Speaker/Referent:innen
Christopher Balme
Christopher Balme is professor of theatre studies and co-director of the Research Centre global dis:connect (www.globaldisconnect.org) at LMU Munich. His publications include Decolonizing the Stage: Theatrical syncretism and postcolonial drama, (Clarendon Press 1999); Pacific Performances: Theatricality and Cross-Cultural Encounter in the South Seas (2007); Cambridge Introduction to Theatre Studies (2008); The theatrical public sphere (2014) and The Globalization of Theatre 1870-1930: The Theatrical Networks of Maurice E. Bandmann, (2020). He was principal investigator of the DFG-funded research network „Configurations of Crisis“ and the ERC Advanced Grant ‘"Developing Theatre: Building Expert Networks for Theatre in Emerging Countries after 1945“.
Nikita Dhawan
Nikita Dhawan holds the Chair in Political Theory and History of Ideas at the Technical University Dresden, Germany. Her research and teaching focuses on global justice, human rights, democracy and decolonization. She received the Käthe Leichter Award in 2017 for outstanding achievements in the pursuit of women’s and gender studies and in support of the women’s movement and the achievement of gender equality. She has held visiting fellowships at Universidad de Costa Rica; Institute for International Law and the Humanities, The University of Melbourne, Australia; Program of Critical Theory, University of California, Berkeley, USA; University of La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain; Pusan National University, South Korea; Columbia University, New York, USA. Selected publications include: Impossible Speech: On the Politics of Silence and Violence (2007); Reimagining the State: Theoretical Challenges and Transformative Possibilities (ed., 2019); Rescuing the Enlightenment from the Europeans: Critical Theories of Decolonization (forthcoming). In 2023, she received the Gerda-Henkel-Visiting Professorship at Stanford University and the Thomas Mann Fellowship.
Neil Darlison
Neil Darlison is currently Director for Theatre and London for the Arts Council of England and has been for about eleven years. He has held a number or senior positions in arts organisations throughout his career – in theatres, arts centres, concert halls, festivals and music companies. These include the Theatre Royal in Stratford East as Co-Chief Executive, Executive Producer of the BT River of Music for the 2012 Cultural Olympiad, at Warwick Arts Centre as Deputy Director & Head of Programming and at the Southbank Centre as Head of Planning. In addition, he has undertaken consultancy and producing roles for the BBC, the Space, and the National Theatre. He co-founded Music Beyond Mainstream, an organisation which commissions, curates and tours large scale jazz, world and contemporary music concerts in the UK, and was Executive Producer of “This Way Up”, an annual touring festival of small-scale theatre.
Thomas Fabian Eder
Thomas Fabian Eder is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the DFG research group Configurations of Crisis [DFG-Forschungsgruppe Krisengefüge der Künste], School of Arts, Theatre Studies Institute at Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich. His current research interests include the social situation and working conditions of independent artists, the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic for the performing arts and their institutional consolidation in the European context. In addition to his academic credentials, he draws on many years of experience as an arts manager entrusted with international activities in the field. Furthermore, he is involved in various jury and committee functions as well as a member of the scientific advisory board of the research project "Systemcheck" conducted by the Federal Association of Independent Performing Arts in Germany.
Angelika Endres
Angelika Endres M.A. is a research associate at the Institute for Theatre Studies at Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich and is doing her PhD within the interdisciplinary research group “Configurations of Crisis”. She studied Cultural Studies and Business Administration at the Universities of Regensburg and Córdoba, Spain, Theatre Studies at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich and “Curating in the Performing Arts” at the Paris Lodron University of Salzburg. As a project manager and creative producer for the contemporary performing arts, she also works for independent artists and companies as well as for theatres and festivals.
Silke zum Eschenhoff
Silke zum Eschenhoff studied Szenische Künste at University of Hildesheim. She worked as a production manager and dramaturg at Hebbel am Ufer Berlin and at the international festival Theater der Welt 2014, among others, as well as head of the Bürgerbühnen at Staatsschauspiel Dresden and Nationaltheater Mannheim. Since 2018, she has been research assistant in subproject 2 of the DFG research group and additionally juror for the festival BEST OFF - Festival Freier Theater 2020 and 2022 as well as a member of the theatre advisory board in Lower Saxony
Julia Glesner
Julia Glesner is professor of Cultural Management at Potsdam University of Applied Sciences. She studied Theater Studies, German Literature and Politics at the Universities of Mainz and Paris and was a scholarship holder of the Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes, the German Academic Exchange Service and the German Research Foundation. Research stays took her to Australia and as a Segal Research Fellow to the City University New York. In 2004 she was awarded a doctorate with a thesis on "Theater and Internet. On the Relationship between Culture and Technology in the dawning 21st Century". In the 2003/04 season, she moved to Theater Erfurt as a consultant to the general director. From 2004, she was responsible for public relations there. From 2006 to 2017, she headed the department for communication, public relations and marketing at the Klassik Stiftung Weimar, was a member of the foundation's board of directors and its press spokesperson. Recent publication: Opera for all. The Biography of Sir Peter Jonas (London 2023).
Steven Hadley
Dr. Steven Hadley is an academic, consultant and researcher working internationally in arts management, cultural policy and audience engagement. He is currently a Research Fellow at Trinity College Dublin and a Visiting Lecturer at Leuphana University of Lüneburg (Germany). He previously held research posts at the universities of Galway, Sheffield, Hull and Kings College London. Steven is an Associate Consultant with both The Audience Agency and Counterculture and sits on the Steering Committee of the Cultural Research Network and the Editorial Board of Arts and the Market. He is Policy & Reviews Editor for Cultural Trends. Steven has lectured, taught and delivered training in over thirty countries globally and works as a consultant for a wide range of cultural organisations. His recent published work has focussed on cultural democracy and audience engagement. His book, Audience Development and Cultural Policy, is published by Palgrave MacMillan.
Ulrike Hartung
Ulrike Hartung is a research fellow at the Research Institute for Music Theatre Thurnau, University of Bayreuth. Her research project “Persistence and Movement: Music Theatre in Institutional Change between Musealization and New Formats” is part of the nationwide research network “Crisis and Institutional Transformation in Performing Arts”, funded by the German Research Society (DFG). She studied theatre studies majoring in music theatre, English literature and contemporary German literature in Leipzig and Bayreuth and earned her doctoral degree with a thesis on “Postdramatic Music Theatre” for which she received a fellowship from the Bavarian Elite Support Act (BayEFG).
Axel Haunschild
Axel Haunschild is Professor of Work and Employment Studies at Leibniz University Hannover. His research interests include changing forms of work, employment and organization, cultural industries, sustainability from an industrial relations perspective, occupational lifestyles, and organizational boundaries. He has published in journals such as Human Relations, International Journal of Human Resource Management, Journal of Organizational Behavior, British Journal of Industrial Relations and Equality, Diversity and Inclusion.
Thomas Heskia
Thomas Heskia is founder and managing director of create encounter – Society for Transformative Encounter and lecturer for theatre management at Leuphana University Lüneburg. He studied commercial science and art history in Vienna as well as cultural management in Salzburg, Rome and Chicago. He is a trained organizational developer (DGSF) and is currently writing his PhD on corporate governance of theatres at the doctoral program Sociology and Cultural Organization at Leuphana. He worked for the cultural administration of the city of Vienna and the European Capital of Culture RUHR.2010 before becoming managing director of the Mainz Art School and commercial director of the theatres of Tübingen, Leipzig and Kiel. He published on financing, leadership and organization in the cultural sector and developed a standard for quality management of cultural institutions at the Austrian Standards Institute. His research interests include structure, corporate culture, governance and transformation of theatre companies.
Evelyn Hriberšek
Director Evelyn Hriberšek creates immersive artworks between reality and virtuality. Her interactive borderline experiences combine music theatre with installation and media art. Through hyper-aesthetic future scenarios, urgent issues become playfully accessible to an audience between high culture and mainstream, encouraging them to take action in the real world. O.R.PHEUS and EURYDIKE serve as examples for this approach.
The XR pioneer’s interdisciplinary field of work and research includes the critical examination of new technologies. The ethical and ecological implications of digital media are a major topic of her award-winning work and part of international discourses through keynotes, panels, lectures and publications.
Hriberšek studied architecture, stage and costume design and graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich with outstanding artistic achievements. As a student, she was awarded as Best Young Stage and Costume Designer in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Currently, she is involved in curating, producing and writing for THEATER DER WELT 2023. // LinkedIn: Evelyn Hriberšek, Instagram: @evelyn.hribersek.
Benjamin Hoesch
Benjamin Hoesch is a researcher at the Institute for Applied Theatre Studies, University of Giessen. He studied Theatre and Comparative Literature in Valencia, Tel Aviv and Mainz, Germany, where he became a Teaching Assistant after graduating in 2013. Until 2018, he simultaneously studied Applied Theatre Studies in Giessen. His own stage work – mostly together with Gregor Glogowski – was coproduced with Künstlerhaus Mousonturm in Frankfurt, Stadttheater Giessen, Staatstheater Kassel or Kampnagel Hamburg. They were commissioned to teach workshops at the Taiwan National University and the Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Utrecht. In 2022, Hoesch finished his PhD on “Festivals for Young Artists. Organization, Institution, and Change in Contemporary Theatre”. His current project focusses on institutional change in theatre directors’ academic training.
Rosemary Klich
Rosemary Klich is Professor of Theatre and Director of Research at East 15 Acting School, University of Essex. Her research examines immersive, participatory, digital, and audio theatre practices and recent projects investigate the impact of Covid 19 on regional theatres and freelance theatre workers (Theatres Beyond the Stage: The Recovery of Theatres as Placemakers in the East of England, Freelancers in the Dark). She is co-lead for the University of Essex Digital, Cultural, Creative Research Network and leads the University of Essex Screen and Performance Research Network. On joining East 15 from the University of Kent, where she was Head of Drama, Rosie set up and ran the BA Creative Producing course at East 15 from 2018-2022. In 2020, she established the Estuary Producers Network, part of the Creative Estuary project, for arts producers in the Thames Estuary. Her research has been enabled through funding from UK and European organisations including the ESRC, Arts Council England, Enabling Innovation: Research and Application, DanceEast, Focal Point Gallery, and the Polish National Science Centre.
Birgit Mandel
Prof. Dr. Birgit Mandel is Professor of Cultural Mediation and Cultural Management at the University of Hildesheim (Germany). She is Vice-President of the Kulturpolitische Gesellschaft/German society of Cultural Policy, member of the Board of Trustees of the Commerzbank Foundation and founding member of the Fachverband für Kulturmanagement of the German speaking countries which she led as president for several years. She leads subproject 3 in the research group „Configurations of Crisis“.
Bianca Michaels
Dr. Bianca Michaels is a theatre scholar and has been the managing director of the School of Arts at Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich since 2016. She studied Theater Studies, Musicology and German Philology at the Universities of Erlangen, Mainz, Vienna and Stanford (USA) and subsequently completed her PhD on American Opera in the Media Age at the Universiteit van Amsterdam (NL). After various activities in the field of arts management , she has been working at LMU Munich since 2007, where, in addition to her teaching and research activities, she has been responsible for setting up and leading an advanced vocational training programme in theater and music management. She leads subproject 4 in the research group „Configurations of Crisis“.
Anno Mungen
Anno Mungen is professor for theatre studies and Head of the Research Institute for Music Theatre Studies (fimt) in Thurnau, a research unit of the University of Bayreuth. He initiated the research focus Musik – Stimme – Geschlecht and the international cooperation WagnerWorldWide2013. Since 2017, he is leading a DFG research project on music theatre in Nürnberg during National Socialism, with the opening of the exhibition Hitler.Macht.Oper in 2018. His research interests include opera and music theatre from the 18th to 20th century, Richard Wagner, Gaspare Spontini, German music history in the 20th century, music and Gender as well as music and film.
Maria Nesemann
Maria Nesemann M.A. is a research associate in the DFG research group’s subproject 3 on Theatre Governance and Audience Development Strategies at Public Theatres in France, England and Germany at the University of Hildesheim (Germany). She studied Theatre Studies (Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz) and Cultural Mediation (Aix-Marseille Université, Universität Hildesheim). She is a funding member of the international artistic network PENGO Germany e.V.
Svea Nübel
Svea Nübel is a Researcher at the Institute for Political Science at the University of Münster Germany. She studied Communication Science at Münster University and at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid. She also holds a Master’s degree in NGO and Development Management from the University of East London. From 2019 to 2022 she worked as a Fundraiser for the alliance of German NGOs “Aktion Deutschland Hilft”.
Currently, she is working on her dissertation with the working title "Framing for Good - an advocacy tool in fundraising?” at the institute for political science at Münster University.
Since 2022, she has been working first as a research assistant and later as a research associate in the DFG Research Group Crisis Structures of the Arts in Subproject 7. Here, her research focuses on the development and comparison of cultural governance in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
Sara Örtel
Sara Örtel M.A. studied Theatre, Film and Media Studies, and Philosophy at Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main. From 2014 to 2018 she worked as a dramaturg at Deutsches Theater Göttingen. Since 2018 she has been a research associate at the Performing Arts Archives at Akademie der Künste (Academy of Arts) in Berlin. There she is responsible for the Performance Documentation Collection and the collection project „Theatre during the Pandemic“.
Matteo Paoletti
Matteo Paoletti (1984) is a senior assistant professor at the University of Bologna since 2021. He develops his research in the field of Economics and organisation of theatre, Opera staging and relationships between theatre and cultural diplomacy.
He is PI of Theatre and music between two shores of the Mediterranean: cultural connections between Italy and Tunisia (Global South 2022) and Migrantheatre/Migration perspectives in Europe (UNA Europa 2021).
He was a Cultural attaché at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. For the Italian National Commission for UNESCO oversaw the 2003 Convention on Intangible Cultural Heritage.
His recent publications include:
- «A huge revolution of theatrical commerce». Walter Mocchi and the Italian Musical Theatre Business in South America, Cambridge University Press, 2020.
- «A single purpose: the conquest of the foreign art markets»: Theatre and cultural diplomacy in Mussolini's Italy (1919-1927), New Theatre Quarterly, Vol. 38, Issue 3, August 2022.
Alexandra Portmann
Alexandra Portmann studied philosophy and theatre studies at the University of Bern. As a theatre and cultural scholar, she has been engaged at universities in Switzerland and abroad. Her dissertation "The time is out of joint - Shakespeare's Hamlet in the countries of the former Yugoslavia" explores the interrelationship between remembrance and theatre and was awarded both the Faculty Prize of the University of Bern and the Martin Lehnert Prize of the German Shakespeare Society. Her PhD (2015) was followed by several years of teaching as well as research stays in the UK and Germany. Since 2019 she is leading the SNF Ambizione project "Festivals and Institutional Change: Perspectives on transnational ways of working in contemporary theatre" and since August 2020 she is Assistant Professor of Theatre Studies with a focus on contemporary theatre. In addition to her academic work, she has been regularly engaged as a dramaturg and project manager in the independent theatre scene. Moreover, she is a board member of the Future Advisory Board (FAB) of Performance Studies international (PSi).
Anja Quickert
Anja Quickert studied theatre, modern German literature and philosophy in Mainz, Bologna, Warsaw and Berlin. She writes for the journal “Theater heute”, works as the Managing Director for the International Heiner Müller Society and as a theatre maker. In 2018 she became a research assistant at the Trier University, since 2021 at the University of Hildesheim as part of
the research group. She serves on various juries of the Berlin Senate and the NATIONALES PERFORMANCE NETZ (NPN). In 2021 she published the first overview of the independent venues in Berlin “Other Spaces – The Independent Performing Arts Venues in Berlin”. Recently she also worked as a guest lecturer at the Berlin University of the Arts.
Jens Roselt
Jens Roselt is professor for theory and practice of theatre at the University of Hildesheim. His research focuses on the aesthetics of contemporary theatre and performance art, the history and theory of acting and directing, costume research, and the method of performance analysis. Forthcoming: Jens Roselt/Ekaterina Trachsel (eds.): Üben üben. Practices and Procedures of Practicing in the Arts, Brill/Fink 2023.
James Rowson
James Rowson is a Postdoctoral Researcher at The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London. He is currently working with Professor Christopher Balme on the collaborative research project ‘Theatre after Covid’ at LMU Munich and Central. He received his PhD from the Department of Drama and Theatre at Royal Holloway, University of London. He is also an editorial assistant for Contemporary Theatre Review.
Sebastian Stauss
Sebastian Stauss is a postdoctoral researcher in the DFG project at LMU Munich, where he had already worked as lecturer after completing his degrees in theatre studies, English and German literature. He has also authored various articles on opera and aspects of operatic performance history of the nineteenth and twentieth century (e.g. in Studies in Musical Theatre and The Cambridge Wagner Encyclopedia).
Most recent publications include:
- Krise – Boykott – Skandal (co-edited with Elfi Vomberg and Anna Schürmer), edition text + kritik, Munich, 2021.
- Enkulturativer Bruch und Formen der Vermittlung. Empirische Befunde zum deutschen Musiktheater (co-author with Katja Meroth), Forum Modernes Theater, Vol. 33, Issue 1-2, 2022 pp. 22-39.
Gerald Siegmund
Gerald Siegmund is professor for Applied Theatre Studies at the University of Giessen, where he took his Habilitation in 2005. Between 2005 and 2008, he was professor for Contemporary Theatre at the University of Berne, Switzerland. In 2009, he returned to the Institute for Applied Theatre Studies, having been appointed to the professorship for Choreography and Performance. Since January 2012 he holds the professorship for Applied Theatre Studies. Gerald Siegmund is author of numerous articles on contemporary dance and theatre performance as well as editor of the book "William Forsythe – Denken in Bewegung" (2004). His monograph "Abwesenheit. Eine performative Ästhetik des Tanzes" was published in 2006, his latest book „Theater- und Tanzperformance zur Einführung“ in 2020. His research interests include contemporary theatre and dance, theories of theatre, performance, intermediality and the various liminal domains where theatre meets the other arts.
Annette Zimmer
Annette Zimmer is Senior Professor at the Institute of Political Science at the University of Münster, Germany. She was affiliated with the Program on Nonprofit-Organizations at Yale University, USA, and served as the DAAD Visiting Professor at the Centre for International Studies of the University of Toronto, Canada, and as a Visiting Researcher at the American Centre for Contemporary Germany Studies in Washington, D.C. She served on the Board of the German Political Science Foundation (DVPW), and was the President of the International Society for Third Sector Research (ISTR). Her teaching experience covers BA, Master and PhD-programs at universities in Germany (Kassel, Münster, Frankfurt), Canada (Toronto), the Netherlands (Twente), and France (Lille). Her research focuses on the topic of civil society – government relationships as well as on the role and function of nonprofit organizations in selected policy fields, amongst those prominently the arts and culture.