Story-tellers
Xi Zhao
received her MFA in Performance and Choreography from Tisch School of the Arts at NYU and her MA in Dance Choreography at the School of Dance, Minzu University of China. She is the founder and artistic director of The NEW-Beijing New Dance Festival, the organiser of Dancing Worldling project, which took advantage of the pandemic and connected renowned dance companies from 5 continents through the internet. Xi worked as a tenured lecturer at Minzu University of China and as a visiting guest artist at Webster University. Currently, she is the Adjunct Professor at the Department of Dance at Webster University in St. Louis. Apart from working as a choreographer, she has been invited to many international festivals to give keynotes and panel discussions about the Chinese contemporary dance development.
Max-Philip Aschenbrenner
is an artistic director, dramaturg and performer. In 2010, after studying with Hans-Thies Lehmann, he fell in love with the international arts as Frie Leysen‘s collaborator at Theater der Welt. He continued as head dramaturg at the Wiener Festwochen and as program manager at the Asian Arts Theater in Gwangju. He has worked as a dramaturge and performer with the Ruhrtriennale and as one of the directors of TPAM Yokohama, where he continued his international engagement, as an artistic confrontation with globalization.
Mateo Feijoo
is an artistic creator and curator. Until 2019, he was artistic director of Naves Matadero - International Centre for Living Arts. Previously, he directed the Contemporary Scene Festival of Madrid and the Teatro de la Laboral, a project of the City of Culture of Gijón (Asturias). He acted as an advisor to the INAEM State Council for the Arts, and in the development of the Galician Choreographic Centre.
Mamela Nyamza
is an award-winning and internationally acclaimed choreographer and art activist. Her autobiographical pieces trample the norms and standards of the classics. They deal with important political and societal issues of contemporary South Africa – patriarchy (Hatched, 2007), elitist ballet (The Meal, 2012) and gender inequality in dance (The Last Attitude, 2015). In 2018, the Daily Review of Australia chose her as one of the 30 international artists that are positively changing the world with their work. In 2017, she was invited to take part in the Dance Future 11: Focus Pina Bausch.
Julia Reist
holds a master in Artistic Research. Since 2011, she has been working as a freelance researcher and art producer. In 2018, and in collaboration with Katrien Reist, she started the research and production platform arp.works. The project engages with other forms and methods of working with and through artistic practices, to contribute to a more sustainable and inclusive artistic field. Among others, Julia has co-produced projects and collaborated in different public institutions such as Boulevard Festival, Den Bosch, Vooruit, Ghent, Beursschouwburg, Brussels.
Giuliana Ciancio
is a cultural manager, curator, researcher and lecturer that deals with live performing arts, international programming and cultural policies in Europe. She has worked on creating and managing large-scale cultural cooperation projects at national and international level. Currently, she is the co-curator and project manager of the EU funded large-scale cooperation project Be SpectACTive and a PhD candidate at the University of Antwerp (Belgium), working with the C.C.Q.O (Cultural Commons Quest Office). Giuliana is a co-founder and board member of the Italian based organization Liv.in.g. or Live Internationalization Gateway.
Carmen Mehnert
From 1994 to 1999, Carmen Mehnert organised the Internationales Sommertheater Festival Hamburg, and from 1999 to 2000 Festival Theaterformen of the World Expo in Hannover. Since 2001, she has worked as a freelance dance dramaturge. In 2003, she co-founded the company Dorkypark with Constanza Macras, and has since then been collaborating as a dramaturge in most of her pieces. From 2006 to 2008 she acted as the dance dramaturge at the Tanztheater Ensemble of the Staatstheater Kassel and from 2009 to 2018 as the programme director for Performing Arts in Hellerau – European Center for the Arts in Dresden. In 2019, she founded PLAN B – Creative Agency for Performing Arts in Hamburg.
Bush Hartshorn
graduated from Dartington College of Arts, in Theatre Language. From that time onwards Bush has pursued a career as a community artist, dramaturg, performer, theatre programmer and artistic director in the United Kingdom, Spain, Belgium, Netherlands, Ireland and Denmark. He is currently Head of Artist Development at Dance Base, Edinburgh. Since January 2015 Bush has been mentoring and coaching artists in Australia, Cyprus, UK, Spain, Czech Republic, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and Finland. He is also Dance Curator for Sardegna Teatro, Cagliari, Italy.
Assen Assenov
is founder and director of ONE Foundation of culture & arts, which organises ONE DANCE WEEK, the biggest forum in Bulgaria dedicated solely to contemporary dance. The foundation is the successor of the platform for contemporary culture ONE, which organized dozens of events that helped to open up the Bulgarian cultural scene to the world. In 2019, Assen consulted the team of the Municipal Foundation Plovdiv on the development of the project Kapana – Creative District. He is also a co-founder of Big Pulse Dance Alliance (BPDA), a network of 12 European dance festivals and institutions.
Anastasiia Lonshakova
is a contemporary dance artist, movement-based performer, choreographer and video artist. At the European film festival in Neringa, Lithuania in 2016, she received the award for the best choreographer and the best film. In 2018 and 2019, she was choreography camp mentor and performer in Ezera skanas, a visual and metaphysical event in Latvia. Since 2019, she is the artistic director of Baikal contemporary dance community. That year, she organised the first international cinedance laboratory in Irkutsk. Since 2020, she is a creative producer, organiser and video artist with the International festival of contemporary art radi sveta: Baikal.
Uršula Cetinski
is the co-founder of the International Festival of Contemporary Arts - City of Women in Ljubljana. From 1996 till 2006, she was Theatre Programme Director at Cankarjev dom, the main Slovene cultural centre. In 2003, she co-curated Moving Cake, the first Slovene contemporary dance platform. From 2003 till 2006, she was the festival director representative and (co)curator of the International Performing Arts Festival Exodos in Ljubljana. In 2004, Uršula was one of the curators of the festival Ost-West Akademie, produced by Tanzquartier Wien in Vienna. From 2006 till 2014 she was General Director of the Mladinsko Theatre in Ljubljana, and in 2014 she took office as the General Director of Cankarjev dom.
Goran Sergej Pristaš
is a dramaturg and a co-founder of BADco. performing arts collective. From 1995 to 2007, he was researcher and curator in Centre for Drama Art, Zagreb. With his projects and collaborations, he participated at Venice Biennale 2011 and 2016, Documenta 12, ARCO and numerous festivals and conferences. He is one of the initiators of the project Zagreb - Cultural Kapital of Europe 3000. Apart from mentoring and teaching at Uniarts (Stockholm), JLU (Giessen), Statens Scenekunstskole (Copenhagen), P.A.R.T.S. (Brussels), KHiO Oslo, he is Professor of Dramaturgy at the Academy of Dramatic Arts, University of Zagreb.
Aguibou Bougobali Sanou
hails from Burkina Faso, West Africa. He is a dancer, choreographer and teacher, and Director of the In-Out Dance Festival. In 2018 and 2019 he was Fulbright artist in residency and professor at Naugatuck Valley Community College. He trained with choreographers and theatre directors such as Salia Sanou, Carolyn Carlson, Thierry de Mey, Luca Fusi GM, Régine Chopinot Alexandre de la Caffinière and has won several choreographic awards, including the Delphic Laurel Medal in South Korea (2009) and the Bronze Medal of the Francophone Games Nice - France (2013). In the past ten years, Bougobali has worked in Mexico, South Korea, India, Indonesia, Morocco, France, Morocco, France, Canada and the United States.
Mirna Žagar
is a producer of contemporary dance that co-founded the Movement Academy for Performing Arts (Amsterdam/Zagreb). She is Artistic Director of Dance Week Festival in Zagreb, Croatia and Artistic Director of The Dance Centre in Vancouver, Canada. She frequently serves as juror for international choreographic competitions, and is a member of the European DanceHouse Network and the Canadian Dance Assembly. Mirna is a graduate of the School for Contemporary Dance Ana Maletić in Zagreb, Croatia. She has engaged in numerous EU projects which have contributed to the development of dance in Europe.
György Szabó
In 90s György Szabó (Hungary) was artistic programmer and event manager of Petofi Csarnok. In 1998, he founded Trafo – House of Contemporary Arts – the first public interdisciplinary contemporary arts institution of Hungary. After resigning as the executive director, from 2012 to 2017 he acted as its managing director, in 2017 becoming its artistic director.
Chris Torch (moderator)
is an independent cultural expert, project designer and policy consultant. During the StartUp Phase he led the Artistic Unit at Timisoara 2021 - European Capital of Culture (Romania). In 1996, he founded Intercult, a production and resource unit focused on culture, ideas and arts. Torch joined the artistic leadership for winning bids to become European Capitals of Culture for both Matera 2019 and Rijeka 2020. He co-authored a major study on audience development, commissioned by the EU (2016). From 2006 to 2018, he served on the Executive Committee for Culture Action Europe.
Emina Višnić (moderator)
is a freelance expert in cultural management and policy. She has more than 15 years of experience in the management of various types of organizations and international projects in the field of arts and culture. She was an active member of boards of national and international organizations, such as Culture Action Europe or Kultura Nova Foundation. Most recently, she was the C.E.O. and programme director at RIJEKA 2020 Llc., responsible for the implementation of the programme of Rijeka 2020 - European Capital of culture.
Nataša Zavolovšek
is a producer and the director of Exodos Ljubljana, a non-profit, independent theatre and dance production centre. For the past 20 years, it has been organizing Exodos, International Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts. In 2012, Nataša was executive producer for international performing projects in Maribor - European Capital of Culture. From 2013 to 2017 she coordinated the Corners project and from 2015 to 2017 the One Space project spanning Europe, Middle East and Africa. She produced the 1st and the 2nd Summer Dance Camp in China (2015-6). Currently, she is the coordinator of project: Africa: Middle East project Share 2019-2025.
Žiga Predan
is an art producer and manager with more than 10 years of experience in radical arts, especially dance. His expertise lies in developing and implementing strategies, production, artist management, international relations and organising of touring. Since 2010, he is the Executive Director of Spider Festival in the frame of which he realised more than 15 international festivals of dance and performance arts in Ljubljana, Athens, Lyon, Berlin, Zagreb and Brussels.