Academy #2: PRODUCE LESS, WORK BETTER!

ACADEMY programme

The ACADEMY begins with feedback from the research project ‘System Check’, which examines working conditions and social security in the independent performing arts. In three workshops lasting several days (registration required) we will then explore how other theatre work might look in future. To conclude, representatives of associations, trade unions and working groups invite you to round table discussions about how the proposals for the future developed in the workshops might be included in practice in political work. The ACADEMY itself also wishes to avoid hyper productivity. Space will therefore be reserved for participants to cook together, hang out in the mini˗library and have unstructured conversations.

THURSDAY, 15.6.

The lecture on ‘System Check’ can be attended free of charge without registering in advance.
For the workshop programme, registration in advance is required.

Nadja Duesterberg was born in Frankfurt am Main in 1983. She has worked as a chef since 2007 and as a freelance performer in North Rhine-Westphalia and in Berlin since 2009. She was awarded the Cologne Performer’s Prize in 2017. In 2020 she researched patriarchal, misogynist and discriminatory structures in her everyday work as an actor in the independent performing arts as part of a #TakeCare residency. In 2022 she began a second residency at FFT Düsseldorf: ‘Expect a Tiger’ is a performative research project about dining.

Sören Fenner founded the first online theatre employment market in 2000 and runs Theapolis, the largest portal for theatre professionals in German-speaking territories. He was a founder member of LAFT Berlin (2008) as well as the organisations art but fair (2013) and ensemble-netzwerk (2016). Together with Andreas Lübbers he launched the Hamburg production centre WIESE. He has served on the steering committee for Fairstage in Berlin and is part of ensemble-netzwerk’s team on the research project ‘System Check’.

Janet Merkel is a social scientist and urban sociologist. She works as a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Urban and Regional Planning at the TU Berlin and is currently deputising for the Professor of the Economics of Urban and Regional Development at the University of Kassel. Her research interests are the spatial reorganization of work, workspaces, cultural production and policy in cities as well as urban governance and city politics. She has worked at the Berlin Social Science Center, the Hertie School of Governance and from 2015-2018 was Lecturer in Culture and the Creative Industries at City University, London.

Elisabeth Roos studied Cultural Studies at the University of Maastricht and Leuphana University. Her research focusses on urban cultural development. Since June 2021 she has worked for the Bundesverband Freie Darstellende Künste on the projects ‘System Check’ and ‘Background’. She previously worked at the Robert Bosch Stiftung in Stuttgart and at the european centre for creative economy in Dortmund, where she implemented a number of funding programmes for the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

Sina-Marie Schneller studied Theatre and Literature in Bochum. She is a freelance programmer and networker. As the co-ordinator of the initiative Cheers for Fears, she works on connecting young artistic practitioners in North Rhine-Westphalia. In 2021, together with a number of colleagues she initiated the produktionsbande, a national networking and continuing education programme for producers in the cultural sector, and kritik-gestalten, a laboratory researching new forms of theatre criticism. She is a member of the leading team for the FAVORITEN theatre festival in 2022 and 2024 and (together with Jascha Sommer) programme leader of this year’s Impulse ACADEMY #2.

Jascha Sommer lives in Cologne. He studied Literature and Theatre Studies plus Scenic Research at the Ruhr University Bochum and the Université Paris X Nanterre La Défense as well as Media Arts at the Academy for Media Arts, Cologne. Jascha Sommer works as a performance artist and curator. As Artistic Director of the mobile academy Cheers for Fears, together with Sina-Marie Schneller he initiates trans-disciplinary artistic encounters within festivals, summer academies and productions. He is programme leader of this year’s ACADEMY #2. www.jaschasommer.com

Hannah Speicher is a theatre scholar and a member of the research staff at the Institute of Interdisciplinary Industrial Science at Leibnitz University, Hanover. Her research focusses on contemporary theatre and the connections between theatrical aesthetics and the conditions of production and employment related to them. Her dissertation “German Theatre after 1989. A History of Theatre Between Resilience and Vulnerability” was published by transcript Verlag in 2021.

FRIDAY, 16.6. – SATURDAY, 17.6., 10.00–13.00 and 15.00–17.00

For the workshop programme, registration in advance is required.

andpartnersincrime is a consortium of media artists, theoreticians and activists based predominantly in Frankfurt am Main and with a series of accomplices in Berlin, Marseille and Barcelona. Their work consists of documenting and analysing knowledge of movements and urban struggles and ideally of increasing this through performances. They use intensive field research and interviews to create multimedia stage plays, installations and interventions in public spaces. Many of their works deliberately abandon the theatre space to explore the tensions that performative gestures generate in spaces not associated with the arts in a site-specific manner.

Emanuele Braga is a theorist, activist and artist based in Milan. He co-founded the dance and theatre company Balletto Civile (2003), the contemporary art project Rhaze (2011) as well as Landscape Choreography (2012), an art platform questioning the role of the body under capitalism. His research focuses on models of cultural production, processes of social transformation, political economy, labour rights and the institution of the commons.

Gabriella Riccio is an artist-choreographer, activist and researcher based in Naples and Madrid. She is active in the movement for the commons and the Italian Movement of Self-Governed Cultural Spaces. Her focus is on forms of cultural participatory governance and prefigurative practices. As resident member of L’Asilo in Naples, Italy, she participated in drafting the Declaration of Urban Civic and Collective Use.

Emanuele Braga und Gabriella Riccio are both co-founding members of the Institute of Radical Imagination, a group of artists, activists, curators and academics sharing a common interest in producing knowledge and art practices to support post-capitalist ways of life, and work together on the platforms Art for UBI and the Art for Radical Ecologies.

Nadja Duesterberg was born in Frankfurt am Main in 1983. She has worked as a chef since 2007 and as a freelance performer in North Rhine-Westphalia and in Berlin since 2009. She was awarded the Cologne Performer’s Prize in 2017. In 2020 she researched patriarchal, misogynist and discriminatory structures in her everyday work as an actor in the independent performing arts as part of a #TakeCare residency. In 2022 she began a second residency at FFT Düsseldorf: ‘Expect a Tiger’ is a performative research project about dining.

Oliver Eller is an adviser to Gemeinwohl-Ökonomie and works as an educational consultant, both in adult education and in schools. He spent several years working in industry as a Chief Executive.

Carlsson Kemena has been Officer to the Executive Board at the Deutsches Theater Göttingen since 2020. In this function, he accompanies various projects, including the general refurbishment and the topic of sustainability.

Sandra Paul is an adviser to Gemeinwohl-Ökonomie and supports businesses on their journeys of transition to a social and ecological market economy. She devises value-based visualisations of the future under the label www.visual-plot.de.

SUNDAY, 18.6.

The round table discussions in the morning can be attended free of charge without registering in advance.
For the workshop programme, registration in advance is required.

Esther Baio studied Contemporary Dance at SEAD Salzburg and subsequently spent 15 years working mainly as a dancer, performer and choreographer. During this time, she principally worked for the Viennese choreographer Willi Dorner, for whom she was responsible for the artistic and organisational delivery of numerous international touring engagements. Her experiences and international connections now inform her work for IG Freie Theaterarbeit (policy officer and project manager for ACT OUT – touring and residency funding) and for the European Association of Performing Arts (EAIPA). In addition to advising performing artists in Austria, Esther Baio is engaged in comparing European systems of funding and social security for artists and in cultural-political work on a national and European level

Nadja Duesterberg was born in Frankfurt am Main in 1983. She has worked as a chef since 2007 and as a freelance performer in North Rhine-Westphalia and in Berlin since 2009. She was awarded the Cologne Performer’s Prize in 2017. In 2020 she researched patriarchal, misogynist and discriminatory structures in her everyday work as an actor in the independent performing arts as part of a #TakeCare residency. In 2022 she began a second residency at FFT Düsseldorf: ‘Expect a Tiger’ is a performative research project about dining.

Anna Mareike Holtz is a member of the Berlin-based production collective ehrliche arbeit – freies Kulturbüro and has worked in the independent performing arts for over ten years as a production manager and dramaturg. Since the Winter Term of 2021/22 she has taken an extra-occupational M.A. course in “Strategic Sustainability Management” at Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development. Since November 2021 she has also been active in the nationwide network Performing for Future.

Sharon Jamila Hutchinson is a freelance artist who initiates and co-creates processes and productions involving choreography, videography, film, dramaturgy and performance in which processes of creation, fictionalisation and documentation inform each other. In activist and (cultural) political contexts she works on a regional and transnational basis with a range of civil society initiatives and organises communities that include the Germany-wide United Networks.

Ulrike Kuner graduated from the University of Vienna and worked for major international festivals and theatres as a production and project manager. She successfully developed and managed EU-funded projects and networks including the EDN – European Dancehouse Network. Since September 2017 she has been Chief Executive of IG Freie Theaterarbeit, where she has driven the introduction of service and information tools for freelance artists and cultural workers throughout Austria. In 2018 she became President of the newly-formed European Association of Independent Performing Arts (EAIPA); in 2021 she co-founded vera* – a confidential service to counter abuses of power, harassment and violence in culture and the arts.

Marque-Lin Pham is a Vietnamese-American activist, performance artist, scholar and founder of MSG & Friends, a queer-led artists’ collective dedicated to curating communal spaces and professional presentations for the Asian artistic diaspora in Europe. Marque-Lin’s texts have been published internationally in magazines and publications such as Lodown, DADDY Magazine and STATE Studio. Marque-Lin’s performances have been seen on ARTE, at the English Theater Berlin, the Maxim Gorki Theater, Berlin and Gessnerallee Zürich. Marque-Lin holds a “Goethe Goes Global” scholarship from Humanity in Action Berlin.

Mona Rieken has held the post of Dramaturg at various city theatres. In 2022 she qualified as an IHK-certified Transformation Manager for Sustainable Culture and since then has worked with cultural institutions on their journey to ecological sustainability. Since the autumn of 2021 she has been active in the nationwide network Performing for Future, with whom she has collaborated on ManifÖST, the Manifesto for the Social and Ecological Transformation of the Performing Arts.

Susan Schubert (she/her) works freelance in the performing arts. In 2012 she became Co-Artistic Director of go plastic company, who have been associate artists at HELLERAU – European Centre for the Arts since 2016. In 2016 she also took over as proprietor and Director of the production and training centre TENZA in Dresden, as well as becoming an active participant in TanzNetzDresden in the same year. She has been a board member of TNDD e.V. since its formation in 2020.
https://tanznetzdresden.de
https://www.goplasticcompany.de
https://www.tenza.de

Romy Schwarzer studied Stage Dance in Cologne and New York and Choreography in Berlin. She has worked as a freelance dancer and choreographer since 2007, most recently at Staatstheater Cottbus, for Marta Gornicka on the project ‘Chorus of Women’ at the Maxim Gorki Theater, Berlin, and for Felix Landerer’s company on the format SHORTS, Hannover. She has worked regularly for the SINTkollektiv since 2020 and been a member of the Artistic Leadership Team of the guts company, Dresden since 2021.

www.thegutscompany.net

Ulrike Seybold is Chief Executive of the NRW Landesbüro Freie Darstellende Künste e. V. She was previously a member of the team in charge of the Landesverband Freier Theater in Lower Saxony. Since 2015 she has also been a board member of the Bundesverband Freie Darstellende Künste. In these roles she advises both artists and funding bodies, serves on numerous panels and supports the continued advancement of structures within the independent performing arts. Before she worked for these organisations, for many years she was a freelance production manager and publicist, working on numerous cultural and theatrical projects. She studied Journalism, History and Political Sciences at the Ruhr University Bochum and completed a postgraduate qualification in Cultural Management in Neuss while simultaneously working as a journalist for outlets including the taz and WDR.

Ina Stock trained as an oboist, specialising in period instruments. New music, pop and jazz also feature in her biography. She lectures on the oboe for Cologne University and the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen. She has chaired the professional association Alte Musik NRW since 2012 and recently became Vice-Chair of ver.di NRW’s specialist group on Music and a board member of the corresponding nationwide specialist group. She participated in drafting ver.di’s recommendations on basic fees.