Since 2022, Mijke Harmsen (NL) has lived and worked in Kortrijk (BE) as a dance and theatre programmer for Schouwburg Kortrijk and the Belgian-French performing arts festival NEXT. She studied art and art policy in Groningen (NL) and theatre studies in Antwerp (NL). She worked as a dramaturge at Junges Tanzhaus and tanzhaus nrw in Düsseldorf, among others, from 2014 – 2022 and at HAU Hebbel am Ufer in Berlin from 2007 – 2014.

Photo: Schouwburg Kortrijk

Jan Kress, deaf, *1980 in Offenbach am Main. Since 2008, he has lived and worked in Berlin as an actor, dancer, performer, choreographer and activist. In 2015, he received the “Best International Actor” award at Clin d'oeil theatre festival (Reims) for the short film “Jenseits von Worten”. In 2020/21 he served as artist in residence at Sophiensaele and developed his solo “swallow swallow” in co-production. In 2024, he teamed up with Julia Keren Turbahn and Jan Rozman to found baff, a company for inclusive stage productions. Since 2020, he has worked towards inclusive programming at FELD Theater, advising, performing and giving workshops. His work explores innovative ways to combine dance, theatre and sign language in order to render deaf culture and sign language visible.

Photo: Milli Rosa

Theatre critic and cultural journalist for outlets such as Deutschlandfunk, WDR, nachtkritik.de, Theater Heute and taz, among others. She has served on several juries and committees, such as for Westwind Festival, Berlin’s Theatertreffen and Cologne’s theatre advisory board. Her main areas of concentration include: international cultural exchange, cultural policy, children’s & youth theatre and exploring all methods of participation, discourse and border-crossing in the theatre sector. She enjoys moderating cultural policy panels, for example on the artistic director nomination process or socio-cultural education. Her favourite job at the moment is coaching young people on the production of a school newspaper at a secondary school in Cologne.

Photo: contributed by the participant