Wolfgang Schneider was founding director of the Institute for Cultural Policy at the University of Hildesheim and holder of the UNESCO Chair "Cultural Policy for the Arts in Development" (2014 - 2020). He was the first director of the Children's and Young People's Theater Center in the Federal Republic of Germany, chairman of the Lower Saxony Theater Advisory Board, member of the Goethe-Institut's Dance and Theater Advisory Board and, as an expert member of the German Bundestag's Enquete Commission "Culture in Germany," rapporteur for the chapter on theater, among other things. He is chairman of the Fonds Darstellende Künste e.V., a personal member of the German UNESCO Commission, a trusted lecturer of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, a member of the federal board of the Cultural Forum of Social Democracy, a member of the board of the Initiative for the Archives of Independent Theater e.V., a member of the International Theater Institute, a member of the Council for Performing Arts and Dance in the German Cultural Council, an honorary member of ASSITEJ Germany and Switzerland, and honorary president of the International Association of Theater for Children and Young People. In 2018, he was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit 1st Class by the German President for his honorary international commitment. Numerous publications on theater policy, editor of, among others, "Theater und Schule. Handbuch zur kulturellen Bildung" (2009), " Theater und Migration. Herausforderungen für Kulturpolitik und Theaterpraxis" (2011), "Theater entwickeln und planen. Kulturpolitische Konzeptionen zur Reform der Darstellenden Künste" (2014), "Theatermachen als Beruf. Hildesheimer Wege" (together with Julia Speckmann, 2017); ""Partizipation als Programm. Wege ins Theater für Kinder und Jugendliche" (together with Anna Eitzeroth, 2017); "Performing the Archive. Studie zur Entwicklung eines Archivs des Freien Theaters" (together with Henning Fülle and Christine Henniger, 2018), "Theater in der Provinz. Künstlerische Vielfalt und kulturelle Teilhabe als Programm" (with Katharina Schröck and Silvia Stolz, 2019); "Theater in Transformation. Artistic Processes and Cultural Policy in South Africa" (with Lance Lebogang Nawa, 2019).

Amelie Deuflhard has been the artistic director of Kampnagel, Germany’s largest independent venue for international performing arts, since 2007. Prior to that, she served as artistic director of the Sophiensæle and the Volkspalast in Berlin. Her work focuses, among other things, on the interplay between art, cultural production, and the city, as well as on issues of diversity, decolonization, and inclusion. She has transformed Kampnagel into a place of encounter that brings international artistic perspectives into continuous dialogue with activists, scholars, local artists, and diverse urban communities. Amelie Deuflhard was part of the four-member curatorial board of Theater der Welt 2017. She is the author of numerous publications and regularly holds teaching positions at universities. For her work, she was awarded the Caroline Neuber Prize in 2012 and the insignia of Chevalier des Arts et Lettres in 2013. In 2018, she received the European Cultural Manager of the Year award, and in 2021, the Berlin Theater Prize.

Anne-Cathrin Lessel studied theater studies, psychology, and cultural studies at the University of Leipzig. Until 2011, she worked as a freelancer on artistic projects with children and young people, primarily at the Theater an der Parkaue in Berlin.
In 2011, she became the program and production director at LOFFT – DAS THEATER, and in 2019 she took over as its artistic director and managing director.
Anne-Cathrin Lessel has been actively involved in cultural policy at various levels for many years: for 12 years she served on the board of the Bundesverbandes Freie Darstellende Künste; since 2020 she has been a board member of the Landesverband der Freien Theater in Saxony; since 2023 she has been a board member of the Fonds Darstellende Künste; and starting in 2025 she will serve on the board of the Bundesverband Zeitgenössischer Zirkus.
Among other things, she is also a member of various expert juries, including those for the City of Leipzig, the Cultural Foundation of the Free State of Saxony, the German National Academic Foundation, the National Performance Network, and various festivals.
 

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.

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.

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.

Kerstin Evert studied Applied Theater Studies in Giessen, was a doctoral student in the research training group Body Stagings at the Free University of Berlin from 1997 to 2000, and wrote her doctoral thesis on DanceLab - Contemporary Dance and New Technologies (doctorate awarded the Dance Science Prize NRW 2001). Together with Oliver Behnecke she started the production label Stadt Raum Inszenierung (e.g. festival "ZeitenWende", Gießen 2000). From 2002 to 2006 Kerstin Evert was dramaturge at Kampnagel and founded the choreographic center K3 | Tanzplan Hamburg there in August 2006, which she has directed ever since. As a lecturer, she has taught in Berlin, Bern, Gießen, Hamburg, Frankfurt/Main and Salzburg, among other places, and was part of the co-leading teams of the artistic-scientific research training groups "Assembly and Participation" (HCU, Fundus, K3) and "Performing Citizenship" (HCU, HAW, Fundus, K3). She is a member of various juries and advisory boards, since 2017 on the board and since 2021 co-president of the European Dancehouse Network.

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.

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.

Anica Happich, born and raised in Klein Oschersleben (Saxony-Anhalt), is a cultural worker who is active in publicly funded theaters, the independent scene, and the film industry. In 2021, she initiated the PHOENIX Theater Festival. There, she promotes young artists, actively conducts audience research, and stages performances throughout the city using mobile stages and other artistic formats. For the festival, she developed the radical K's – radical cooperation, co-creation, and collaboration. With this maxim, she promotes interdisciplinary approaches and resource sharing. In 2024, she and the Plattenstufen-Festspiele team received the KULTUR GESTALTEN Future Prize from the Kulturpolitische Gesellschaft e.V. 
At the beginning of the 2026/2027 season, Anica Happich will take over the drama department at the Staatstheater Cottbus together with Timofej Kuljabin.

Mirjam Hesse is a freelance puppeteer and figure designer. She studied figure theater at the Stuttgart University of Music and Performing Arts until 2010 and was a guest student at the Accademia Dimitri - L'accademia del Physical Theatre, CH. In 2011 she founded the Theater Miamou (touring theater) and since then has been developing her own productions, mainly children's plays, with which she can be seen in numerous cities in Germany as well as internationally. Regular venues include Berlin, Braunschweig, Munich, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Saarbrücken, Lübeck, Lingen, Winterthur (CH). Guest performances at numerous festivals including Wies (A), Stamsund (NOR), Moscow (RUS), Dublin (IRL).

Her performance style combines various figure techniques and materials/objects, whereby the choreographic formulation of the movements (her own as well as those of the figures/objects) plays a central role. The productions are characterized by a calm, clear and poetic visual language.

Sabine Kuhfuss studied education, sociology and cultural management in Bielefeld and Hannover. After assisting the team leader of the cultural department of the city of Detmold and co-directing the festival for performing arts in public space "Bildstörung" from 2010 to 2018, she has been the technical-artistic director of the KulturTeam of the city of Detmold and artistic director of the festival "Bildstörung" since 2019. She is interested in the effects and perspectives of performing arts as well as interdisciplinary formats in public space, especially their relevance for municipal culture.

Since 2014, she has been an associate member of the European network for the promotion and development of artistic creations in public space In Situ. As a board member of the Bundesverband Theater im öffentlichen Raum e.V., she is committed to the development and promotion of the genre.

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

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.

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.

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.

Anna Wagner has been the artistic director and managing director of Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm in Frankfurt together with Marcus Droß since September 2022. After studying theater, she worked as assistant dance curator at Hebbel am Ufer in Berlin and directed the dance department at Theater Freiburg, which she transformed from an ensemble company into a production platform for independent choreographers and dancers. In 2014, she moved to Frankfurt's Mousonturm as dramaturg. There she established ongoing working relationships with dance, theater and performance creators from the national and international independent scene such as Paula Rosolen, Eisa Jocson, Helgard Haug/ Rimini Protokoll, Jetse Batelaan and Eisa Jocson among others. She is also co-founder of Tanzplattform Rhein-Main and developed numerous special projects and festivals such as "Indonesia LAB" (2015) "Oper Offenbach" (2018) and "This is Not Lebanon" (2021).

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 spent many years working primarily in the field of contemporary dance in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, and internationally, accompanying productions and collaborating with artists. This work was complemented by teaching assignments at both the University of Cologne and the Center for Contemporary Dance (ZZT) in Cologne. From 2021 to 2026, she headed the FESTIVALFRIENDS network based in Dortmund, which aims to promote nationwide, supraregional networking among festival organizers and artists.

Since 2026, Silvia Werner has been the director of Europe Direct Dortmund, one of over 400 centers in the European Union that provides education on European policy at the interface between civil society and the EU.

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.

Juliane Barz studied educational science and theater studies in Hildesheim and trained as a theater pedagogue (BuT) in Berlin. Most recently, she was employed at the Puppentheater Magdeburg for four years. Since September 2022, she has been working as a freelance theater mediator, director and production/project manager - including for the BANDE '23 format at Schauspielhaus Magdeburg and for the Moritzhof's socio-cultural district project "#moritz4all". In her work, she constantly explores new interfaces with other arts and media as well as new forms, formats and spaces and negotiates sustainable topics using a research-based and empowering approach. She is also involved as a spokesperson for the Arbeitskreis Ost for children's and youth theater, as part of the Adultism working group and on the Magdeb Cultural Advisory Boardurg.

Katrin Breschke studied German, Romance languages and literature and philosophy at the TU Dresden and then dramaturgy at the Hessian Theater Academy. She worked as a dramaturg at the Theater und Philharmonisches Orchester Heidelberg, at the state theaters in Nuremberg and Braunschweig and most recently at the Staatsschauspiel Dresden. From 2017 to 2020, she was a member of the Performing Arts Working Group at the Office for Culture and Monument Protection of the City of Dresden. Since 2020, she has been one of three project managers at FLUX - Netzwerk Theater und Schule, a program to promote cultural participation in rural areas in Hesse. She also works as a freelance dramaturg at the Stadttheater Ingolstadt and the Hessisches Landestheater Marburg, among others. For the 2022 and 2023 festival editions of the Hessian Children's and Youth Theater Week KUSS at the Landestheater Marburg, she was part of the selection committee for the productions of the AK-Südwest.

After completing his master's degree in theater pedagogy at the Berlin University of the Arts in 2012, Nils Deventer worked for the Schauspielhaus Hamburg, the Junges Schauspielhaus Düsseldorf and the Theater an der Parkaue Berlin. During this time, he gained extensive experience in the curation, conception and realization of participatory projects and participation formats of various types and sizes. After his projects increasingly dealt with topics of the digital world, he moved to medialepfade.org e.V. in 2021, where he is now part of the management team for the nationwide educational program "Jugend hackt".

Tessa Hart has been a culture maker and culture changer in the performing arts, film, community work and socio-cultural fields for over 15 years, working across interfaces and boundaries. Since July 2024, Tessa Hart has been a consultant for qualification programs at kultur_formen (Berlin Project Fund for Cultural Education). In addition, Tessa Hart's ongoing activities range from curation and participation in selection committees, such as at the Max Ophüls Preis film festival since 2020, to mediation and educational work, to artistic direction of the collective company Goblin Baby Co. since 2013. Previously, Tessa was project manager and artistic director of AfroPolitan Berlin from 2020 to 2024, co-founder and artistic and managing co-director of the Bread & Roses Theatre in London from 2012 to 2022 and has contributed to seven book publications since 2018. Born in the GDR, raised near Berlin and in Brussels, Tessa Hart lived in London for almost a decade and has been back in Berlin since 2018. Throughout all of this, Tessa Hart has navigated very intersectional worlds of experience, with expertise critical of power and discrimination as well as a commitment to equal opportunities and cultural reflection on actual social realities always being a leitmotif.

Christopher Weymann (he/him) is a queer-feminist performer, computer scientist and theater maker for a transgenerational audience. At FUNDUS THEATER / Forschungstheater in Hamburg, he realizes projects and productions in co-creation with children and young people in the field of tension between society, science and art. With the preamble "Everything that is binary must be hacked!" he develops digital instruments and theater prototypes for the participatory deconstruction of heteronormative, classist and adultist power systems.

Josef Gershenzon is 20 years old and was born in Moscow. He is currently studying philosophy and art history. Josef Gershenzon is a member of BAM! - Kollektiv, which mainly offers creative and social activities for refugee children. Since his childhood, he has been influenced by a strong interest in art and culture as well as socio-political issues, in particular by the experiences of injustice and totalitarianism he had in Russia. After the occupation of the Crimean Peninsula, the family decided to emigrate to Germany. Since the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine in 2022, Josef Gershenzon has been working with friends to help refugee Ukrainian children. As he knows from his own experience what local initiatives and support can achieve, he would like to help support important artistic projects as part of the boys' jury.

Elisabeth Schmidt from Anklam has been a member of the Anklam Youth Parliament since 2020 and chairwoman of the committee since winter 2023. Some of the youth parliament's achievements include a public barbecue area, “wish boxes” for Anklam's schools and several litter collection campaigns. The future title of “Blue Community” is also thanks to the parliament of 9 Anklam residents.
Elisabeth was also involved in the “Testament” theater workshop held in Anklam in June 2024.

Jette Zempel is 15 years old and comes from Anklam in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. She has been interested in theater for years and, until four years ago, played in a theater group for children and young people herself. She also loves singing and playing the guitar. Jette Zempel has taken singing lessons for a total of 6 years and has now been teaching herself to play the guitar for a year. She is a passionate music listener and has a broad knowledge of different genres and bands. When she finishes school, she would like to move to a big city like Hamburg and train as an educator there.