herrenhausen (together with Antonia Rohwetter)). As a freelance writer and dramaturg, he has worked for zaungäste ensemble (Frankfurt/M.), Liam Al-Zafari (Oslo), Mamoru Iriguchi (Edinburgh), Andreas Bachmair (Amsterdam), Mathias Max Herrmann (Hannover), and the inclusive performance collective I Can Be Your Translator (Dortmund), among others. He has published numerous essays and books. Schulte has taught and lectured theater theory at various universities and art colleges in Germany and Norway. He lives in Frankfurt am Main.

Theresa Schütz, born 1986, theater scholar and theater journalist. After studying German Literature and Cultural Studies (BA) at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and Theater Studies (MA) at Freie Universität Berlin and Université Paris-8, she worked as a research assistant at the Collaborative Research Center Affective Societies. Dynamics of Living Together in Moving Worlds at the Free University of Berlin. As part of this, she completed her PhD in 2021 on strategies of audience engagement in contemporary immersive theater ("Theater der Vereinnahmung," Berlin 2022). She has continued her work at the SFB since 2021 as a postdoctoral researcher with a project on forms of life of artist collectives.

Since 2013 she has also been writing regularly in theater journalism, primarily for the magazine Theater der Zeit, and since 2022 also for nachtkritik.de. In 2019/20, she was a participant in the first Academy for Contemporary Theater Journalism, sponsored by the Bündnis internationaler Produktionshäuser.

Linda Vahldieck has been project manager of the funding program "Promoting Connections" of the Federal Association of Independent Performing Arts since 2021. Previously, she worked as administrative project manager for EU-funded projects at Tanzbüro Berlin since 2018 and has held various project management positions in Berlin in the field of cultural and educational policy since 2008, e.g. in cooperation with the German UNESCO Commission as well as Goethe Institutes and DAAD offices abroad. Since 2011 she has been a member of the board of trustees for LUCKY TRIMMER, an annual dance and performance festival in Berlin, and since 2013 she has also served on its board of directors, responsible for production management as well as press and public relations. In 2021 she was a jury member for the Turin edition of SOLOCOREOGRAFICO, a solo dance festival in Frankfurt am Main, Turin and Lyon.

Anna Volkland studied dramaturgy in Leipzig (2009 diploma thesis "Theater ohne Bühne") and dance studies in Berlin. She has since worked as a dramaturge and curator for drama, dance, and unusual theatrical formats, among other things, and has been writing about theater and dance since 2010. From 2014 to 2020, she was a research associate at the Berlin University of the Arts, where she began conducting research on the history of institutional critique in urban theater in the FRG and GDR since the late 1960s. There she also initiated, among others, the biennial symposium "Performances of [Femininity] in the Performing Arts" (2016 - 2022 ff) and supported the qualification program Artist Training for refugee artists* as module leader for Performing Arts until 2019. She teach(es) among others critical theater history, extended performance analysis or experimental interdisciplinary artistic practice and teaches as guest lecturer, since 2019 for example at the HfS "Ernst Busch" Berlin. From 2016 texts, later also lectures on questions of power-critical, democratic modes of organization and (artistic) work in theater.

Prof. Dr. Hans-Joachim Wagner (born 1961) studied musicology, German philology and art history before working as a cultural manager, curator, researcher and author. He most recently worked as head of the department of music and performing arts at the Kunststiftung NRW in Düsseldorf. Wagner worked at the opera houses in Koblenz and Cologne as a production dramaturge, personal assistant to the artistic director and member of the opera management staff. From 2002 to 2006, he worked as a music referent in the cultural office of the city of Cologne and took over the coordination of the music department during the application of the city of Cologne for the title of European Capital of Culture 2010.

In Cologne, he curated the cultural program for the 2006 World Cup, was artistic director of the festival "Feste Musicali" and the children's and youth music festival "Stadt Klang Fluss". For some time, he has been particularly interested in contemporary dance and theater, the diversity of cultural practice and its visualization.

Since January 2, 2018, the scientist and cultural manager Prof. Dr. Hans-Joachim Wagner has been head of the office for Nuremberg's application for the title of European Capital of Culture 2025.

Birgit Walkenhorst studied theater in Mainz, Frankfurt/Main, Reading and Bologna. She has researched, taught and published in this subject. She worked for various stage publishers; as an editorial assistant, she was in charge of the INTHEGA playbill journals. She participated in the organization and communication teams of international festivals (Mousonturm, KJTZ, Staatstheater Wiesbaden). From 2011 to 2015 she was responsible for public relations and program planning at the International Theater Frankfurt. Since 2015, she has been managing director of the state association of professional independent theaters in Rheinland-Pfalz, laprofth.

Silvia Werner studied English (M.A.) and Finnish (B.A.) with a focus on literary studies at the University of Cologne. As a cultural manager, she has worked for many years primarily in the field of contemporary dance in North Rhine-Westphalia, nationwide and internationally, accompanying productions and collaborating with artists. This work was complemented by teaching assignments both at the University of Cologne and at the Center for Contemporary Dance (ZZT) in Cologne.
Since 2021, she has headed the FESTIVALFRIENDS association based in Dortmund, whose goal is the nationwide, supraregional networking of festival makers and artists.

Freelance theater maker since 1994; Tom Wolter is a founding member of the free ensemble p&s and since 2017 artistic director of the WUK Theater Quartier in Halle; since 2014 artistic director of the Student Theater of the University of Halle; producer of interventions and interactions in public space; so far 115 own theater productions as actor/director/writer for all ages; Cooperations with various theaters nationwide, including junges theater Göttingen, theaterhaus Stuttgart, Theater unter dem Dach Berlin, Projekttheater Dresden, moritzbastei Leipzig, Theater an der Angel Magdeburg, Puppentheater Halle, Oper Halle and others; acting teacher at various institutions, workshops on politics, theater and acting, improvisation nationwide and internationally; lecturer so far at a. o. among others at the Theaterakademie Sachsen, the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Leipzig, Uni Halle and the Hochschule Merseburg; Tom Wolter is involved in cultural and local politics. He has been a city councilor in Halle (Saale) for MitBürger e.V. since 2005, and has been the parliamentary group leader of MitBürger & Die PARTEI since 2019; he has been a board member of the Federal Association of Independent Performing Arts since 2015. Since 2019, he has been a member of the Board of Trustees of the Standing Conference of German-Speaking Drama Schools and the Theater Advisory Board of the Free State of Thuringia.

Born in Odenwald in 1982, studied psychology in Berlin and Paris and speech and musical theater direction at the Theaterakademie "August Everding" in Munich. Doctorate (ongoing) "Culture, Operation and Resonance" with Hartmut Rosa and Friedrich von Borries, HfBK Hamburg. Scholarship holder of the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes, the Gabriele-Oehmisch-Stiftung and the Akademie Musiktheater Heute of the Deutsche Bank Foundation.

As a freelance dramaturg, he has worked for a variety of productions in Germany and abroad (including Kampnagel, Schaubühne, Schauspielhaus Zürich, Theater Basel, Alfortville Paris). As founder, director and dramaturg he developed a number of site-specific productions with the independent group O-Team (including "HermannSchlachten" at the Stuttgart Wagenhallen, "Blaupause" in the former editorial building of the Süddeutsche Zeitung or "Kirschgärten" at the Hofgut Oberfeld Darmstadt) and most recently "Flüchtlinge" at the Thalia Theater Hamburg.

From 2011 to 2013 he was head dramaturge/member of the artistic direction at Theaterhaus Jena and in the 2014/2015 season drama director at Staatstheater Darmstadt. He has worked as festival curator and dramaturge (Rodeo Festival Munich, Datterich Festival Darmstadt, Wiesbaden Biennale) and lecturer (LMU and HfMT Munich, HfMT Leipzig, TU Darmstadt, JGU and HfMT Frankfurt, JGU Mainz, EAH and FSU Jena). Zipf directed JenaKultur from 2016 to 2022. Since the 2022/23 season, he has been executive director at Kampnagel Hamburg.

Irina-Simona Bârcă is a dramaturge and mediator. Born and raised in Romania, she studied acting in Bucharest and theater pedagogy at Osnabrück University of Applied Sciences. After working in Münster and Berlin, she was a dramaturge at the FFT (Forum Freies Theater) in Düsseldorf from 2017 to 2024, where she was responsible for the Young FFT section, including the programmatic focus "The Theater of Digital Natives". She has worked with pulk fiktion, Ives Thuwis, subbotnik, Leute wie die, machina eX and PINSKER + BERNHARDT, among others. She is part of various juries in German-speaking countries (Spielarten NRW, kicks! Theaternetzwerk Schweiz, Landesbüro freie darstellende Künste NRW) and was a member of the board of trustees at the Augenblick mal! 2021. As a lecturer, she gives seminars and training courses. Since January 2024, she has been Head of Artistic Mediation and Participation at Theater an der Parkaue.

Fatima Çalışkan is a moderator, artist and author. Her focus is on art and cultural policy issues on which she writes analyses and essays, among others for the Kulturpolitische Gesellschaft, or develops satirical texts for independent productions. She is co-founder and co-editor of the biennial magazine YallahSalon. As a presenter, she plays the entire keyboard of conversation and presentation formats for stage, audio and video. As a performer and dramaturge, she collaborates with various projects in the independent scene. Other positions include advising and accompanying projects for the Interkultur Ruhr funding fund, co-directing the advisory office of the Performing Arts Program of the LAFT Berlin, co-directing the FAIRSTAGE model project, and jury activities at the federal and state levels.

Chang Nai Wen has lived in Germany for 18 years. She was the first Asian student to be accepted for the drama theater directing program at the Theaterakademie Hamburg and has been seen as a Taiwanese director in the spoken word theaters of the German-speaking world. This experience led her to question the politics around her and consider how to create an environment that was less hierarchical and more about collaboration and diversity. In 2008, she founded "SdF - Sisyphus, the Flying Elephant" in Berlin, an independent project-based transcultural group specializing in immersive, participatory and interactive creation. In 2010, she was invited to participate in the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab in New York, which inspired her to pursue the idea of collaboration between international directors. Thus, in 2011 she became a co-founder of the international directors' collective "World Wide Lab" with 12 other directors from 9 countries. As an internationally working artist, Nai Wen prefers a creative process that uses her artistic muscles along with her cross-cultural insights to create works that encourage dialogue and reveal different perspectives. In addition to her artistic work, she is a strong advocate for a cultural environment of equality, inclusion, and diversity.

Dorte Lena Eilers is professor and head of the master's program "Cultural Journalism" at the University of Music and Theater in Munich in cooperation with the August Everding Theater Academy. She also works as a cultural journalist, predominantly in the fields of music and theater against the background of socio-political developments. Previously, she was editor from 2007 to 2021, most recently editor-in-chief of Theater der Zeit. She is a member of the German Academy of Performing Arts and the advisory board of the magazine "junge bühne" and has served on various juries (including the German Federal Theater Prize and the Mülheim Theater Days). Publications (as co-editor) include Frank Castorf, Dimiter Gotscheff, Bulgarian theater and new German-language drama. Most recently, her volume of talks "backstage TSCHEPLANOWA" was published.

Janis El-Bira, born in Braunschweig in 1986, studied philosophy and history in Berlin and has since worked as a journalist and presenter with a focus on theater. He is an editor for the theater portal nachtkritik.de and a presenter and editor for the program "Rang 1 - Das Theatermagazin" on Deutschlandfunk Kultur. In addition, texts and contributions for various newspapers and radio stations. From 2016 to 2021 he headed the journalistic project for young talent "Theatertreffen-Blog" at the Berliner Festspiele. Jury activities include the Mülheim Drama Prize 2021, the Fast Forward 2021 festival in Dresden, and the Politik im Freien Theater 2022 festival in Frankfurt am Main.

Since 1994 artistic director and director of the Theater Mummpitz in Nuremberg and since 2000 artistic director of the biennial European-Bavarian children's theater festival "panoptikum". In addition, continuously active in the field of cultural policy as well as in various national and international associations for the promotion of professional children's and youth theater. Among other things, she was a long-standing board member and deputy chairwoman of the German ASSITEJ e.V. until January 2022.

Member of the Nuremberg Education Advisory Board, since 2009 responsible for the conceptualization , implementation and project management of the 1st Nuremberg Kulturrucksack.

Since 2019/2020 responsible for the project development "Mummpitz macht Schule. Klasse."

Since January 2022 artistic director of the three-year Jupiter project "Memories" in cooperation with CIE Gare centrale/Belgium, AdDK Regensburg and Theater Mummpitz.

Since 2022 member of the board of trustees of the Fonds Darstellende Künste.

Yunus Ersoy, who grew up in Zurich, is a dramaturg*. After completing a BA, Yunus studied for an MA at the University of Zurich (Cultural Analysis) and Applied Theater Studies in Giessen.

In 2009 Ersoy was a founding member of "oimoi - junges theater zürich", is still a member of the board of directors, and has been involved in over 10 oimoi productions on and off stage. At the Schauspielhaus Zürich, Ersoy has been part of choruses in plays by René Pollesch, among others.

Ersoy organizes festivals (including Queer Week in 2021-2023) and has performed own works with the collective Mora Vegesture at Künstlerhaus Mousonturm, with Camila Rhodi at the FACT Festival in Budapest, and with Josef Mehling at 48h Neukölln in Berlin. In 2020, Jil Dreyer, Ersoy and Mehling presented the theater performance None of This at the Grätsche Festival in Zurich.

After an internship at Studio Я, Ersoy worked as an assistant and then as a dramaturg at the Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin since the middle of the 2018/19 season, working with directors Yael Ronen, Hakan Savaş Mican, and Paul Spittler, among others.

In the 2023/24 season, Ersoy will work as a dramaturg* at the Schauspielhaus Zürich with Suna Gürler and Joana Tischkau.

Sabine Gehm is artistic director of the international festival TANZ Bremen and in the management team of the Tanzpakt project 'MV tanzt an'.

From 2006 to 2016, together with Katharina von Wilcke, she directed the first four editions of the international dance congress of the German Federal Cultural Foundation (Berlin 2006, Hamburg 2009, Düsseldorf 2013, Hannover 2016).

A graduate in cultural studies, she was program dramaturg and director of various festivals (including Junge Hunde, Independance Days, Tanzplattform Deutschland 2000) at Kampnagel Hamburg from 1994 to 2001 and coordinated, among other things, the international performing arts network 'Junge Hunde', which she co-founded, from 2001 to 2005.

Before that, she worked as an organization manager at the International Summer Theater Festival Hamburg.

As a freelance curator and cultural manager, she conceived and was responsible for international exchange projects, think tanks, laboratories and academies for KSB, BFDK, DTD, among others. She is on the board of the Dachverband Tanz Deutschland and was chair of the board of trustees at the Fonds Darstellende Künste from 2015 to 2020, for which she led the decision-making processes in 2020 (including publication of the handout on jury procedures). She is active as a reviewer and member of various juries of nationwide and international programs and works as a mentor in an advisory capacity for various artists and projects.

Lea Goebel is a dramaturg at Schauspiel Köln. She studied German, Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies as well as English Studies in Bonn and at the Université Paris-Sorbonne. At Schauspiel Köln she worked with Luk Perceval, Frank Castorf, Jürgen Flimm and Mina Salehpour, among others. She is part of the core team of dramaturgie-netzwerk, where she advocates for fair working structures and cultural-political renewal in municipal theater. Since 2021, she has curated the "Netzmarkt" for the Heidelberg Stückemarkt, which honors three productions of digital theater. Together with the "Digital Dramaturgy" initiative, she explores new ways of digital storytelling.

Ute Gröbel (*1983 in Erlangen) is dramaturg and artistic co-director of HochX Theater and Live Art in Munich. She was deputy director of the dramaturgy course at the August Everding Theater Academy until 2016. In 2021, she completed advanced training in theater and music management at LMU Munich; in the same year, HochX was awarded the Theaterpreis des Bundes. In 2022, she co-directed the Freischwimmen meets Rodeo Festival with Antonia Beermann and will also be artistically responsible for the 2024 and 2026 Rodeo Festivals together with her.

After studying teaching, Matthias Grön founded the Oldenburg University Theater (OUT) and led OUT as artistic director. In the 2001/2002 season, he moved to the Oldenburg State Theater. He is dramaturg at the Oldenburg State Theater and directs the Young State Theater there. He has also appeared as a director on various occasions.

Seta-Elizabeth Guetsoyan, M.A., studied theater studies and art history at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum. She worked in different theater and cultural institutions as a dramaturg, researcher and production manager in a number of different projects (Theater der Welt, Schauspielhaus Bochum, Ruhrtriennale or also in the Capital of Culture team of the city of Herne).

From 2012 to 2018, she managed the Documentation Center of the German Forum for Figure Theater and Puppetry Art and the production of the festival FIDENA - Figurentheater der Nationen.

Since 2019, she has directed the Figurentheater-Kolleg, a continuing education institution for performing and visual arts with a focus on puppet theater, and the Rottstr5-Kunsthallen, a space for transdisciplinary art and cultural-political discourse, in Bochum.

Katrin Hylla studied Applied Theater Studies in Giessen. Prior to that, she worked as an actress, director, and assistant director in Berlin's independent scene, including at HAU, Theaterdiscounter, as well as municipal and state theaters (Maxim Gorki Theater, Hessisches Landestheater Marburg, and others). Until March 2021, she worked at the independent venue TNT in Marburg as part of the artistic direction and management. In 2016 she founded the festival FÜR DICH FÜR DICH FÜR DICH, a format for contemporary positions and performances extended by working grants. As a director, she realizes plays with children, among others, and was awarded the prize of the Hessische Theatertage 2017 for it. She likes to initiate and stage formats that are open to professional and non-professional performers and musicians of all ages. For example, she created Die erste Kinderpartei Deutschland (Germany's first children's party), the audio installation Heimat #3 on a beer mountain made of 2000 beer crates, or is currently working on Bootsballet with brass music on the Werdersee in Bremen. Katrin Hylla is partly active as a lecturer e.g. at the HAWK Hildesheim and Uni Gießen. At the moment she is preparing her work as artistic director of the Schwankhalle Bremen, which she will lead in a trio from August 23.

Since 2015, Kira Kirsch has been Artistic Director and Managing Director of brut in Vienna, a production and performance venue for the independent Austrian and international theater, performance and dance scene. From 2007-2015 she was dramaturg or head dramaturg and curator of the contemporary art festival steirischer herbst in Graz. She co-founded the monothematic magazine BOB and co-edited the reader Truth is Concrete. A Handbook for Artistic Strategies in Real Politics, which deals with current movements of politically engaged art and artistic activism on an international level.

Sebastian Kirsch, born 1980, works as a theater and literary scholar as well as a publicist and has taught in Bochum, Düsseldorf, Stockholm, and Vienna. He received his PhD from Ruhr-Universität Bochum in 2011 with a study on the history of central perspective (Das Reale der Perspektive, published 2013) and habilitated in 2018 with the thesis Chor-Denken. Sorge, Wahrheit, Technik (published 2020). With a research project on Hermann Broch, Kirsch was associated with the Department of German at New York University as a Lynen Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in 2019/2020; in 2021, he was a Humboldt Fellow at the Leibniz Center for Literary and Cultural Research in Berlin. Kirsch was editor of Theater der Zeit from 2007-2013, and was also a regular columnist for the journal until 2017. He has worked as a dramaturg with Hans-Peter Litscher and Johannes Schmit, among others.

Josa Kölbel was himself a professional artist, trained at the renowned national circus center in Chalons-en-Champagne, France, and was active throughout Europe for several years. Since 2015 he is managing director of Berlin Circus Production - Hilliger Kölbel GbR and co-director of the Berlin Circus Festival, which takes place annually at Tempelhofer Feld and gathers productions, artists and positions of contemporary circus. He also curated the Circusschiene at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele, worked as a course instructor at ETAGE, as an artist supervisor at the MGB and has been a mentor for the Berlin LAFT since 2020.

Daniela Koß is a cultural scientist M.A. and has been working at the Foundation of Lower Saxony since 2010, where she is responsible for funding theater and socioculture. In her work, she advises numerous actors and designs and oversees innovative funding programs. These include socioK_change, a program that accompanies transformation processes in socioculture, and also the festival of independent theater "Best OFF," which under her direction shows the best productions of the Lower Saxony scene every two years. In addition to numerous lectures and articles, the Handbook of Socioculture was published under her leadership in 2015 and the publication on developments in rural areas Vital Village in 2017 in collaboration with Prof. Wolfgang Schneider and Beate Kegler. She is a member of various juries and teaches on the topics of cultural financing and change management.

Andreas Lübbers *28.05.1961

High school diploma. Apprenticeship as bank clerk. Studied German language and literature as well as art history - all in Hamburg. Years of travel: 1991 - 2003 dramaturg at several German-speaking theaters. Back in Hamburg: 2003 foundation of the Hamburger Sprechwerk - until today active board member of the association // 2005 - 2009 board member of the Dachverband Freier Theater (today DfdK) // 2009 foundation and until 2022 board member Hamburg Hoch 11 e.V. (representing creative industry players in Hamburg) // 2010 foundation and board of WIESE eG // 2014 foundation member and board of Trägerverein "hauptsache frei" // Since 2015 active in "flausen+ - Bundesnetzwerk" // 2020 opening "Theatrales Produktions- und Bildungszentrum WIESE eG" - since then executive board member. Goal: Increase public and political recognition of independent theater work and form a strong association of small and medium-sized venues at the federal level.

After graduating from high school, Anne Maar worked as a museum attendant in Berlin, made short films (together with Björn Melhus and Andreas Fröhlich) and wrote a screenplay together with Andreas Fröhlich, which unfortunately was never filmed. In 1991 she moved to a small idyllic village in Lower Franconia. Many assistant directorships and a few directorships at the theater followed. In 1993 her first children's book was published, several more followed, including children's theater plays (together with Christian Schidlowsky). Since 2003 she has directed the Theater Schloss Maßbach - Unterfränkische Landesbühne, founded by her grandparents Lena Hutter and Oskar Ballhaus.

Florian Malzacher is a freelance curator, dramaturg and writer.He is currently working on projects such as Training for the Future (with Jonas Staal) and The Art of Assembly, a series of talks and conversations about the potential of assemblies in art, activism and politics.

2012 - 2017 he was Artistic Director of the Impulse Theater Festival, before that seven years Head Dramaturg/Curator of the festival steirischer herbst.

As a dramaturg, he has worked with Rimini Protokoll, Lola Arias (ARG), Mariano Pensotti (ARG), and regularly with the Nature Theater of Oklahoma (USA), among others.

Recent publications include Not Just a Mirror. Looking for the Political Theatre of Today (2015), Empty Stages, Crowded Flats. Performativity as Curatorial Strategy (with Joanna Warsza, 2017), and Gesellschaftsspiele. Political Theatre Today (2020). His books and texts have been translated into 15 languages.

Website

Freelance director and artistic project manager Frauke Meyer was born in Dresden. She studied musical theater directing at the Hamburg University of Music and Theater. She then worked at San Francisco Opera and Theater Basel, where she took her first staging steps. From 2005-2013 she was engaged as scenic director at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, where she developed various productions. At the same time, she began working as a freelance director for the Theater Dortmund and the Winter Opera Potsdam, for example, and was internationally responsible for scenic takeovers in Montpellier, Istanbul or Luxembourg. Since 2013 she has been working as a freelance director and project developer at houses and institutions such as the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Bavarian State Opera, the Royal Opera House, the Cologne Early Music Festival, the Theater Bonn, the Cologne Baroque Orchestra , the sound art festival bonnhoeren, the Sommerblut Festival or as part of the BTHVN2020. Frauke Meyer teaches dramaturgical project development within the course of studies "Music Mediation - Music in Context" at the Anton Bruckner Private University Linz, dramaturgical teaching at the Rostock University of Music and Theatre and is committed to the equal rights of female artists within the Women's Cultural Office NRW.

Helge-Björn Meyer has been in demand as a dramaturg, performer and curator at a wide variety of festivals and theaters in Germany and abroad. He has received national and international awards for his artistic projects. From 2018 to 2019 he was managing director of the Landesbüro Freie Theater Sachsen, and from 2019 to 2021 he headed the Servicetelle FREIE SZENE Sachsen for the interests of the independent performing arts in the Free State of Saxony.

Michael v. zur Mühlen has been directing cross-genre drama, opera and contemporary music theater since 2004 at the Forum Neues Musiktheater of the Staatsoper Stuttgart, the Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz Berlin, the Oper Leipzig, the Nationaltheater Weimar, the DT Göttingen, the Staatstheater Darmstadt, the Staatsoper Berlin and the Oper Halle, among others. In the 2016/17 - 2020/21 seasons, he was director and chief dramaturg in the management team of the Halle Opera, whose advanced program has received great attention throughout Germany during this time and has been honored several times with prizes and awards. For example, in the 17/18 season review of the magazine Die Deutsche Bühne, Oper Halle received the most mentions in the category "Most convincing theater work away from large theater centers" and was awarded the Theaterpreis des Bundes in 2019. In addition to his work as a director and curator, Michael v. zur Mühlen teaches in the fields of directing, dramaturgy and theater theory. In 2019, he held the Bertolt Brecht Guest Professorship of the City of Leipzig.

Anke Politz grew up in Saxony-Anhalt and came to Berlin in 1996 to study. For several years she worked as a cultural manager for various musicians until she found her professional home at Chamäleon Theater in 2004. Starting as head of the marketing and PR department, she took over as director in 2007 and as artistic director in 2011, and has since served as shareholder and artistic director of the non-profit structure. She is 2nd chair of the Federal Association of Contemporary Circus and particularly active in the field of cultural policy work and structural promotion of circus arts. As co-leader of the international working group MICC "The Utopians", she founded a mentoring program for circus artists in 2021, which focuses on expanding equal access towards more representation and diversity. With Chameleon, she is the producer behind contemporary circus formats such as the piece Raven by the Berlin-based company still hungry and the piece Julieta by Mexican clown Gabriela Muñoz. As a stage, co-production partner or residency venue, the Chameleon sets sustainable impulses to strengthen artistic creation in contemporary circus and connect it close to society. In 2020, Anke Politz was awarded the stage hero prize of the Aktionsbündnis Darstellende Künste.

After her studies at the Humboldt University in Berlin, she worked as a research assistant at the Academy of Arts of the GDR. In 1996 she was co-founder and until 2003 curator of the theater festival "reich & berühmt". From 1997 to 2002 she was head of the theater/performance department at Podewil, Center for Contemporary Arts in Berlin. Here she realized various co-productions, guest performances and international festivals, including the 1997 festival "Live Art - New theatre for the 90s" with young British performers.

She worked at the Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz from 2002 to 2011, mainly as curator for the Volksbühne im Prater. In 2010 and 2012 she was artistic director of the theater festival "Favoriten" in Dortmund and during the season 2011/2012 dramaturg at the Residenztheater Munich.

Various publications, including: René Pollesch, "Liebe ist kälter als das Kapital," Hamburg 2009 and Postdramatic Theater in Portraits/Gob Squad "What are you looking at?", Berlin 2020.

Sarah Reimann studied dramaturgy at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy" Leipzig and theater studies at the Freie Universität Berlin. After various positions as a freelance dramaturg, including at the FFT Düsseldorf, she has been working at HAU Hebbel am Ufer since 2012, meanwhile as curator for the digital stage HAU4 (www.hau4.de). Together with Annemie Vanackere she is the editor of the volume: "Utopia and Feminism" (Matthes & Seitz Berlin).

Wilma Renfordt (*1982, grew up in the Ruhr area) studied theater, art history and literature at the Free University of Berlin; graduated with a thesis on theater in the public space of the city. In 2008-2013 she was dramaturg of the theater group copy & waste, and in 2009-2013 artistic-scientific assistant at the project office Friedrich von Borries in Berlin. Further collaborations include Daniel Hellmann, Kiriakos Hadjiioannou, Rimini Protokoll, and the theory and practice community Dr. Fahimi. She wrote, among others, a companion volume to the exhibition "Wohnungsfrage" of the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin (2015) and a volume on artistic research ("Klimakunstforschung", Merve, 2011). For the 2017 festival edition, she was dramaturg at steirischer herbst in Graz. Since 2017 she is dramaturg at Impulse Theater Festival.

Carena Schlewitt was born in Leipzig in 1961. Since 2018, she has been the artistic director of HELLERAU - European Center for the Arts in Dresden.

She was Director of Kaserne Basel from 2008-2018 and Artistic Director of the Basel International Theater Festival (since 2012). She studied theater at the Humboldt University in Berlin and worked at the Academy of Arts in East Berlin from 1985 to 1993. She worked as dramaturge, curator and deputy artistic director at various independent production houses (Podewil Berlin; FFT Düsseldorf; HAU Berlin) and at international festivals (Theater der Welt; HAU Berlin).

The focal points of her work have included the transformation processes in East Germany, Eastern Europe and China and the development of theater in Poland, France and Italy as well as live art and performance art. She has served on various juries, including for the "Impulse" festival; for the German-Polish expert panel of the Kulturstiftung des Bundes as well as for the "Doppelpass" program of the Kulturstiftung des Bundes; she was a member of the expert commission of the Swiss cultural foundation Pro Helvetia.

Carena Schlewitt is a member of the Saxon Academy of Arts, the Saxon Cultural Senate and a member of the Expert Advisory Board for Performing Arts and Music at the Cultural Foundation of the Free State of Saxony.

Beata Anna Schmutz was born in Gdansk, Poland in 1975. After studying German at the University of Gdańsk, she continued her university education in the subjects of art history, educational science and literature at the Ruprecht Karls University in Heidelberg. She is the artistic director of numerous theater, art and media education projects and was a cultural education employee at the Haus der Jugend Heidelberg from 2005 to 2016, where she headed the art and theater departments. Freelance director and dramaturg since 2006, university lecturer in the fields of aesthetic education, post-dramatic theater and performance. In 2005 she founded the theater and performance group RAMPIG, where she works as a director and dramaturg. From 2016 to 2018 she was head of the Volkstheater department at the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe. Since 2018 she has been directing the Mannheim City Ensemble at the National Theater Mannheim. Member of the board of the Dramaturgical Society since 2016.

Theresa Schütz, born 1986, theater scholar and theater journalist. After studying German Literature and Cultural Studies (BA) at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and Theater Studies (MA) at Freie Universität Berlin and Université Paris-8, she worked as a research assistant at the Collaborative Research Center Affective Societies. Dynamics of Living Together in Moving Worlds at the Free University of Berlin. As part of this, she completed her PhD in 2021 on strategies of audience engagement in contemporary immersive theater ("Theater der Vereinnahmung," Berlin 2022). She has continued her work at the SFB since 2021 as a postdoctoral researcher with a project on forms of life of artist collectives.

Since 2013 she has also been writing regularly in theater journalism, primarily for the magazine Theater der Zeit, and since 2022 also for nachtkritik.de. In 2019/20, she was a participant in the first Academy for Contemporary Theater Journalism, sponsored by the Bündnis internationaler Produktionshäuser.

After studying figure theater and dramaturgy, Kora Tscherning's guest engagements took her to the Staatstheater Stuttgart, the Semperoper Dresden, and the Volkstheater Bautzen, among others. Since 2011 she has been working freelance in the group "FigurenKombinat". Parallel to this, she took over the direction of the "Figure Theater" division at the Landesbühnen Sachsen in 2016. Since the 2019/20 season, Kora Tscherning has been the puppet theater director of the Meiningen State Theater and strives to bring sophisticated puppet theater to Meiningen and the region with wit and verve.

Linda Vahldieck has been project manager of the funding program "Promoting Connections" of the Federal Association of Independent Performing Arts since 2021. Previously, she worked as administrative project manager for EU-funded projects at Tanzbüro Berlin since 2018 and has held various project management positions in Berlin in the field of cultural and educational policy since 2008, e.g. in cooperation with the German UNESCO Commission as well as Goethe Institutes and DAAD offices abroad. Since 2011 she has been a member of the board of trustees for LUCKY TRIMMER, an annual dance and performance festival in Berlin, and since 2013 she has also served on its board of directors, responsible for production management as well as press and public relations. In 2021 she was a jury member for the Turin edition of SOLOCOREOGRAFICO, a solo dance festival in Frankfurt am Main, Turin and Lyon.

Prof. Dr. Hans-Joachim Wagner (born 1961) studied musicology, German philology and art history before working as a cultural manager, curator, researcher and author. He most recently worked as head of the department of music and performing arts at the Kunststiftung NRW in Düsseldorf. Wagner worked at the opera houses in Koblenz and Cologne as a production dramaturge, personal assistant to the artistic director and member of the opera management staff. From 2002 to 2006, he worked as a music referent in the cultural office of the city of Cologne and took over the coordination of the music department during the application of the city of Cologne for the title of European Capital of Culture 2010.

In Cologne, he curated the cultural program for the 2006 World Cup, was artistic director of the festival "Feste Musicali" and the children's and youth music festival "Stadt Klang Fluss". For some time, he has been particularly interested in contemporary dance and theater, the diversity of cultural practice and its visualization.

Since January 2, 2018, the scientist and cultural manager Prof. Dr. Hans-Joachim Wagner has been head of the office for Nuremberg's application for the title of European Capital of Culture 2025.

Birgit Walkenhorst studied theater in Mainz, Frankfurt/Main, Reading and Bologna. She has researched, taught and published in this subject. She worked for various stage publishers; as an editorial assistant, she was in charge of the INTHEGA playbill journals. She participated in the organization and communication teams of international festivals (Mousonturm, KJTZ, Staatstheater Wiesbaden). From 2011 to 2015 she was responsible for public relations and program planning at the International Theater Frankfurt. Since 2015, she has been managing director of the state association of professional independent theaters in Rheinland-Pfalz, laprofth.

Jessica Samantha Starr Weisskirchen began her theater career as an assistant director at the Theater und Orchester Heidelberg and later moved to the Nationaltheater Mannheim. Here she realized her first works during her assistantship (DIE TONIGHT, LIVE FOREVER or DAS PRINZIP NOSFERATU by Sivan Ben Yishai, 2020) and as a director (EIN KÖRPER FÜR JETZT UND HEUTE by Mehdi Moradpour, 2021). In 2022 she opened the season of Theater Dortmund with WOYZECK, and in 2023 she will open the season in the 'Box' of Deutsches Theater Berlin. She is founder of the assistierenden-netzwerk and meanwhile board member of the ensemble-netzwerk e.V. She is initiator and founder of the assistierenden-festival SUMMER UP and jury member of the Prozessförderung of the Fonds Darstellende Künste. In 2022, she successfully completed the Master of Arts degree program, Theater and Orchestra Management, at the HfMDK in Frankfurt am Main. This year, the Kulturpolitische Gesellschaft is publishing the anthology "Systemkritik! Essays für eine Kulturpolitik der Transformation" with her article "Nur die Bretter, die die Welt bedeuten".

Silvia Werner studied English (M.A.) and Finnish (B.A.) with a focus on literary studies at the University of Cologne. As a cultural manager, she has worked for many years primarily in the field of contemporary dance in North Rhine-Westphalia, nationwide and internationally, accompanying productions and collaborating with artists. This work was complemented by teaching assignments both at the University of Cologne and at the Center for Contemporary Dance (ZZT) in Cologne.
Since 2021, she has headed the FESTIVALFRIENDS association based in Dortmund, whose goal is the nationwide, supraregional networking of festival makers and artists.

Freelance theater maker since 1994; Tom Wolter is a founding member of the free ensemble p&s and since 2017 artistic director of the WUK Theater Quartier in Halle; since 2014 artistic director of the Student Theater of the University of Halle; producer of interventions and interactions in public space; so far 115 own theater productions as actor/director/writer for all ages; Cooperations with various theaters nationwide, including junges theater Göttingen, theaterhaus Stuttgart, Theater unter dem Dach Berlin, Projekttheater Dresden, moritzbastei Leipzig, Theater an der Angel Magdeburg, Puppentheater Halle, Oper Halle and others; acting teacher at various institutions, workshops on politics, theater and acting, improvisation nationwide and internationally; lecturer so far at a. o. among others at the Theaterakademie Sachsen, the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Leipzig, Uni Halle and the Hochschule Merseburg; Tom Wolter is involved in cultural and local politics. He has been a city councilor in Halle (Saale) for MitBürger e.V. since 2005, and has been the parliamentary group leader of MitBürger & Die PARTEI since 2019; he has been a board member of the Federal Association of Independent Performing Arts since 2015. Since 2019, he has been a member of the Board of Trustees of the Standing Conference of German-Speaking Drama Schools and the Theater Advisory Board of the Free State of Thuringia.

Stephan Wunsch ist Puppenspieler, Figurenbildner und Regisseur. Er studierte Philosophie und Germanistik in Aachen und belegte Seminare in Figurenspiel und Figurenbau auf Hof Lebherz. 2003 gründete er die Bühne theater rosenfisch. Seitdem produziert er zahlreiche Inszenierungen für Kinder und Erwachsene; außerdem Regiearbeiten, Figurenbau und Bühnenmusik für andere Bühnen.

Neben dieser Tätigkeit ist er Teil der Redaktion von ‚Das andere Theater‘, die offizielle Zeitschrift des UNIMA-Zentrums der Bundesrepublik Deutschland e.V., die zwei Mal jährlich erscheint.

Born in Odenwald in 1982, studied psychology in Berlin and Paris and speech and musical theater direction at the Theaterakademie "August Everding" in Munich. Doctorate (ongoing) "Culture, Operation and Resonance" with Hartmut Rosa and Friedrich von Borries, HfBK Hamburg. Scholarship holder of the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes, the Gabriele-Oehmisch-Stiftung and the Akademie Musiktheater Heute of the Deutsche Bank Foundation.

As a freelance dramaturg, he has worked for a variety of productions in Germany and abroad (including Kampnagel, Schaubühne, Schauspielhaus Zürich, Theater Basel, Alfortville Paris). As founder, director and dramaturg he developed a number of site-specific productions with the independent group O-Team (including "HermannSchlachten" at the Stuttgart Wagenhallen, "Blaupause" in the former editorial building of the Süddeutsche Zeitung or "Kirschgärten" at the Hofgut Oberfeld Darmstadt) and most recently "Flüchtlinge" at the Thalia Theater Hamburg.

From 2011 to 2013 he was head dramaturge/member of the artistic direction at Theaterhaus Jena and in the 2014/2015 season drama director at Staatstheater Darmstadt. He has worked as festival curator and dramaturge (Rodeo Festival Munich, Datterich Festival Darmstadt, Wiesbaden Biennale) and lecturer (LMU and HfMT Munich, HfMT Leipzig, TU Darmstadt, JGU and HfMT Frankfurt, JGU Mainz, EAH and FSU Jena). Zipf directed JenaKultur from 2016 to 2022. Since the 2022/23 season, he has been executive director at Kampnagel Hamburg.

Luzie Ackers leads together with M. Cornil the company TheatreFragile since 2001, based in Detmold, Hangar 21. The focus of their work is the performing arts for the public space, the place where social developments are negotiated. In their productions they combine documentary elements with the art of masquerade, with a special focus on participation. They have created numerous productions and projects for public spaces. Ackers creates contemporary masks, which can be seen in projects of their own company and other ensembles. In her intense involvement with physical theater, Ackers developed the need to deal with the " Sprechenden Körper" in an extended form and works according to the Grinberg Method and the Pantarei Approach. She gives workshops in international contexts, works as a mentor and in 2021/2022/23 is part of the jury of the project funding of the Landesbüro Freie Darstellende Künste NRW. She lives in Berlin.

Xenia Bühler, born in 1969 in Langenhagen/Hanover, left the University of Hildesheim in 1996 with a diploma in cultural education. Her first engagement as a theater pedagogue took her to the Theater Görlitz. From 2003-2013 she worked at the Comedia Theater in Cologne. Since then, she has taken on teaching positions in Munich at the Munich University of Applied Sciences and the LMU and has been responsible for festival organization and theater projects with children, young people and adults. Since the 2017/18 season, she has been part of the artistic team of the Schauburg - Theater für junges Publikum - in Munich as a theater pedagogue and dramaturge.

After studying theater studies and communication and media studies in Leipzig and Glasgow, Thomas Frank was assistant to the artistic director, dramaturg and curator at Künstlerhaus Mousonturm Frankfurt am Main from 2000 to 2004 and program dramaturg at Sophiensaele Berlin from 2005 to 2007. In 2007, together with Haiko Pfost, he founded brut Wien as an international co-production house for interdisciplinary performing arts, which he led in artistic and executive responsibility until 2015. Already in their second season, Thomas Frank and Haiko Pfost were awarded the Nestroy Prize of the City of Vienna for the brut program. From 2015 to 2017, Thomas Frank was engaged as a freelance curator at Theater VabaLava in Tallinn, Estonia. Since the 2016/2017 season, he has been artistic director of the Residenz venue at Schauspiel Leipzig. At the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy and at the Hochschule für Graphik und Buchkunst in Leipzig, he has been a lecturer since 2018.

Julius Heinicke is Professor of Cultural Policy and holds the UNESCO Chair "Cultural Policy for the Arts in Development" at the University of Hildesheim. From 2017-2020, he was Professor of Applied Cultural Studies at Coburg University of Applied Sciences in the project "Coburger Weg", which was awarded the Genius Loci Prize of the Stifterverband in 2019. After studying cultural studies and theater, he completed his doctorate at Humboldt University in Berlin on theater and politics in Zimbabwe and then researched and taught for four years at the Institute for Theater Studies at Freie Universität Berlin. Since 2017, he has led the research project "Interfaces between High Culture and Cultural Education" and habilitated in 2019 with the paper " Sorge um das Offene: Verhandlungen von Vielfalt mit und im Theater" (Concern for the Open: Negotiating Diversity with and in Theater), published by Theater der Zeit.

Melanie Hinz has been Professor of Theater Pedagogy at the Berlin University of the Arts since 2020. In teaching and research, she works primarily on power-critical/intersectional perspectives on theater education and theater. Melanie Hinz studied cultural studies and aesthetic practice at the University of Hildesheim, where she completed her PhD on discourses of prostitution in 19th century and contemporary theater (transcript 2014). From 2013-2020 she was professor for "Visual and Performative Arts in Cultural Work" at the FH Dortmund University of Applied Sciences and Arts and co-editor of the kopaed book series " Theater als Soziale Kunst" with the focus on "BIOGRAFIEren auf der Bühne", "Participation: teilhaben/participate" and "Forschendes Theater in Sozialen Feldern". She is a member of the network " Forschung im Kinder- und Jugendtheater" (research in children's and young people's theater). Since 2004 she is a founding member and performer of the collective Frl. Wunder AG and develops research-based theater projects in the collective and with everyday experts in the independent scene and at city and state theaters.

Tarun Kade, born 1984 in Munich, studied theater, philosophy and English literature in Munich and Bristol. From 2009 to 2011 he was dramaturg at Thalia Theater Hamburg, and from 2012 to 2015 he worked as such at Theater Bremen. From 2015 to 2020 Tarun Kade was dramaturg at the Münchner Kammerspiele, the last two seasons in a leading position. In each of these two years, the Kammerspiele was voted "Theater of the Year" in the Theater heute critics' poll. Tarun Kade is co-founder of the working methods platform modesofoperation.com, which portrays the working methods of a newer generation of theater professionals in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut. For the 2022 festival edition, Tarun Kade was program dramaturg at the Wiener Festwochen. Since then, he has worked as a freelance production dramaturg and programmer at the Maxim Gorki Theater, the Wiener Festwochen, and in the independent performing arts, among others. He also teaches and mentors at colleges and universities and acts as a jury member.

Thomas Kaestle holds a degree in cultural studies and has been working as a solo freelancer in the fields of cultural journalism, cultural consulting, cultural mediation, cultural policy research and curatorial practice for over 20 years. He was artistic director of the Kunstverein Hildesheim and currently leads a "Citizens' Academy for Art in Public Spaces" for the municipality of Jesteburg. As an editor he supervised publications for the Bundesverband Freie Darstellende Künste and the Fonds Darstellende Künste. Last year, he took over the editorship of the book series "Contemporary Art from Lower Saxony" for the Lower Saxony Foundation. He is a member of the advisory board for art in public space of the state capital of Hanover, has provided curatorial advice for its Capital of Culture application, and is a member of the theater jury of the Bremen Senator for Culture. He has taught at universities in Dortmund, Hildesheim and Kassel in the departments of design, cultural studies and architecture/planning.

Geboren 1975, begann er 1994 in unterschiedlichen Funktionen hauptsächlich in den darstellenden Künsten zu arbeiten. Am Anfang hat er viel in Staats- und Stadttheatern gelernt und arbeitet seit 2003 selbständig als Autor, Kurator, Dramaturg und Regisseur. Hier hat er besonders viel Erfahrung als Regisseur von Galen und Charity-Veranstaltungen gesammelt, die wichtige Inhalte und große Unterhaltung miteinander präsentieren. 2013 hat er für das Performing Arts Programm Berlin (PAP) den Branchentreff der Freien Darstellenden Künste Berlin mitkonzipiert und zusammen mit anderen bis 2017 geleitet. Für das PAP konzipiert er auch weiterhin Fachtagungen, die spezifische Themen für ein professionelles Publikum vertiefen.

2016 hat er für das PAP zusammen mit der re:publica die Performersion gegründet, ein Format für Kooperationen der digitalen und der darstellenden Künste, das er seitdem auch mit einem inzwischen internationalen Fokus fortführt.

Die kuratorische Arbeit an der Schnittstille zwischen digitalen und analogen Künsten setzt er in Laborformaten für die Technologiestiftung Berlin u.a. oder als Mitglied des Culture Track Teams der re:publica um. Vermittelnd arbeitet er in diesem Spannungsfeld auch als Beiratsmitglied der bbw – University for Applied Sciences, des Berlinforums der Stiftung Zukunft Berlin, als Speaker oder Workshopgeber.

Nilüfer Kemper was born in Turkey and grew up in the Ruhr region. She studied psychology and theater at the Ruhr University in Bochum. From 1985 to 1993 she was a freelance actress and performance artist in various constellations. At the same time she studied psychology and theater studies at the Ruhr-University Bochum. Since 1993 she has been a freelance cultural manager and producer in the independent performing arts and has supervised numerous stage productions, festivals and cultural projects in NRW. Among others, she was managing director of Theater im Depot Dortmund 1999-2006, project manager at the Institute for Art and Material Culture at the Technical University of Dortmund 2009-2012, managing director of the NRW theater festival FAVORITEN 2012-2019 and managing director of the Landesarbeitsgemeinschaft Tanz NRW 2012-2021. She is co-founder and spokeswoman of .dott - the dance and theater network Dortmund - and chairwoman of the board of the NRW Landesbüro Freie Darstellende Künste.

In addition to her work as Artistic Co-Director of Ballhaus Ost, Tina Pfurr works as a curator, performer, actress and speaker and also develops her own projects. Pfurr has been a board member of LAFT Berlin since 2017 and is a regular member of award and festival juries (including 2017-2020 Kulturbehörde Hamburg; 2021 Körber Stiftung Junge Regie). Most recently she realized the performance I just called to say... sHe's dead. which was published online as a 5-part video work in February 2021. Since 2014, she has toured the world with the dance karaoke performance copy & dance. Pfurr also produces video works, the two video essays Applied AXXXD-Gendering (2017) and SelfFanfic - An Exorcism (2019) have been shown at various festivals. In recent years she has worked in various theaters, worldwide, as a performer and actress and conceives performative moderations. In addition to her theater work, she is also an actress for film and television.

Tobias Rausch has been working as a director and author at numerous municipal theaters and venues of the independent scene since 2001. He is co-founder of the collective LUNATIKS, of which he was a member until 2015. Since 2019, he has been the director of Bürger:Bühne at the Staatsschauspiel Dresden. His work focuses on research projects and on productions about climate & nature, such as the botanical long-term theater DIE WELT OHNE UNS (2009-2014) or the climate theater disaster TORNADO. He was awarded, among others, the Otto-Kasten-Preis of the Intendantengruppe im Deutschen Bühnenverein 2012 and the Bremer Autoren- und Produzentenpreis 2007. Together with composer Marc Sinan and director Konrad Kästner, he won the NO!peras competition in the Experimental Music Theater Fund 2019 with the opera project CHAOSMOS. He has held teaching positions at the Mozarteum Salzburg, the Zurich University of the Arts, and the Berlin University of the Arts, among others. Together with Ruth Feindel and Birgit Lengers, he curated the Berlin Recherchetheatertage at the Deutsches Theater (2016) and initiated the conference "Climate Meets Theater" at the Heinrich Böll Foundation in 2019.

- 1958 born in Potsdam

- since 1981 as a puppeteer, later also as an actor, in different free Potsdam projects

- from 1985 - 1987 he completed the course of studies "Leader of a Folk Art Collective" in puppetry at the "Central House for Cultural Work" in Leipzig.

- 1993 -1998 fabrik Potsdam public relations and venue manager

- 1995 co-founder of the Landesverband Freier Theater Brandenburg e.V. (state association of independent theaters)

- since 1998 Managing Director of the Landesverband Freier Theater Brandenburgs e.V.

Sabine Reich, born in 1966, studied comparative literature, philosophy and theater studies in Bonn, Bochum and Madrid. First dramaturgy work at Schauspielhaus Bochum, assistant at Burgtheater Wien, then freelance dramaturg in Mülheim, Berlin and New York, lecturer in theater studies at Ruhr-Universität Bochum, 2004 in Frank Castorf's team at Ruhrfestspiele Recklinghausen. From 2005 - 2010 dramaturg at Schauspiel Essen involved in the projects "Eichbaumoper" and for Frie Leysen in the team of "Theater der Welt 2010". From 2010 at Schauspielhaus Bochum, 2013-2015 as head dramaturg, responsible among others for the DETROIT PROJECT. In 2017 she took over the program management of "Tanzland" for the Kulturstiftung des Bundes in sponsorship of the Dachverband Tanz Deutschland. 2018/19 project management and concept for OWELA, a performance festival of Ruhrfestspiele Recklinghausen and Kaleni Kollektiv Windhoek in Recklinghausen and Windhoek, funded by Fonds TURN of the Kulturstiftung des Bundes. In 2019-2022 she was chief dramaturge and deputy artistic director at Schauspiel Dortmund (artistic director Julia Wissert).

Ilona Schaal is a theater producer and curator. She studied theater studies at the University of Leipzig and theater and orchestra management at the HfMDK in Frankfurt/Main. She worked as a production and project manager for various companies and cultural institutions (including Goethe Center Hyderabad, fringe Ensemble Bonn) before taking over the program direction of Schaubühne Lindenfels in Leipzig within a three-person management team in 2017. In 2022, she directs an online Art Lab for German and Ukrainian artists*. She is on the board of the Landesverband Freie Theater in Sachsen and an expert at the Performing Arts Program Berlin. In the fall of 2023, she will take over the management of Theater Rampe in Stuttgart together with Bastian Sistig.

Dan Thy Nguyen is a freelance theater director, actor, writer and singer in Hamburg. He has worked on various productions at Ballhaus Naunynstraße, Mousonturm Frankfurt, Kampnagel, MDR and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, among others. In 2014 he developed and produced the play "Sonnenblumenhaus" about the pogrom of Rostock -Lichtenhagen, which won the "Hörnixe" in 2015 in its radio play version and is still played at various institutions. Since 2020, he has directed the Hamburg festival "fluctoplasma - 96h Kunst Diskurs Diversität" with his production company Studio Marshmallow and he is deputy board member of the LAG Kinder- und Jugendkultur Hamburg. In 2021, together with the entire ensemble, he received the German Radio Play Award for his acting performance. In 2022 he published, among other things, his first volume of poetry "Über Wasser und Tote" and co-curated the exhibition "Wer wir sind" at the Bundeskunsthalle Bonn in 2023.

Caspar Weimann (he*/they) holds a professorship and a mentorship for acting at the ADK Baden-Württemberg; is an initiating force of the free internet theater onlinetheater. live and the app "Loulu" (Amadeu Antonio Prize 2021, Heidelberger Stückemarkt 2022); conducts seminars and workshops on digital and hybrid theater strategies, on participatory theater on the net, and on the theatricality of social media; has an equal opportunity commission at the ADK Baden-Württemberg with a special focus on queer empowerment and is concerned with a change in the contemporary concept of acting.

Katharina Wolfrum studied theater, modern German literature and psychology in Munich and Stockholm, as well as cultural and media management in Berlin. At Freie Universität Berlin, she worked at the Creative Industries Competence Center and conducted research in particular on places of creative development in urban spaces. This topic then drew Katharina to the creative quarter of Munich in 2015: first as artistic production manager at the PATHOS Theater and soon with her own initiatives such as the Theaterbüro München - an advisory office for the independent performing arts - or the collective "Büro Grandezza e. V.". In addition, she is committed to the further development of this creative quarter as a central location for Munich's independent scene with a special focus on "sustainability and culture". Since the beginning of 2020, Katharina is responsible for the theater, film and cinema funding of the Cultural Department of the City of Munich.