Indonesia

Arahmaiani is one of the leading figures in the contemporary art scene in Indonesia, working in performance, painting, drawing, installation, video, poetry, dance and music. She was one of the artists in the Indonesia National Pavilion at the 50th Venice Biennale. Her work has grappled with contemporary politics, violence, critique of capital, the female body and in recent years, her own identity, which although Muslim, still mediates between Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist, and animist beliefs. She often uses her public presence in order to attract attention to violence against women in general and to female discrimination in Indonesia’s Islamic society, in particular. She often combines her critical attitude toward Islam with a fight against its general stigmatization. Since 2010 she has been working with Tibetan monks on the Tibet Plateau dealing with environmental issue. 

Cape Town, South Africa

Ciraj Rasool is professor of history and director of the African Program in Museum and Heritage Studies at the University of the Western Cape. He was the chairperson of the District Six Museum and council chairperson of Iziko Museums of South Africa, and was also on the boards of the National Heritage Council and the South African Heritage Resources Agency. He is a member of the Human Remains Advisory Committee of the Minister of Arts and Culture, South Africa. He is co-author or co-editor of several books about museums and public culture including Skeletons in the Cupboard: South African Museums and the Trade in Human Remains, 1907-1917, Recalling Community in Cape Town: Creating and Curating the District Six Museum, Museum Frictions: Public Cultures/Global Transformations and The Politics of Heritage in Africa: Economies, Histories, and Infrastructures.

Düsseldorf, Germany

Fabian (Dr. rer. medic) studied dance and theater at the Theaterschool Amsterdam and dance/movement therapy at Columbia College Chicago. Since 1995 he has worked as a freelance choreographer and performer having created more than 25 full-length-evening productions, which combine dance, theater, new classical music and multimedia in an unique way. He received fellowships and awards from Kunststiftung Baden-Württemberg, Fonds Darstellende Künste, Landes Baden-Württemberg among others and the theater-award from Stadt Stuttgart (three times). Next to his artistic work he specialized as a dance/movement therapist working with sexual offenders and in forensic settings. Under the label of e/m/o processing® he developed a movement based treatment program for crime-reconstruction for sexual offenders and violators. Since 1995 Fabian teaches internationally within universities and other educational settings. He received his doctoral degree in 2016 from the University Witten-Herdecke.
Since 2017 he is the head of the dance department of the Akademie der Kulturellen Bildung des Bundes und des Landes NRW.

Cologne, Germany

Kelvin Kilonzo was born in Kenya, grew up in Gießen and has been living in Cologne since 2013. He completed his actor training at the Theatre Academy Cologne and has since been studying contemporary dance at the School of Music and Dance in Cologne. He has been active as a freelance actor and dancer in the  Freien Szene (independent dance and performance scene), has performed in a number of short films and assisted in directing with Martin Hawie  for the Movie “Toto”. At the same time, he performed in dance-theater productions such as: Room Service and Quodonien‚ where his focus was more on dance. Hi is also active in performing with City Dance Cologne and has participated in the Dynamo Festival, Biennale New Talents and Empty Spaces in collaboration with the emergency accommodation in Siegburg, as well as Museums Night in Cologne. These culminated in an artistic collaboration and further performances with musician Pablo GIW. Originally Kelvin Kilonzo comes from the Urban Scene (Urbanen Szene) and has a Hip Hop and Breakdance background, which he continues to teach as a tutor at the Tanzfaktur.

Tel Aviv, Israel

Michael Lazar began his artistic career as a sculptor developing a unique way of working metal into figurative representations. After much success, he moved into areas of photography, installation and performance art. Parallel to his artistic endeavors, he obtained his PhD in Marine Geophysics and currently lectures at the University of Haifa. As both artist and scientist, he is often invited to lecture on the boundary between the two fields. Recently, he has shifted his focus to this combination using the tools of his science to create a cutting edge, contemporary artistic language. As an earth scientist, his artistic work often deals with the body and the connection to earth, sand and memory.

Cologne, Germany

Monica van der Haagen-Wulff, Doctorate of Creative Arts (DCA), is an Associate Lecturer at the Chair for Education and Cultural Sociology at the Institute of Comparative Educational Research and Social Sciences at the University of Cologne. Her teaching and research interests include: Cultural Studies, Postcolonial Studies, Gender, Migration, Globalisation, Global Cities, Performance Studies, Theories of Embodiement, Fictocritical Writing, Critical Heritage and Historical Memory Studies. Monica has an intercultural dance and performance background and her main research focus is on how practice and theory can be merged to create new knowledges, and in so decentralize Eurocentric knowledge constructions. She is interested in questions of critical heritage, exploring in particular the possibilities of embodied ways of understanding and remembering history. She has published in international academic journals but she also considers Performance as part of her theoretical output, and has performed in Australia and internationally