Mentoring Program "Pro" 2016 – 2019

Mentoring Program "Pro" 2016 – 2019

Target Group: Long-term members of the independent performing arts community

This Performing Arts Program mentoring program is intended for long-term community members of any age who have a solid professional context for their work that they would like to further develop. Several years of professional experience is a prerequisite for participating in this program. Within each Group, two mentees will benefit from the experience of their mentors, who will provide them with intense support in individual coaching sessions over the course of 1.5 years. The mentees are asked to name their desired mentor in their application who will then be asked to participate by the mentee and the Mentoring Program after the conclusion of the application phase.

The mentoring program “Pro” includes:

  • Supervision and recurring individual coaching sessions covering individually selected topics by very experienced mentors over a period of 1.5 years
  • Specific support with the implementation and the expansion of competencies
  • A workshop/seminar on a topic and/or focused theme of your choice
  • Additional support from the coordinators of the Mentoring Program
  • Access to a high-quality and open network for the independent performing arts community as well as regular networking meetings
  • Access to the additional offers of the Performing Arts Program


Prerequisites for joining the mentoring program “Pro”:

  • At least seven years of successful/visible/perceivable work in the field of the independent performing arts
  • Documentation of high-quality work(s) in the field of the independent performing arts
  • The motivation to work toward a professional further development within the scope of the mentoring program and to formulation and visualize one’s own goals
  • Primary residence in Berlin for the coming three years and officially registered in Berlin
  • Strong language proficiency in German

Mentors and mentees 2018

Holger Bergmann (Curator, Mentor, Managing Director FONDS PERFORMING ARTS)
is the mentor of
Michael Müller (Artistic director Theaterdiscounter Berlin)
Gabriele Horn (Curator, director of the Berlin Biennale for contemporary art)
is the mentor of
Elena Polzer (Producer, translator, co-founder honest work)

Mentors and mentees 2017

Silke Bake lives in Berlin, and works as curator, dramaturge and mentor. In collaboration with collegues, artists, and institutions she develops topic bound programms, talk- and research formats in the field of performing art.

She has worked for diverse festivals (including Theater der Welt 1999 in Berlin) and institutions (including TAT Frankfurt, Hebbel-Theater Berlin) and realised programs for the House of World Cultures, the Academy of the Arts Berlin, Kanuti Gildi Saal Tallinn and Thea­terformen Hannover/ Braunschweig. She worked as the dramaturge, responsible for new production and research development at Tanz­quartier Wien, and as a full-time member of the board of curators for independent theater and dance in the city of Vienna (2002-06). She was the dramaturge and managing director of IN TRANSIT Performing Arts Festival at the House of World Cultures in 2008+09. As a free-lance dramaturge she has been involved in various contemporary perfor­mance and dance projects, and worked as a artistic manager with Anne Juren (F/A) and Claudia Bosse (D/A) as well as mentor and teacher in art educational environments. Together with Peter Stamer she was the curator of the biennial NU Performance Festival On Hospitality on the occasion of the cultural capital program of Tallinn 2011. She realised performance platform. body affects together with Bettina Knaup at Sophiensaele Berlin 2012. Together with a group of  artists, dramaturges and architects she initiated and realised the space performance project A Future Archeology in Berlin, Vienna and Cairo 2012/13, and together with with Peter Stamer „A piece you remember to tell – A piece you tell to remember“ - a project on dance-history-telling. She is continuously working on formats for discussion and discourse as „from dusk till dawn and further“, a 12 hours talkshow together with Peter Stamer at ImpulsTanz Festival Vienna, „Studio 13 – Let’s talk about work and life“ a series of talks and „Visionärer Widerstreit“, a seven hours  at Tanzfabrik Berlin, both together with Jacopo Lanteri. In 2016/17 she conceived with Alice Chauchat, Bettina Knaupt and Siegmar Zacharias „Ecologies of practice“, a talk & practice format with guests. She has been the artistic director oft he biennial programm Tanznacht Berlin in 2016, and will be responsible for the next edition in 2018. Recent publication: „How to collaborate? Questioning Togetherness in the Performing Arts“, edited together with P. Stamer and Ch. Weiler, Passagen Verlag Vienna 2016.

is the mentor of

Matteo Marziano Graziano is a director and choreographer. He works interdisciplinarily across genres for video art and video dance as well as in the performing arts with the formats of contemporary choreography, experimental music theater, participative theater or spatial interventions. Utopian literature from the 20th century and spiritual music traditions inspire his work. He develops concepts for heterogeneous genres and performance situations. His productions are complex and polymorphous. They always address existential questions and offer audiences the opportunity to broaden their awareness.

Long-term research into the connection between forms of energy works in and of themselves and within the performing arts stands behind this aesthetic diversity. Matteo has worked for more than a decade with pre-Christian energy traditions, alchemy, family constellations and quantum physics. Numerous experiments have been based on these experiences which he then draws upon over the course of his artistic development. In 2015, Graziano received a work and research grant from the state of Berlin in order to continue this research work.

Graziano completed his studies in Italy (BA in anthropology, BA in dance) and in Berlin (MA in choreography at HZT Hochschulübergreifendes Zentrum Tanz) with distinction. He has worked with renowned artists such as Stefan Herheim, Guy Joosten, Lucinda Childs, Emio Greco and Thomas Bo Nilsson (a former member of SIGNA).  Graziano is an alumnus of the German Academic Scholarship Foundation and is a member of the board of the Italian dance organization COORPI. He works at international theaters such as the Schaubühne in Berlin and Aalto-Theater in Essen, performance venues of the independent performing arts community such as PACT Zollverien and Uferstudios Berlin and in galleries such as Künstlerhaus Bethanien.

Adrienne Göhler completed a degree in psychology, was President of the Academy of Visual Arts in Hamburg, Senator for Science, Research and Culture of the State of Berlin and curator of the Hauptstadtkulturfonds Berlin. She has worked since 2006 as a freelance journalist and curator, theoretician and activist for unconditional basic income, the initiator and artistic director of ZUR NACHAHMUNG EMPFOHLEN!, a touring exhibition about expeditions in aesthetics and sustainability and as a moderator for Nationaltheater Mannheim and Ballhaus Naunynstraße.

is the mentor of

Anne Schneider is a freelance director and has been managing director of the Bundesverband Freie Darstellende Künste (German Federal Association of the Independent Performing Arts) since February 2017. Together with Sarah Theilacker, she created the Hauptsache Frei Festival for Hamburg’s independent performing arts community and worked as artistic director of the first three editions of the festivals (2015, 2016 and 2017).

Anne Schneider realized her first productions as a director at Experimentiertheater Erlangen over the course of her studies in theater studies at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen. She then worked as an assistant and directed at Staatstheater Nürnberg and Schaubühne Berlin.
She has worked as a freelance director since 2009 and regular directs at Ballhaus Ost, Theater unterm Dach (Berlin) and Lichthof Theater (Hamburg).
Anne Schneider served as the artistic director of the KALTSTART-Festival in Hamburg in 2013 and 2014.

Florian Uthoff is a cofounder of the marketing agency Hausdorff-Mongré. As a concept developer and communication consultant, he develops focused targeting, positioning and campaign strategies for unions, NGOs and small businesses as well as medium-sized enterprises.
With the concentrations below the line and live communication, he has supervised the planning and implementation of a variety of campaigns, actions and events for more than 15 years.
Florian Uthoff studied sculpture at the Weißensee Academy of Art Berlin.

is the mentor of

Daniel Koch works in Berlin as a director, stage designer and as artistic director of morgenstern, an independent children’s and youth theater he founded with Pascale Senn Koch in 1994.
The focus of his work is placed on actor-driven theater with full expression and a joy in transformation as well as a treatment of speech coupled to physical movement and the development of continuous schedule of programming, first at a variety of performance venues and in the company’s own venue in Rathaus Friedenau since 1998.
The development and realization of unique formats is also a focus, such as the theater field trips and project days for school classes and families conducted both in Berlin and in the surrounding area since 1996. Productions are developed within the context of special performance spaces, such as Kloster Chorin (Der arme Heinrich), Natur-Park Schöneberger Südgelände (Oliver Twist), Freilicht Museum Altranft (Die Liebe zu den 3 Orangen, Das Rätsel des roten Rubins), Familienfarm Lübars (Schildbürger, Findus und der Hahn im Korb) in conjunction with cultural education institutions with the participants.
Daniel Koch has directed 32 productions.

Mentors and Mentees 2016

Janina Audick studied visual art, fashion and stage design in Kassel, Berlin and at the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences from 1992 to 1997. She has lived primarily in Berlin since 1991.
Her works with René Pollesch have received world premieres since the year 2000 at Podewill, Schauspielhaus Hamburg, Volksbühne Berlin im Prater and Burgtheater Vienna.
She met Christoph Schlingensief in Zurich in 2003 with whom she immediately began a long, close collaboration and she specialized in developing stages for pieces that did not yet exist.
In 2009 she developed the stage design for Mea Culpa (Bayrische Staatsopper, Burgtheater) for Christoph Schlingensief.
She has also created stage designs for other directors and writers including, amongst others, Sibylle Berg, Herbert Fritsch, Studio Braun, Sebastian Baumgarten (Komische Oper/Das weisse Rössel [The White Horse Inn]) Audick has also worked as a production designers on numerous films, including, for example, films by Emily Atef, Tatjana Turanski and Helene Hegemann.  
René Pollesch has called his stage designer the primary author of his pieces, of which not much more than the title exists before the beginning of rehearsals, and the designs serve as the inspiring starting point and orientation for providing structure. 

is the mentor of

Lena Mody began her studies at European Film College in Denmark, studied Scandinavian studies and theater studies in Munich as well as Berlin and then studied stage design at TU Berlin. She has lived and worked in Berlin since 2006: existing collaborations here connect her with the choreographer Christoph Winkler as well as the groups Gob Squad and Rimini Protokoll – outside of Berlin, she has worked with the actors and performers Judith Huber and Eva Löbau and most recently with the Icelandic-British group Dance for Me and Olga Sonja Thoranensen.
In her work, she attempts to come to terms with topics such as western society, the recent history of the world which surrounds us, pop, biography as well as personal and collective memory. A selection of her work can be found at www.lenamody.com

The voice, speech and communication have been my profession and my passion for more than twenty years.
My know-how, many years of experience and technical competence are highly valued not only by the academies, universities and other institutions that I work for regularly. I can look back on more than twenty years of experience in providing instruction for voice and speech.
I have accompanied many people along their path to a successful presentation and have supported women in helping their voices to be heard and to show their strengths. Managers trust my competence and profit from my many years of experience and confidence in dealing with strong personalities.
As an expert for the voice and speech, I find myself continually fascinated anew by human beings and their voices. Supporting the free, vibrant voice and authentic communication is an issue very close to my heart.
I am a voice and speech teacher, voice coach and speaker. I am a member of DGSS, the Association of the German Society for Vocal Studies and Linguistics and a designated natural voice teacher. I am currently completing a course of additional study to become a systemic coach.

is the mentor of

Franziska Werner has been artistic director of Sophiensaele Berlin since 2011.
She studied theater studies/cultural communication, art history and European ethnology at Humboldt-Universität Berlin (M.A.) and Etudes Théâtrales  at Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris. She began working at Sophiensaele Berlin as a production dramaturg and production manager in 2008.
She hwas worked as a freelance production manager, dramaturg and assistant director in Berlin since 2001 as well as for festivals and production locations such Schwankhalle Bremen, Stiftung Schloss Neuhardenberg, Movimentos Festwochen Wolfsburg, arena Berlin, Bar jeder Vernunft, Theater Strahl as well as the 16th Jewish Culture Days in 2002.
She was a founding member of the artist collective Pony Pedro which conducted interventions in urban space between 2005 and 2010 at the interface between performance, graphic design/screen printing and installation in the field of urban communication strategies. With Pony Pedro, she developed projects for Junge Akademie/ Akademie der Künste, Schwankhalle Bremen, raumlabor berlin, Theater Freiburg, Theater an der Parkaue and the German Foreign Ministry – Action Africa/Johannesburg, South Africa, amongst others.
She has served as a member of a variety of juries with a focus on supporting the next generation of artists.
She has been a member of LAFT (Landesverband freie Darstellende Künste) Berlin e.V. since 2008.
She was a co-author of the founding petition of the Berlin Coalition of the Independent Arts in the spring of 2012.
She served as a mentor for the LAFT Berlin Performing Arts Program from 2013 – 2015.
Beginning in 2012, she has and continues to serve as a member of Rat für die Künste (Berlin’s Artist Advisory Council) with a focus on funding policy/supporting the demands of Berlin's independent artists working in all fields.