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.

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.

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.

The curator and dramaturg Rolf C. Hemke has been artistic director of the Kunstfest Weimar since 2018/19. Hemke, born in Cologne in 1972, studied law, German and philosophy in Münster, Geneva and Paris X-Nanterre. Between 1993 and 2003, he worked first as a student and then full-time as a cultural journalist for the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Frankfurter Rundschau, Der Standard Wien, and public radio, among others. From 2006 to 2018, he was responsible for the international program at the Theater an der Ruhr in Mülheim an der Ruhr, founded by Roberto Ciulli: there he founded and programmed the event series Szene Istanbul and Klanglandschaften Mittelmeer & Afrika. He curated the strongly politically oriented festival Theaterlandschaften with changing, regional focuses. From 2014 to 2016, he also worked as a freelance artistic consultant for the Wiener Festwochen in the field of drama for the Middle East and Africa regions. As a freelance dramaturg for drama and musical theater, he has worked for the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg, the Ruhrfestspiele, and theaters in Oberhausen, Freiburg, and Münster, among others.

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

Esther Slevogt is an author, critic and editor-in-chief of the theater portal nachtkritik.de, which she co-founded. She writes about theater-historical topics in the context of politics and aesthetics in the 20th century, including the Wolfgang Langhoff biography "Den Kommunismus mit der Seele suchen" (Searching for Communism with the Soul), published by "Kiepenheuer und Witsch" in 2011. Another focus is Jewish postwar history in Germany. She is particularly interested in the consequences of digitalization for the traditional cultural technique of theater. She is co-inventor of the conference Theater & Netz.

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.

Maren Witte, Dr. phil., is a dance scholar and dramaturg. She is professor for theater and dance theory, mediation and movement research at the Ottersberg University of the Arts in the Social. There she directs the B.A. program "Dance and Theater in the Social." Maren Witte is a member of the initiative TANZSCOUT in Berlin, which she founded in 2009, as well as a board member of the Gesellschaft für Tanzforschung (GTF).