Kysy Fischer (BR) uses humor to confuse disciplines such as dance, performance, and theater. As a choreographer, she is interested in the minimalist exaggeration as well as playing with contradictions. Kysy thinks often about psychoanalysis and class matters. Through her work, she seeks forms of contact with the audience and critiques the hierarchies of artistic spaces and practices. In her academic research in Brazil, she explored performance art as an applied philosophical practice. Since 2017 she is the director of the collective ABA NAIA, through which she mainly explores feminist humor. Kysy Fischer's last work "Super Superficial" opened the TanzTage Berlin 2025 at SophienSaele. She also formed part of the production team of "Kill Me" between 2023 and 2024, by the Argentinian choreographer Marina Otero. Languages: Portuguese, Spanish, German and English.

www.abanaia.com

Inky Lee (they/them) is a multidisciplinary artist and a writer living in Berlin. Their work creates space for the embodied experiences of marginalized individuals and communities to be acknowledged, mourned for and celebrated. In their work, Inky looks for ways to be direct and tender at once. Inky has been collaborating with institutions such as Tanzfabrik Berlin and Tanzbüro Berlin, as well as working with other freelance performance artists, dancers, musicians, writers and activists. You can find out more about Inky's work here:

www.inkyunglee.me

Fabian Rosonsky was born in Lutherstadt Wittenberg in 1989 and studied comparative literature and political science in Berlin. From 2016 to 2019, he worked as an assistant director at the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus and was subsequently part of the production team for the “Theater der Welt 2020/21” festival. Since then, he has been a freelance production manager for various national and international projects between festivals, digital and independent production in theater and performance. At the same time, he also works as a director and is co-founder of the collective “Polyformers”. His productions have been shown at the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus, Theater der Keller in Cologne, Theater Regensburg, Volksbühne am Kaulenberg in Halle and Theater unterm Dach in Berlin, among others.

Therese Schmidt, born in Potsdam in 1979, works as a music theater director and author in Berlin. She realizes various projects at the interface between music theater, new music and performance and develops musical performances and music-theatrical formats under the label mehrblick&ton.
She writes libretti, concept and theater texts, as well as cultural-political studies and collaborates with artists and theater collectives in the independent scene. In addition to productions at various municipal and state theaters, she taught drama at the universities of Dresden and Berlin. Until 2019, she worked in the Performing Arts Program of LAFT Berlin and has since been advising artists in the independent scene on independent work and conceptual work.

Kai Schubert, *1973 in Bochum, is a director and author. Kai has worked as an assistant, dramaturge and director at Theater Dortmund, Staatsoper Unter den Linden Berlin and Staatsschauspiel Dresden, as well as on various independent productions in Germany and France, and has carried out theater projects with schools and young people as part of TUSCH and the “Cultural Agents for Creative Schools” program. Since 2005, he has premiered 15 plays, including at the Sophiensäle Berlin, Theater Ingolstadt, LTT Tübingen, Wuppertaler Bühnen and Gärtnerplatztheater Munich, as well as productions in Dresden and Berlin and open-air productions in Brandenburg and the Ruhr region. Kai is a lecturer at the UdK Berlin in the field of theater pedagogy, was artistic director at Theater Poetenpack Potsdam 2020-2021, co-founder of MORPHtheater and 2019-2023 artistic director of Kulturpalast Wedding.

Max Schumacher works as dramaturg, curator, producer, director, lecturer, workshop facilitator, author and coach. After studying dramaturgy (Humboldt University Berlin) and performance studies (NYU) he has been working in more than 50 cities in 20 countries. His main occupation is as artistic co-director of Post Theater, a performing arts unit with focus on media-enhanced performances. Since 2020 he also serves as artistic director of DIE BÜHNE, Technical University Dresden’s theater. Max is interested in transdisciplinary work that questions its own means. According to Max, performing arts should constantly reinvent themselves. They should be responding to vibrant topics of the present, both in terms of content AND form.

www.posttheater.com

Cox Ahlers (she) was born in Heidelberg and lives and works in Berlin. In 2002, she completed her training at the circus school ESAC – École supérieure des arts du cirque in Brussels, specializing in dance acrobatics and site-specific performance in the first promo Exit 1. In contemporary circus, Cox works as a performer, project manager, impulse artist, mentor and networker. She has been curating and directing the Bauhaus festivals of the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation since 2016. Associated with BUZZ e.V. since its foundation and on the board from 2016-23, she is currently chairwoman of the Berlin association Forum Neuer Zirkus e.V., supporting association for Zeit für Zirkus (2021/2023).

Silvia Albarella is an artist and stage-costume designer. Her work focuses on the interface between theatre, film, performance and virtual reality. She has lived in Berlin since 1996, where she realises her own projects and collaborates with other artists and theatres.

www.silviaalbarella.de

Vera Block supports creative people in shaping their own media presence and presenting themselves convincingly in interviews, job interviews and public appearances. In her workshops, she offers easy-to-implement tips for effective writing and speaking. As a freelance journalist, Vera Block has been reporting on diversity in society and culture for 25 years. She is a job and career coach and an AEVO-certified trainer. As a result of her own immigration history, Vera Block places special emphasis on empowering people with migration experience and accents.

Daniel Brunet is a director, performer, producer, theater manager and translator. He was born was in Syracuse, New York in 1979 and studied theater and film at Boston College. He moved to Berlin in 2001 with the support of a Fulbright Scholarship. Brunet became Producing Artistic Director of English Theatre Berlin | International Performing Arts Center in 2012 and established an artistic concept there that mirrors his own work: English as a working language, used by non-native speakers and native speakers alike in bilingual or multilingual works. Brunet has served as the speaker for the performing arts within the Speakers’ Circle of the Coalition of the Independent Arts and as a co-opted board member of LAFT – Landesverband freie darstellende Künste Berlin e.V. since the end of 2018.

Julia Cremers is a video and performance artist whose practice explores the hybridization of human and instrument, new forms of embodiment and alternative modes of perception in our increasingly digitized reality. After completing her Master of Fine Arts degree in 2018, Julia co-organized the art/science collective Parallax Lab at UDK and TU Berlin, taught at HGB Leipzig and was an active member of the Berlin art venue Errant Sound. Julia also works in the technical department of the Hebbel am Ufer Theater.

Derya Durmaz was born in Germany, as the granddaughter of Turkish guest workers and grew up in Turkey. She moved back to Germany in 2019. She has a BA in Economics, a Masters in Human Rights Law and she studied acting. She is an interdisciplinary artist-filmmaker-perfomer who creates and takes part in film-performance-installation-exhibitions that address issues of borders and boundaries (physical/psychological), identity, sense of belonging and human nature, highlighting the hypocrisies and inconsistencies in the rhetoric defining political, social and personal spaces. Her award-winning work have been featured in media outlets such as the Washington Post and The Monocle magazine.

Johanna Freiburg was born in Hamburg in 1971 and lives in Berlin. She studied at the Institute for Applied Theater Studies in Gießen from 1991 to 1997 She is a member of She She Pop and the German-British artist collective Gob Squad. She has performed in numerous pieces that have toured around the world. For some 30 years, she has worked collectively on the development of concepts, realization and performance of new works. Johanna passes on the knowledge she has gained from this as a mentor working on an international basis and regularly shares it with Berlin’s independent performing arts community via events of the Berlin Performing Arts Program.

Max Gadow is a freelance theater maker, conflict mediator and systemic consultant in Berlin. He is currently training in systemic trauma therapy. In his work, he focuses on the investigation of Western myths and power structures and derives performative processes from them. Pop culture and new media are hybridized with canonized cultural assets in these works. The erosion of culture and cohesion through the capitalist logic of value creation is a recurring theme. In art and beyond, the following focal points are important to him: collective work processes, strengthening introverted positions, (self-)compassion, non-violent feedback methods, strengthening life and work interjections outside the heteronormative matrix.

Nora Gores has been working for several years at various theatres and cultural institutions in and around Berlin. She has worked for performances, dance and theatre as well as for exhibitions, mostly in the context of press and public relations. Since 2015 she has also been working as a consultant, coach and mediator. She began her studies in Theatre and Latin American Studies in Munich before moving to Barcelona, Mexico City and finally Berlin. In 2007, she trained to teach German as a foreign language at the International House Freiburg. In 2012, she also completed a compact course in communication management at the German Press Academy in Berlin and has since specialised in developing strategies for PR and marketing concepts.

Eva Hartmann is a coach, mentor, moderator, mediator, lecturer and trainer, occasional network or dramaturgy sidekick and idea developer. She has an MA in Theatre Studies and has completed further training and accreditation in Relational Dynamics Coaching, Gestalt Coaching, Trauma-Informed Coaching and lately Neurodivergent Coaching. Since 1999 she has been a producer and manager for various artists and festivals (e.g. International Theatre Academy Ruhr/Bochum, performance festival reich & berühmt Podewil/Berlin) and from 2002 to 2023 company, funding and strategy manager for the German/English Gob Squad Arts Collective. In 2009/2010 she was on the board of LAFT Berlin. Eva accompanies transformation processes in various contexts, for example in (high) schools, cultural and social organizations and institutions with individuals and groups. She is interested in how we connect, communicate and act with ourselves and others and how we courageously create and live diverse, coexisting alternatives, perspectives and ideas to the prevailing "business as usual".

www.evahartmanncoaching.com

Holger Heißmeyer arbeitet als Programmierer im Kulturbereich und als Medienkünstler. In seiner künstlerischen Praxis gestaltet Holger installative Situationen, in denen meist digitale Objekte in Erscheinung treten und mit dem Publikum, dem Raum und dem Künstler selbst subtile Beziehungen eingehen. Zusammen mit Anderen entwickelt er seit 2021 die Open-Source-Plattform interkit.app zur Erstellung interaktiver Anwendungen für Kulturprojekte. Holger studierte Physik und Psychologie an der Freien Universität Berlin und Kunst in der Freien Klasse an der Universität der Künste Berlin und arbeitet/e mit Invisible Playground, Internil, dem Mahler Chamber Orchestra, der Kestner Gesellschaft, dem MGKSiegen, Kunst und Kultur in der HafenCity e.V. und Marta Herford zusammen.

Sina Kießling studierte Schauspiel an der Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Rostock. Anschließend ging sie von 2003-2007 an das Theater Heilbronn als Schauspielerin. Danach folgte ein zweijähriges Engagement am Theater Lübeck. Seit 2009 arbeitet sie als freie Schauspielerin u.a. am Maxim Gorki Theater Berlin, der Volksbühne Berlin, Schauspielhaus Bochum, dem Volktheater München, Stadsteater Malmö, Theater Lübeck, dem Badischen Staatstheater Karlsruhe und Theater Basel. 2016 schloss sie ihr 2. Studium an der Hochschule für Musik und Theater, Bereich Kulturmanagement, in Hamburg ab. Seitdem arbeitet sie auch als Produktionsleiterin und Produzentin u.a. mit Fabian Hinrichs für das Festivals Foreign Affairs, 2013 für Union Universal Hamburg und dem Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop Berlin. Seit 2015 ist sie Produzentin beim Theaterkollektiv machina eX. Weitere Kollaborationen mit dem Nordwind Festival, der Schweizer Choreografin Simone Aughterlony, Choreografin Kat Válastur, mit der Tänzerin und Choreografin Ligia Lewis und mit der Performer*in Janne Gregor und Anan Fries. Beratungstätigkeit als Externe für die Kulturstiftung des Bundes für die Förderprogramme „Tanzland“ und „Jupiter“, sowie Dozentin beim LAFT im Bereich Produktionsleitung.

Harriet Lesch has worked in various functions and areas of cultural production since 1991. From 1998 she worked at DepArtment, which produced/managed numerous artists and performing arts projects. She has worked in the areas of production and communication for various festivals and congresses. She is co-founder of WILSON*BORLES arts management (2013 to 2021 framework contract agency of the German Federal Cultural Foundation) and was managing director of the 2014 and 2017 Theater der Welt festivals. In addition, she gives further training in the areas of structure, organization and finance and works as a consultant for festivals, institutions and independent artists.

Laia Montoya is an arts manager, producer and professional coach. Based in Berlin, she is co-director of TINA Agency, a multi-local organization that manages and promotes international projects with artists and institutions from the dance field. As a cultural manager, recently she has developed projects with organizations such as Graner in Barcelona, ICEC – Berlin and Catalan Arts, New Theater Institute of Latvia, Studio Alta and Bazaar Festival in Prague, LAFT Berlin, Loom Festival in Barcelona, among others, promoting of the internationalization of the performing arts in their countries.

Martin Stiefermann is a choreographer, mentor, curator and concept creator. Following his training and work at the Hamburgische Staatsoper, he has worked as a choreographer alternating between dance direction positions at repertory and ensemble theaters (Theater Kiel, Oldenburgisches Staatstheater) and as a choreographer in the independent performing arts community, especially with his Berlin-based group MS Schrittmacher, which has now existed for 26 years. He directed the residency program at Schloss Bröllin from 2018 to 2021 and has been part of the leadership team of the TANZPAKT project MECKLENBURG-VORPOMMERN TANZT AN since 2018. He has worked as an artistic partner of the label Art Hacking® since 2019 and realizes workshops on the topic of the transfer of artistic processes to business questions. He started the project BRUCHSTÜCKE (FRAGMENTS) in 2022, which is dedicated to the task of established dance and performance in the rural area of Oderbruch. He is a co-founder and board member of MS Schrittmacher-Landgang e. V., a founding member of ZTB e. V. and is a member of LAFT Berlin e. V. and also served as a member of its board from 2014 and 2018. He was a member of the Bundesdeutschen Ballett- und Tanztheaterdirektor*innen-Konferenz (BBTK, the German Federal Ballet and Dance Theater Directors Conference) from 2001 to 2006. He has been a member of schloss bröllin e. V. since 2015, a board member of Tanzregion Mecklenburg-Vorpommern e. V. since 2018 and is also a representative within the network TANZ WEIT DRAUßEN. Since 2022, he has been part of the core group responsible for the establishment of TANZINITIATIVE Brandenburg and has been a member of the board of the newly founded association Tanzinitiative-Brandenburg e. V. since the spring of 2024.

 

Alisa Tretau studied social/cultural anthropology and political science at the FU Berlin (2006-11), theater directing at the HfMT Hamburg (2011-15) and art in context at the UdK Berlin (2022-24). Alisa works as a curator and production manager e.g. with Frauen und Fiktion, Peng! Kollektiv, She She Pop and Klasse Klima, as a mediator with Theatertreffen der Jugend, HKW, UdK Berlin, Viadrina FFO and many more. As a director/author, e.g. WÜSTE ZUKUNFT (2020), BETON WÜSTE ZUKUNFT (2023), TRAVE TALKS (2023), DER VERSCHWUNDENE SEE (2023), Alisa always pursues immersive, often improvised formats and asks questions about the political in the private sphere. In 2018 she published the anthology NICHT NUR MÜTTER WAREN SCHWANGER (edition assemblage). Alisa has two small children.

Miro Wallner is an established performing artist based in Berlin. He has worked on collaborative projects, with institutions such as Ballhaus Naunynstrasse, HAU, Gropius Bau, Uferstudios, and Halle Tanzbühne. His movement training draws from diverse sources, including Capoeira, Contemporary Dance, Contact Improvisation, Floor Acrobatics, and the intensive practice of Get Physical Process – as part of Grupo Oito. He is currently structuring his method of artistic investigation as a game aiming to deepen our understanding of transformative experiences and socio-political change.

For more than 35 years, Katharina von Wilcke has been active in various fields of the performing arts – as a producer, curator, mediator and lecturer. She founded the production office DepArtment in 1996, was project manager and programmer at numerous festivals and co-directed four editions of the TANZKONGRESS on behalf of the German Federal Cultural Foundation from 2005 to 2016. Since 2013, she has been working as an expert for the Berlin Performing Arts Program and other cultural and educational institutions, supporting artists and institutions in the conception, application and presentation of their projects in consultations and workshops. She also designs mediation formats to generate new audiences and will soon be able to call herself a transformation manager for sustainable culture.

www.katharinavonwilcke.de

Rodrigo Zorzanelli (*1992 in São Paulo) performs, writes and produces in Berlin’s independent theater and performance scene. Rodrigo’s work deals with non-binarity, feminist autofiction, invisible structures, bureaucracy and belonging. Their most recent work is the solo performance multiple memberships, which premiered in May 2024 at Ballhaus Ost.

www.rodrigozorzanelli.com