Nora Amin is an author, performer, choreographer, theater director and scholar/researcher/instructor. She is a grant recipient of the Center for Theater of the Oppressed in Rio de Janeiro, the founder and artistic director of the independent theater group Lamusica and the national Egyptian project for Theater of the Oppressed and its Arabic network, a grant recipients from the Academy of the Arts of the World in Cologne, the International Research Center for Interweaving Performance Cultures at the FU, the Valeska-Gert guest professor for dance studies and a former mentor for the Flausen+bundesnetzwerk. She is a board member of the German center of the International Theater Institute and a member of the academic advisory board of the Barba Varley Foundation. She is a graduate of the cultural management course of studies at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and a former guest instructor at the Institute for Cultural Policy of the University of Hildesheim.

Advisement Topics
The advisement sessions are intended for professional groups, collectives, project groups, organizations, individual artists working at all levels of their career, including both beginners and professionals. The focus is placed on the interweaving of topics concerning cultural management (strategic planning, institutional growth, career development and project design) with a perspective of empowerment and creative transformation of the artistic identity and of crisis management.

Advisement Languages
English, Arabic, French

Actor, theater maker, instructor for clowning, storytelling and feminist theater

Neslihan Arol completed her Master’s degree in film and drama at the Kadir Has University of Istanbul in 2013 with a practice-oriented Master’s thesis on clowning from a feminist perspective. Since then, she has connected her academic and artistic work with a variety of forms of practice. For her doctoral thesis at the Berlin University of the Arts, she conducted research into the intersections of feminism and clowning, stand-up comedy and meddah. She has performed in international festivals as a clown and meddah. As part of the group gastkollektiv, she created collective performance for many years and performed in pieces of the Bühne für Menschenrechte. In addition, she also provides dramaturgical advice to independent theater groups. Her most recent production, Karagörlz, was created as part of her artistic research project at the Berlin University of the Arts.

Advisement Topics
Neslihan Arol offers a general introduction to the independent performing arts community. More specific topics include communication, artistic research, feminist artistic approaches, intersection and intercultural producing (with a focus on comic and traditional performance formats).

Advisement Languages
German, English, Turkish

Melmun Bajarchuu works at the intersections of art, theory and politics as a thinker and discourse partner and takes on a variety of roles within collaborative artistic processes, such as critical companion, curator and production manager. She is driven by a desire for a variety of artistic forms of expression as well as to question existing structures and their accompanying power relationships and mechanisms for exclusion. She has a special interest in the interweaving of theories and practices within the context of poststructuralist, post- and decolonial as well as queer feminist questions. She is engaged in the Initiative für Solidarität am Theater (Initiative for Solidarity in Theater) and the produktionsbande for intersection perspectives and fairer working conditions in the performing arts.

Advisement Topics
The advisement sessions are primarily oriented toward members of the independent arts community who have experienced racist discrimination in their working context (People of Color, Black people, Muslims, Roma and Sinti, Jewish people, people with migration backgrounds, experiences of being displaced and/or others). Advice is given from an intersectional perspective when the person(s) seeking advice have been discriminated against, also multiple times, due to their religion, language, gender, as a trans*, inter* or queer person, due to disability, class or age. The advisement sessions are treated confidentially and aim toward developing options for action as well as finding opportunities for networking. Advice can also be provided if there is the desire or wish to sensitize yourself to the topics of power relationships, working conditions and privileges.

Advisement Languages
German, English, French, Finnish, Mongolian

Maria Buzhor is an independent dramaturg, performer and translator. She was born and raised in Ukraine. She has been a member of the music theater collective Hauen und Stechen since 2016, which transports the classic opera repertoire and its female characters to interdisciplinary performances that are close to the audience and frequently site-specific. In her work, she deals with confrontations with the everyday and her personal experience with “big” political, societal and metaphysical topics. Maria Buzhor has worked at, amongst other venues, Neuköllner Oper, Sophiensaele Berlin, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Oper Halle, Oper Wuppertal, Staatsoper Unter den Linden,  Bayerischen Staatsoper and Théâtre de l’Athénée in Paris.

Advisement Topics

Maria Buzhor offers advisement for artists in the performing arts from Ukraine who attempting to find their footing in Germany. Her advisement sessions are intended both for artists who were already active in the field of theater in Ukraine as well as for newcomers. In doing so, she provides help with orienting oneself within the complex German and European funding landscape both for members of the community from Ukraine as well as for other interested parties. The advisement sessions are oriented around individual questions for the realization the advisees’ own ideas and shed light on the topics of submitting funding applications, financing, searching for performance venues, advisement on networking and on accounting.

Advisement Languages
Russian, Ukrainian, German, English

At the moment this biography is only available in German. The English version will follow soon.
For any questions, please contact: beratung [at] pap-berlin.de

Daniel Brunet is a director, performer, producer, theater manager and translator. He was born was in Syracuse, New York in 1979 and theater and film at Boston College. He moved to Berlin in 2001 with the support of a Fulbright Scholarship.  Brunet became Producing Artistic Director of English Theatre Berlin | International Performing Arts Center in 2012 and established an artistic concept there that mirrors his own work: English as a working language, used by non-native speakers and native speakers alike in bilingual or multilingual works. Daniel Brunet has received multiple awards for his over thirty play translations, including the Literary Fellowship in Translation from the U.S. National Endowment of the Arts. He was a guest director and instruction for German drama at the New School University in New York City in 2017. Brunet has served as the speaker for the performing arts within the Speakers’ Circle of the Coalition of the Independent Arts and as a co-opted board member of LAFT – Landesverband freie darstellende Künste Berlin e.V. since the end of 2018.

Advisement Topics
With more than 20 years of professional work experience, the advisement topics are diverse and are suited both for newcomers as well as for established members of the community. Alongside a comprehensive orientation to Berlin’s independent performing arts community, the funding landscape, develop funding applications and submitting funding applications as well as working independently as a freelancer, detailed individual advisement sessions are also available on different topics including the development of productions, multilingual work, festival organization, theater management and programming, producing and work spaces.

Advisement Languages
German, English

Christin Endter studied literary studies, art history and psychology in Jena, Berlin and Sevilla. She works as an independent dramaturg, curator, author and coach. Christin has more than ten years of experience of working in the independent performing arts community with groups such as Turbo Pascal, Machina eX and Rimini Protokoll as well as working for festivals such as Nordwind, Foreign Affairs, the Berlin Theatertreffen, the Berlin Performing Arts Festivals and the Copenhagen Art Week. She was the co-founder and artistic director of B_Tour, a platform for interdisciplinary tours for which she presented projects and festivals in public space in collaboration with over 100 artists in a variety of cities in Europe. Christin has two children and lives in Berlin. She shared impulses, motivations and practical knowledge for a creative and aware lifestyle, self-recognition and mental strength in her articles and newsletters via the website: https://innercosmos.de/

Advisement Topics
The advisement topics are intended for everyone who would like to further develop themselves professionally and personally and who would like to achieve more clarity and focus both for their artistic practice as well as for their everyday living and working circumstances. As artists, creative people and freelancers, we are our own capital - you secure your foundations for working by nurturing your creativity and taking good care of yourself. “Creativity and capital”: how you can strengthen your own recourses with self-awareness, self-care, clarity, time management tools as well as financial education and still have energy and a good feeling at the end of the day. The advisement sessions covered tried and tested methods and tips for creative impulses and focus-oriented work, especially tailored for the challenges that a life with children, parallel projects, changing teams and alternating income can bring along.

Advisement Languages
German, English

Ronan Favereau studied the English language and literature, Celtic studies, acting and theater education at the Université Rennes 2 (France), NUI Galway (Ireland) and at the Berlin University of the Arts. He has worked since 2012 as a freelance actor, dubbing actor and moderator. He has worked in the independent performing arts community with companies that create post-dramatic, performative and immersive theater. He has been the managing director and production manager of a GbR since 2014 that, alongside the communication of dance and theater, is also especially dedicated to working with socially relevant topics. Since 2016, he has worked as a freelance theater educator at theaters and opera houses in Berlin (amongst others, Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Theater Strahl, Grips Theater) as well as for foundations. He has worked in the French-speaking world since 2020 where he has founded international and transnational committees in order to support artists who work in multiple countries. He has worked as an instructor at institutes of higher education and adult education centers since 2020.  https://www.ronanfavereau.com

Advisement Topics
The advisement sessions are intended for French-speaking artists who are just beginning to work within the community as well as for advance members of the community and, in terms of content, cover the topics of conceptualization, development, planning, coordination, organization, production, international cooperations and theater technology and operation. The advisement sessions also cover the fields of theater education and cultural education. This includes artistic and educational work with non-professional theater artists for newcomers and experienced members of the community with a topical focus on theater education, production, the development and realization of educational formats, projects and workshops at schools, in theaters, at foundations, obtaining partners, submitting funding applications, financial plans and budgets, where-used lists and documentation. In addition, advisement can be provided for general production questions in the areas of insurance, taxes, freelance work as well as communication with institutional points of contact.

Advisement Languages
French, English, German, Breton, Spanish

Advisement Topics
The focal points of the advisement sessions are collective organized structures, working in collectives, getting started working professionally as a freelance, the Künstlersozialkasse (KSK, the German public social insurance fund for artists), exemption from collecting value-added tax and basic knowledge regarding organizational types (GbR, GmbH). Johanna Freiburg gives tips from her nearly 30 years of experience in working in a collective with an eye toward collaboration and leadership. The advisement sessions provide help in understanding the basic knowledge involved in the business, tax and legal aspects of one’s professional activities. The advisement sessions are intended for everyone who works within collectives or is interested in non-hierarchial working methods. These include newcomers who need basic knowledge regarding the KSK or regarding getting started in working as a freelancer as well as an orientation aid for established artists who are reconsidering their organizational form or obligation to collect value-added tax.

Advisement Languages
German, English

Max Gadow is an independent artist and theater maker in Berlin. After studying theater directing at the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts, he studied in the Master’s course of DAS Theatre in Amsterdam. He was a founding member of the independent theater group virtuellestheater and now leads the art project vT corp. In this and other work, he focuses on the investigation of western myths and power structures and derives performative processes from them. Pop culture, new media and technology are hybridized in this work with canonized cultural assets. In doing so, the hollowing out of culture through the capitalist logic of value creation and increasing profit are a recurrent topic. In addition, Max Gadow is a systemic mediator and uses his knowledge in the areas of emotions, needs and conflicts for his artistic practice and as a mediator and conflict advisor. www.maxgadow.de

Advisement Topics
Taking into account the methodology of mediation, I offer individual advisement sessions for theater makers who want to further educate themselves in the field of communication in groups. Questions about communication can come up again and again, particularly during creative collaboration. How can these be dealt with? How can you name your own feelings and needs and make them clear to the others you are working with? A variety of methods and exercises can help to achieve better understanding during working processes.

Advisement Languages
German, English

Social media manager, communication manager, dancer and choreographer

Romina Geppert studied communication studies (B.A.) and communication management (M.A.). Over the course of her professional career, she has specialized in the field of social media management with a focus on the visual art and the performing arts. She was responsible for the establishment of the social media department at the Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig (MdbK) which she led for many years. In addition, she completed a training program in dance education, performance and choreography. She has worked independently as a dancer, dance educator and choreographer for several years. Romina Geppert has worked as a dancer for choreographers such as Marie Zechiel, Melissa Kieffer or Leonie Naomi Baur and was the lead choreographer for the theater piece Das Kalte Herz (directed by Swaantje Lena Kleff) at Deutsche Nationaltheater Weimar. She is currently studying contemporary dance for the stage.

Advisement Topics
In her workshops and individual advisement sessions, Romina Geppert combines her knowledge involving visual art, the performing arts and social media management with a focus on the use of Instagram as a self-marketing tool. In doing so, she provides a general introduction to the most important feature of Instagram, provides assistance in the development of an individual social media strategy and provides support in the strategic and editorial planning of social media communication.

Marie Golüke studied theater studies at LMU Munich and performance studies at the University of Hamburg. She has worked as an independent performer and production manager since 2010 with, amongst others, Isabelle Schad, Felix Ruckert,NoLimits Festival, Nazis&Goldmund and many others. She has developed her performance series, EROTISM-SHAME-INSTINCT since 2016, which has toured to Berlin, Hamburg and Munich. She has worked as an instructor for performance art and cultural management at Interkulturell Aktiv since 2017. She has curated and managed the Festival Für Freunde – Danhsdorfer.Kunst.Festival in Brandenburg since 2013. www.mariegolueke.de

Advisement Topics
The advisement sessions cover the foundations of project management, cultural management and event management. This includes event organization, information regarding approvals and safety concepts as well as communication with the authorities. An additional topic is rural space: more and more Berlin-based artists are taking their projects out to Brandenburg and/or establishing cooperations with rural areas. The synergies that can result from this are often very exciting and fruitful for both sides, but they can also led to misunderstandings and frustration on both sides. As someone born and raised in Brandenburg with over 10 years of experience in working in Berlin and other cities, I accompany Berlin-based artists as a production manager during their projects in and with the rural areas. What do I have to bear in mind when I expand my work to rural areas? What are the people like there? How does working with the officials and offices function and how does the communication work? What is important and what might be better to leave off? I want to provide insight for artists who want to expand their artistic work into Brandenburg without losing sight of Berlin.

Advisement Languages
German

Konstanze Grotkopp lives in Berlin and studied set design and costume design at the Academy of Fine Arts Dresden (Hochschule für Bildende Künste Dresden) and the ÉNSAD Paris (École nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs). She has designed numerous theater and dance productions at Theaterhaus Jena, Semperoper Dresden, EZK Hellerau, Theater an der Parkaue Berlin, Tischlerei der Deutschen Oper Berlin, Tanzhaus NRW or at TJG Dresden, amongst others. She maintains an intensive collaboration with the choreographers Anna Till and Steffen Fuchs, amongst others. She developed the set design for the dance piece TANK by Doris Uhlich with the collective Properspace in 2019. In her interdisciplinary work, she creates installations and film projects. Konstanze Grotkopp took part in the International Form of the Berlin Theatertreffen in 2015 and completed a further education course as a transformation manager for sustainable culture in at the IHK in 2021. https://www.konstanzegrotkopp.com/

Advisement Topics
The process of transformation into using socially and ecological sustainable working and production methods in the field of theater is not only a necessity; it is also an opportunity to examine our usual ways of thinking. This does not only concern the design elements (#resource-conserving material flows) but also the climate balance of performance venues, the mobility of all participants, the political framework conditions as well as the social sustainability. It is a matter of making things possible, not doing without things. Often, it is simply only the specific knowledge regarding the first steps and the additional process that is missing. How do I obtain sustainable material, how does all of this fit within my budget or how do I communicate with the performance venue? I advise artists, performance venues, funders and all other interested parties because these deep-reaching transformations can only be moved forward when everyone works together and this requires shared goals.

Advisement Languages
German, English

Caroline Gutheil-Walzer studied German studies, dramaturgy and technology in Karlsruhe, Salzburg and Frankfurt/Main. She has worked as a dramaturg and project manager at, amongst other theaters, Theater Magdeburg, Theater Konstanz and Puppentheater Magdeburg as well as for independent theater projects in Frankfurt/Main and Salzburg. In Dresden, she helped to establish the Landesbüro für Darstellende Künste Sachsen (the Saxony State Office for the Performing Arts) and worked in the fields of proejct management and advisement. She managed Figurentheater Grashüpfer in Treptower Park from 2017 to 2022, a theater dedicated to guest performances of children’s and youth theater. She has been a board member of LAFT Berlin since November of 2019 and has dedicated herself to the areas of children’s and youth theater and cultural policy on the district level of Berlin.

Advisement Topics
Her advisement sessions are especially intended for those working in the fields of children’s and youth theater and/or figure, puppet and object theater. Focal points of her advisement sessions include funding opportunities that are especially intended for children’s and youth theater, making funding applications and bookkeeping as well as advisement on the topic of a change of generations in the leadership of a theater.

Advisment Languages
German

Janne Harnischfeger is a certified psychologist and, alongside clinical psychology, has specialized herself in psychology in the workplace. Over the course of her education as a psychotherapist, she conducted psychoanalytical and deep-psychology based treatments. In addition, she also provided consultations regarding mental health in the workplace. She was active in the field of group processes in the teaching, further education and in her therapeutic work. A passion for the performing arts led her to initiate a performance program at Fusion Festival and the theater festival at.tension which she has presented each year there ever since and has built upon.

Advisement Topics
Her advisement sessions cover two themes: The first is: setting goals, achieving clarity and making decisions more easily; how do I achieve clarity and confidence in my actions in challenging life situations? We will uncover individual resources and develop strategies for using them. A network analysis will provide an overview of the personal and professional contacts. We will create visions and develop specific steps for implementation. A number of different inner voices make themselves heard with every decision. We will visualize these and explore them as the “inner team” to help achieve clarity over the course of the decision making process. The second point of focus is placed upon the specification of ideas: we will bring half-baked ideas or ideas that have long-since matured to realization. The contents will appear in a new light with the help of a specific analytical method. This will allow the “actual” that should be expressed artistically to be specified.

Advisement Language
German, English

Eva Hartmann is a relational dynamics 1st coach, dramaturg, manager and producer based in Berlin. She holds a Master’s in theater studies and completed her thesis on Joseph Beuys and his actions. She has worked at, amongst others the Ruhr International Theater Academy in Bochum, the performance festival reich & berühmt, she has collaborated with various artists, has provided management, production management and dramaturgy for the German/English artist collective Gob Squad since 2002, was a member of the board of LAFT Berlin from 2009-2010 and has lectured and conducted workshops at various universities and cultural organizations. She has also worked as a mentor for young artists and producers and a facilitator of group processes in various contexts. She is increasingly interested in how we live together, work and communicate with ourselves and others and the fact that the way in which we do this embodies our value system and can be a motor of change. https://evahartmanncoaching.wordpress.com/

Advisement Topics
The advisement sessions can be used to address a variety of questions by independent artists and culture makers as well as artistic teams and institutions: raising awareness of one’s own identity, culture/value system, goals and/or the desired professional change. Raising awareness of one’s own strengths: who am I, what do I have to offer? Proactive development of strategies for achieving these desires and goals. Developing resilience and self-confidence against shame, comparisons or the feeling of being at the mercy of one’s professional circumstances. Self-reflection, self-care and taking responsibility for oneself. Recognizing blocks and challenges and then overcoming them. Recognizing and communicating one’s own limits. Creating a working culture and communication of togetherness and of mutual understanding instead of against each other or above or below one another. Finding additional and new paths for creative collaboration. The advisement sessions provide a safe, supportive and challenging framework for this. She takes the respective personal or team concern as her point of departure and tries to concentrate more on the future opportunities than on the missed chances in the past.

Advisement Languages
German, English

Franz.iska Henschel was born in East Berlin in 1976 and studied acting, directing and solution-oriented mediation. As an independent director, she develops and directs pieces for children and adults working at the intersection of theater, performance and dance, she teaches as an instructor at a variety of art schools and researches, amongst other topics, acting as a choreographic practice, art and conflict and much more and develops aleatoric inspirational tools for artistic self-empowerment. Greatly valuing changes in perspective, Franz.iska Henschel also accompanies artistic processes and productions of others as a dramaturg, coaches and advises individuals and small collectives or team in their individual questions and has worked as a professor for interdisciplinary artistic practice and theory at the MSH since 2021 and lives with her family in Hamburg. www.textundtanz.de

Advisement Topics
The solution-focused advisement sessions are oriented toward newcomers and established professionals working in all disciplines, toward individual artists and small teams that are finding their orientation or a new direction and/or for everyone who can use resource-oriented, encouraging support in finding their place personally and artistically and/or solution-focused support for specific questions, communication that is becoming more difficult and collaboration - both in internal es well as external teams.

Advisement Languages
German

Ana Hupe (born 1983, Rio de Janeiro, lives in Berlin) is an artist and researcher. After spending a year doing research at the UdK Berlin in the class of Hito Steyerl, she received her doctorate in fine arts at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (2016). Hupe is dedicated to rescuing erased stories of resistance, which she rewrites in several narrative installations, thus creating a counter-memory to the colonial archive. Hupe is currently researching art relations in Yoruba culture in Nigeria, Cuba and Brazil for the exhibition "Footnotes to triangular Cartographies", which will be shown in Brazil, at RAI, Lagos, Nigeria and at Galerie Bernau in Berlin. Hupe was part of several collective exhibitions in spaces such as Savvy Contemporary, Berlin; M_Bassy, Hamburg; Haus am Kleistpark, Berlin; and in residencies such as Vila Sul, Goethe Institut Salvador, Artist x Artist, Cuba; Kunstkvarteret Lofoten, in Norway, among others. www.anahupe.com

Advisement Languages
English, German, Portuguese and Spanish.

Jana Korb is an artist (guest of Freie Klasse, Berlin University of the Arts) and cultural scholar (FU/HU Berlin) and creates aerial theater and narrative circus. She has choreographed and performed in and for productions by Christoph Schlingensief, John Bock, Taylor Mac, Jill Greenhalgh, Kordula Lobeck de Fabris, Fura dels Baus and bankleer, amongst others. She performed for Vaclav Havel at Documenta, Ostrale, Odin Teatret and other venues and festivals. She is the artistic director of LuftFest Berlin, a co-founder of the RAW-Geländes (Berlin) and a member of the board of Bundesverband Theater im Offentlichen Raum, the German Federal Association of Theater in Public Space. She lives in Berlin-Lichtenberg, where she also produces work as part of the collective korb+stiefel.
https://luftartistin.de

Advisement Topics
Her advisement topics are contemporary circus, street theater and aerial artistry: her points of focus here are production processes, an overview of funding opportunities as well as information concerning touring, safety and rigging. Jana Korb’s advisement sessions are primarily intended for artists and producers who want to stage aerial art and acrobatics.

Advisement Languages
German, English, Czech as well Russian (after preparation)

Josa Kölbel was a professional artist himself once, trained at the renowned national center for the circus arts in Chalons-en-Champagne, France and was active all throughout Europe for many years.

Since 2015, he has been the managing director of the Berlin Circus Production – Hilliger Kölbel GbR and the artistic director of the Berlin Circus Festival which takes place on Tempelhofer Feld each year and brings together productions, artists and positions working within the field of contemporary circus. Beside this, he curated the circus programming at Haus der Berliner Festspiele, worked within the artist management sector at MGB and has worked as a mentor and expert for the Berlin Performing Arts Program since 2020. In addition, he regularly conducts and facilitates courses and workshops in the field of contemporary circus, directs productions and curates the interdisciplinary digital Zili Art Space. www.berlin-circus-festival.de

Advisement Topics
The advisement sessions are intended for people working in all aspects of the field of contemporary circus. On the topic of producing: concept development, (inter)national funding instruments, submitting funding applications, personnel planning and financial planning. On the topic of distribution and networking: marketing strategies, digital networking and marketing tools, touring performance management, the booking and arrangement of performances at festivals and residencies, (inter)national cooperations as well as funding for professional development: strategic planning as well as the refinement and specification of ideas and projects.

Advisement Languages
German, English, French

Inky has presented performances, music, and texts in Berlin, NYC, and Seoul. They are an artistic director for the performance "Floating Roots", which will premiere in Tanzfabrik Berlin in Nov 2022. The work focuses on the stories of 1,5 generation immigrants living in Germany. Inky was the artistic director for the experimental writing platform, "Right Now", which focused on the perspectives of the marginalised individuals in the independent performance scene in Berlin. They currently work as a mentor for dance writers (Tanzbüro Berlin). Their most recent music album, "one of many", was presented as a part of "Sound of Berlin #10" by LOLA Magazine. The album sings about the life of an illegal immigrant worker and a mother. www.inkyunglee.me

Advisement Topics
German Bureaucracy: Practical help in manoeuvring through the German bureaucracy, especially for the ones who are not familiar with the German language and the system. Examples of possible themes: Freelance visa, KSK, seeking medical help, and looking for funding opportunities. Funding application: Broad help from looking for funding, going through funding guidelines (especially for non-German speakers), to offering feedback on project ideas, as well as on funding applications. General Counselling: Open in theme. Each counselee can suggest the topic they would like to discuss with me. If the topic is something I cannot help with, I will let them know. Examples of possible topics: are racism, loneliness, culture shock, financial uncertainty as a freelance artist, and queerness. 

Advisement Languages
English, Korean, German

Ormina Maschal studied law in Hamburg and Barcelona. Following her first state examination, she worked as a lawyer for foundations. This was followed by a clerkship at OLG Celle with positions at the Ministry for Culture and Media in Hamburg and at the Kulturstiftung des Bundes, the German Federal Cultural Foundation.

She is a founding member of the Postmigrantischen Jurist*innenbundes, the post-migration association of attorneys, an association that is dedicated to reducing the diversity deficits within the fields of legal studies and legal practice.

Advisement Topics
Ormina Maschal’s advisement topics revolve around the diverse areas of law that can be relevant for the everyday lives of artists: alongside general legal questions, these especially include contact law, non-profit law, association law, corporate law (legal forms), antidiscrimination law and individual labor law.

Laia Montoya holds a degree in political science and in international cooperation and cultural management. During her first years as a cultural managemer, she developed projects for the international visual artists Jupiterfab and coordinated exhibitions for the CCCB and the Maritime Museum in Barcelona. During this time she studied exhibition design, cultural theory and 20th century art. In 2019 she was invited as curator of performing arts at LOOM Festival. She has worked as a producer for the creation center L'Excèntrica (2018-19) and as a production assistant for Grupo Oito in Berlin (2021). As an international manager she has collaborated with several artists in Spain and Germany (La Intrusa, Big Bouncers, La Señorita Blanco, Pau Aran). She is currently co-director of TINA Agency, a collaborative organization from where she manages artistic projects (Novoflot, Renan Martins and Yotam Peled) and offers consultancy for the sustainable and international development of contemporary performing arts.

Advisement Topics
As a consultant, Laia Montoya offers advice in the field of artistic project management (conceptualisation, search for co-producers and residencies, budget and human resources, scheduling and planning, internal organisation, etc.) and in the field of national and international distribution (strategic planning, contacts management, partner search, negotiation, tour and tour management, communication and networking). Her experience is mainly based on having an overview of the whole project and making decisions that are sustainable for the whole artistic project and the sector. Laia Montoya currently does not offer production-related funding consultancy in Germany. Her consultancy can help both emerging artists who are just starting their artistic career and need to sort out information, working methods and resources, as well as organisations and experienced artists who need external help at a particular point in their career or assistance in internal difficulties.

Advisement Languages
English, Spanish, Catalan

Ada Mukhína is a nomadic theatre director, author, and performer. She was born in St. Petersburg and is based in Berlin. Her political, participatory, and investigative theatre performances have been presented internationally. She is a recurring guest lecturer and mentor at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London, where she previously earned her Master's degree in Advanced Theatre Practice. She received multiple fellowships, residencies, and awards for her work, including the German Chancellor Fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Chevening Scholarship from the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, The ArtsLink international fellowship in the USA, Berlin fellowship from the Academy of Arts (Akademie der Künste), fellowship of the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics from Georgetown University in Washington DC. www.adamukhina.com

Advisement Topics
She offers advice on orientation in the German cultural landscape for theatre-makers who speak English or Russian language. What could be your first steps to establishing yourself in Berlin? How to deal with „cultural shock“? How to look for resources, fellowships, and residencies strategically? How to write about your work and yourself in applications? How to reinvent yourself in a new context, based on what you already have? Throughout her life, Ada Mukhína has collected many experiences in starting from scratch in a new context. Be it a new country, or another professional field. Since she has been receiving many opportunities herself, her fellow artists started to ask her advice on project development, writing an application for a grant or fellowship, and preparing for a job interview or a presentation in front of a jury. She is happy to share her experience, think together about the necessary steps for you to move forward, and point in the direction where the artist and producers can get more specific information.

Advisement Languages
English, Russian

Elisa Müller studied acting and theater studies. She works as a performer, director and instructor. Alongside numerous solo projects, she founded the Institut für Widerstand im Postfordismus (the Institute for Resistance in Post-Fordism), an interdisciplinary collective of artists who transform societal questions into discursive and aesthetic formats.She was a board member of LAFT – Landesverband freie darstellende Künste Berlin e.V from 2011 to 2022 and was a member of the Speaker’s Circle of the Berlin Coalition of the Independent Arts until 2016. She was a member Rat für die Künste Berlin (Berlin's artist advisory council) from 2016-2022. 

Advisement Topics
Her advisement sessions cover the path from the development of an idea to the budget, strategies for networking, reflection and development of one’s artistic career and the development of additional sources of income as well as art and parenthood.

Advisement Languages
German, English

Panni Néder (director, writer, performer) studied directing at the University for Theater and Film in Budapest as well as at the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts as a DAAD guest student. Her thesis production was performed at the largest theater in Budapest for 10 years. She sees herself as a multidisciplinary artist who researches different forms of autobiographical and documentary theater and interweaves her texts with movement, singing or video art. She develops sociopolitical stage performances where an honest encounter between audience and artists takes place beyond any categorizations. Her work Wann hast du das letzte Mal auf der Spitze eines Berges Sex gehabt (When Was The Last Time You Had Sex On The Top Of A Mountain?) was invited to several different theater festivals.
 

Advisement Topics
The advisement sessions primarily cover alternatives form of financing options such as crowd funding and strategy planning (processed from projects that have already prepared in written form for funding applications and/or rejected applications). During the advisement, it is also possible to discuss what addition financing options exist and how ideas can actually be refined.

The advisement focuses in general on the competencies of human beings to find out how they can gain access to what they really want to achieve - be it a scholarship, the establishment of an Instagram profile, networking or crowd funding. An additional topic is getting started as a theater maker who is a newcomer to Berlin, especially in light of the question of what can be done if you are no longer an emerging artist in your country of origin but what to redefine yourself as a theater maker in a new country.

Advisement languages
German, English, Hungarian

Fabian Rosonsky was born in 1989 in Lutherstadt Wittenberg and studied comparative literature and political science in Berlin. He worked as an assistant director at the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus from 2016 to 2019 and then worked as an artistic producer at the 2020/2021 edition of the festival Theater der Welt. He has served as production manager for a variety of independent productions and has collected experience at both the national and international levels. He has worked as a project manager for Landeszentrum Freies Theater Sachsen-Anhalt e.V. from 2021 to 2022 for the development of an online platform for the independent performing arts community of Saxony-Anhalt. Parallel to this, he also works as a director and his productions have been seen at, amongst other theaters, the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus, Theater der Keller in Cologne, the Volksbühne am Kaulenberg in Halle and at Theater unterm Dach in Berlin.

Advisement Topics
The advisement topics extend to all topics concerning the production of independent projects and are intended both for newcomers as well as experienced colleagues. Possible questions are, for example: What funding instruments are suitable for my project? What should be kept in mind when putting together a budget? How is bookkeeping done correctly for projects? What taxes and fees must be kept in mind? What are social security contributions to the so-called KSK (Künstlersozialkasse, the German public social insurance fund for artists) and who do these have to be made for? What has to be kept in mind when placing large orders or making larger purchases? How can contracts be written in a reliable manner? In addition, the topics of distribution, festivals and tour management as well as questions regarding digital projects, the legal and tax-based aspects of working independently within the independent performing arts and the professions of the director and the production manager. 

Advisement Languages
German, English

Ilona Schaal has been the director of programming of Schaubühne Lindenfels, an independent interdisciplinary producing and festival venue in Leipzig since the beginning of 2017. Within the scope of this, for example, she takes on the production management for the in-house productions (e.g. in cooperation with Oper Leipzig, Naturkundemuseum, Stadtgeschichtliches Museum, amgonst others) and for the coproductions and guest performances i the fields of theater, dance and music. Before this, she was responsible for the international cooperation projects of the fringe ensemble in Bonn, amongst other jobs. She studied theater studies (Bachelor’s degree) in Leipzig and theater and orchestra management (Master’s degree) at the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts.

Advisement Topics
I provide advisement sessions on the topics of making funding applications, (creating) budgets and accounting. I am also happy to provide an overview of the funding situation in Germany. In addition, I am happy to speak about the professional of production management and the tasks associated with it. My advisement sessions are more orientated for newcomers and/or career changers.

Advisement Languages
German, English

Heike Scharpff is a director, certified psychologist and coach. In 1996 she founded, together with others, the independent Theaterhaus Waggonhalle in Marburg, was an assistant director at Staatstheater Darmstadt (2000 - 2004) and has worked since then as a freelance director. As a project manager, she worked between 2010 and 2018 in the office of Stiftung TANZ – Transition Zentrum Deutschland (DANCE Foundation - Transition Center Germany) and accompanied more than 900 dancers along the course of their transition process. Since 2018, she has also worked as a freelance coach for, amongst other clients, Stiftung TANZ, the Berlin Performing Arts Program of LAFT Berlin and the Bundesverband Freie Darstellende Künste (BFDK, the German Federal Association for the Independent Performing Arts). Heike Scharpff engages in cultural policy advocacy in a variety of contexts (La Prof Hessen BFDK, Pro Quote Bühne).

Advisement Topics
Heike Scharpff provides advisement on the topics of professional positioning and strategy as well as for the establishment of a secondary source of income both within and outside of the arts. Her advisement sessions are intended for artists who want to work in different fields or who want to further develop themselves.

Advisement Languages
German, English, French, Spanish

Therese Schmidt was born in Potsdam in 1979, works as a music theater director and author in Berlin and realizes a variety of projects at the crossroads of music theater, new music and performance using collaborative working methods. She has developed musical performances and music theater formats with the composer Wolfgang Heiniger under the label mehrblick&ton. She writes libretti and plays and collaborates with artists and theater collectives working in the independent performing arts community. Alongside productions at ensemble and repertory theaters, she has taught dramatic writing at institutions of higher education in Dresden and Berlin and is currently offering workshops and seminars on working independently. In addition, she worked in the Performing Arts Program of LAFT Berlin until 2019. http://thereseschmidt.de

Advisement Topics
Point of focus 1: Support for professional development and advisement on strategy. Elaboration of the individual artistic profile, accompaniment of transformation processes, refinement of ideas and projects. Point of focus 2: Submitting funding applications / concepts: How-to Application Text (the bundling of ideas, specification of goals, formulations, structure, …) Point of focus 3: Funding: measures and strategy planning for the successful realization of (music theater) projects. My advisement sessions are intended both for newcomers (advisement for newcomers, regular’s table for newcomers) as well as experienced members of the community who would like to receive feedback about their projects / concepts and applications.

Advisement Languages
German, English

Yasmin Schönmann is a dancer, choreographer and digital artist. She holds a certificate in contemporary dance from the Iwanson International School in Munich and a Master’s of Fine Arts in Dance and Technology from New York University. After completing her studies, she has concentrated on the connection between dance and film and has realized multiple dance films, digital VR spaces and productions with motion capture technology. Yasmin shares her knowledge in workshops and supports others in presenting their art online. 

Advisement Topics
Her advisement sessions are open to answering all questions revolving around dance, film, editing, virtual reality or about creating a digital portfolio (YouTube, Vimeo, websites, Instagram, et cetera). Yasmin offers support both in the planning of digital projects as well as for the various phases of implementation. Her advisement sessions are intended for all dance and movement artists (circus, theater, et cetera) with and without prior experience in the digital field.

Advisement Languages
German, English
 

Francesca Spisto was born in Florence and completed her studies in psychology as a certified clinical psychologist at the University of Florence in 2002. She worked with independent theater groups and studied acting during and after her studies. Afterward, she trained as a theater educator and pursued further education in the areas of organization and management. She worked as an actor, assistant director and production assistant in her native city from 2002 to 2010, working on a large variety of theater projects. She moved to Berlin in 2010, where she first worked as an assistant director and production assistant with a wide variety of independent theater groups. She worked with the group aufBruch from 2013 to 2017. Since 2017, she was worked as an independent production manager and tour manager for theater, dance, performance and music projects at a wide variety of venues, including, amongst others, Ballhaus Naunynstraße and HAU. She has worked as full-time, formally employed production manager at Sophiensaele since 2021.

Advisement Topics
Is my budget reasonable and correct? How do I plan and conceive my project and how I do properly account for the project money at the end of the project? What legal form is most appropriate for my group and what do I have to bear in mind when concluding contracts? How do things work with GEMA? Which people should I calculate KSK (Künstlersozialkasse, the German public social insurance fund for artists) for? Am I allowed to make a pre-tax deduction? And what, actually, does that even mean? Should my budget be net or gross? The advisement session will provide an overview of the different topics named and is especially suitable for newcomers.

Advisement Languages
German, English, Italian

Madlen Stange is a cultural activist and musician and has worked for many years at the intersection of PR, event management and her own projects. Switching between artistic work and market-oriented thinking in agencies and businesses has been standard fare for her since her Master’s studies in media, culture and communication. In Berlin, she was a co-founder of the curator collective Bublitz and is now a part of the performance collective Get Into Play. She realizes vocal performances with her vocal trio Gurgulitza, including at the Musrara Mix Festival in Jerusalem, amongst others. She has initiated sustainable project partnerships for Plovdiv, the 2019 European Capital of Culture in Bulgaria and realized the two-year project Whispers with the French theater group Theatre des chemins.

Advisement Topics
Regardless of whether you are working alone or in a collective, everyone needs to be able to promote themselves in order to secure a place within the cultural landscape. The following questions are especially important in terms of this: Where do I actually stand in the market? Where does my project stand? And where can I dock this topic within various societal areas or discourses? Where do I find my target group? Self-presentation and PR work are also important if it is intended to present the project to potential funders. During the advisement sessions, support can be provided regarding how to sharpen one’s profile as well as how to use the potential of well-considered media work and networking - and perhaps it could also be worth it to learn from the strategies of the big players? Questions regarding such topics as press and PR work, how to acquire external funds and networking (throughout Germany as well as throughout Europe) can also be explored.

Advisement Languages
German, English, French

Eva Karen Tittmann studied German studies and theater studies and earned the certificate Management-Marketing-Communication from the Potsdam University of Applied Sciences. She was Managing Director of act Media Support GmbH (production services for film and events) from 2001 to 2008 and has worked as a sole proprietor under the label MANAGEMENT für KULTUR since July of 2007. She was a founding member of LAFT Berlin, served on the board and as treasurer from 2006 to 2011 and has been a member of ITI Germany since 2008. She works as a production manager in Berlin as well as nationally and internationally. She currently works with, amongst others Milo Rau / International Institute of Political Murder, Grand Théâtre Luxembourg und Thierry Mousset, CyberRäuber Berlin, Beatrix von Pilgrim, Malte Schlösser and Vanessa Stern. http://www.evakarentittmann.de

Advisement Topics
In general, the advisement sessions are intended for everyone who has questions who work in the field of production. These include the areas of budgeting, accounting, submitting funding applications, funding opportunities, strategies, founding a business and legal form. You are welcome, however, to submit very specific questions in advance via email so that I have an opportunity to prepare myself.

Advisement Languages
German

Esther Vorwerk studied acting at Mozarteum Salzburg and lives in Berlin and Oldenburg. She works an interdisciplinary theater maker and writer. She develops theater pieces, installations and performances. She deals critically with questions pertaining to memory, trauma, feminism and gender. She was a core member of the Figurentheaters Laboratorium Oldenburg from 2017 to 2020, amongst others. She founded the artist duo Alaska - Studio for Feelings in 2017 with which she received, amongst other achievements, a residency in Berkeley and created an exhibition at Kunstpunkt Berlin. The duo develops interactive installations and workshops. In 2020, she conducted research on the topic of violence against FLINTA within the scope of the flausen+ stipend. In 2021, she received a founder’s stipend from DesignFarm Berlin and wrote a web series with the film director Markus Wulf. www.esthervorwerk.de, www.alaska-studio.com , www.gewaltfreie-television.com

Advisement Topics
My individual advisement sessions cover the topics of conceptualization, submitting funding applications and strategies for survival. They are intended both for newcomers as well as experienced members of the community. Performers, theater makers, writers and people who work interdisciplinarily can all take part in them. I have a broad range of practical knowledge that extends from dance to spoken word theater to writing and figure theater. In addition, I also have experience in interdisciplinary work and initial insights into the film industry. I provide help in revising and specifying concepts and the development of strategies regarding submitting funding applications as well as with daily survival. How can I build up a portfolio in which all of the facets of my artistic work are evident? How can i earn money with this? What is a realistic timeframe for a project? Do I keep discriminating structures in mind? Can I also realize that which I project externally within my own working structures?

Advisement Languages
German, English

Katharina von Wilcke is a producer, curator, communicator and adviser for artistic and cultural affairs. She founded DepArtment, the first production office for the independent performing arts in Hamburg in 1995. She has worked as a project manager at numerous festivals and produced four editions of Tanzkongress on behalf of the Kulturstiftung des Bundes, the German Federal Culture Foundation from 2006 to 2016. She advisers individual artists, groups and institutions on artistic and cultural topics. In recent years, she has especially turned her thoughts to audiences and has developed her own formats such as Singles & Theater Lovers and It’s a Match! Burning Questions of Art”. She has served as a member of the jury for the funding program TANZPAKT Stadt-Land-Bund since 2018.
https://www.katharinavonwilcke.de

Advisement Topics
In light of her more than 30 years of practical experience in the performing arts, Katharina von Wilcke advises newcomers, experienced members of the community as well as established members of the community in submitting funding applications - from the development of the concept to the project description all way to the calculation of the budget of the project. In addition, she provide wisdom that supports artists during the elaboration of longer-term strategies and structures, the communication of their own work and the generation of audiences.

Advisement Languages
German, English, Spanish, Portuguese

Salah Zater is a performance artist, dancer and curator. He has worked and cooperated with different art and cultural institutions and since 2016 he organized different educational, art and cultural events. His artistic work and performances about the power of dance, limits of the body, dance healing, human rights, racism, decolonisation and social justice move between dance, performance, and intervention in public spaces and have been performed in various contexts. He is using his body to perform the reality of life and society to make a positive change towards equal rights for and treatment of people in society and against all forms of racism and discrimination. He is developing different body movements, dance strategies and actions to explore the social and political relationality of the body and space. In addition, the relationship between soul, mind, and body finds different ways of love, emotions and expressions through body movements.

Advisement Topics
The advisory service has a focus on the performing arts and dance. He offers advice on the basics of artistic self-employment (KSK, self-management), tax policy and factors for a good funding application. This includes the funding process (from application to approval to proof of use), writing a concept, orientation for newcomers and newly established artists in Berlin. Another focus is artistic empowerment: advice in cases of discrimination or racism. Overview of structures, contact points, the funding landscape and independent art communities in general.

Advisement Languages
English, Arabic