Igor Dobricic studied dramaturgy at the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade, (former Yugoslavia), and holds a Master of Theatre at DasArts in Amsterdam, Netherlands. He is working internationally as a dramaturg and artistic advisor, collaborating with a number of choreographers/makers (Nicole Beutler, Keren Levi, Guillaume Marie, Christina Ciupke, Jeremy Xido, Alma Sodeberg, Meg Stuart a. o.). In the role of a professor and mentor he has a long term engagement with the School for New Dance (SNDO), Amsterdam Master of Choreography (AMCh) and the Amsterdam Master of Theatre (DasArts). From 2010 onwards he has been developing his own performative research project under the title TableTalks. Over the last 7 years, TableTalks has been hosted and presented in a number of radically different cultural contexts in Amsterdam, Berlin, Stockholm, Cairo, Sao Paulo and Vienna. His long standing professional interests lie in the practice based exploration of parameters of a live event that exist in-between different fixed contexts (theatre and visual arts, professional and non professional status, individual and group work, aesthetics and ethics).
Artur Castro Freire is a cinematographer, camera operator, and photographer based in Lisbon and Brussels. He studied French literature and cinema at the University of Coimbra (Portugal) and completed an artistic master’s degree at the École de Recherche Graphique (ERG) in Belgium. He has worked on various film projects with renowned artists and filmmakers such as Manon De Boer, Sarah Vanagt, Dora García, Lucile Desamory, and Ronny Trocker. His work as a cinematographer has been presented in various festivals such as FID Marseille (FR), IFFR (International Film Festival Rotterdam), and Cineuropa. Some of his notable works include "Estate" (2015), a fiction film about a migrant on a frozen beach; "Beauty and the Right to the Ugly" (2014), a documentary about Het Karregat in Eindhoven; "In Waking Hours" (2014), an art documentary about a blind woman; and "Abracadabra" (2010-2011), a fiction film that mixes magic and reality. He is also known for his work as a camera operator for "Metal Hurlant Chronicles" (2014), a sci-fi TV series.
Axel Chemla-Romeu-Santos is a researcher, musician and producer who works on variational audio synthesis, real-time performances, theatre and generative models for music. He has a PhD in neural synthesis between IRCAM (Paris) and LIM - Laboratorio di Informatica Musicale (Milan), where he studied manifold representations of musical signals and generative spaces. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the ACDS-IRCAM research group, where he works on creative divergent synthesis with generative models, model hacking, and research and creation processes. He has published several papers on topics such as cross-modal variational inference, deep generative audio models, musical timbre transfer, and perceptual metrics. He is also a sound designer and composer who has collaborated with various artists and projects. He is based in Paris, France.
Misha Demoustier is a Belgian dancer and musician. Known for his cross-disciplinary approach, Demoustier blends dance with music and participates in various mediums including installation, film, fine, and visual arts. His professional dance career was launched with Voetvolk / Lisbeth Gruwez's acclaimed performance, "Into The Open," in 2021. In 2022, he collaborated with his sister, choreographer Zoë Demoustier, and sound artist Rint Mennes on "What Remains," under the auspices of Ultima Vez, garnering high praise and selections for TAZ (Theater Aan Zee) and Het Theater Festival. Continuing his tradition of integrating music creation with stage performance, he and Mennes produced "Vai Vai," a performance touring from 2023 to 2024 that reflects their dynamic partnership across various projects. Despite lacking formal dance education, Demoustier honed his skills on stage, starting with "Unfold" in 2008 with kabinet k / Kopergitery, and continuing with "Everland" by fABULEUS, a company with which he has long been affiliated, along with performances at other venues like Dox, Theatre Malpertuis, WP Zimmer, and more. The upcoming year marks his feature film debut in Caroline Strubbe’s "The Silent Treatment."
Simge Gücük is a Lyon-based producer and curator born in Istanbul. She graduated from Galatasaray High School and University Lumière Lyon 2 with a BA in cultural mediation and communication. After a year in The Netherlands Research School of Gender Studies (NOG) at Utrecht University, she obtained a Master’s degree at Université de Nantes in international arts projects management. Simge Gücük worked at Fundiçao Progresso (Brazil), at Duplacena (Portugal), at garajistanbul, pioneer independent performing arts venue in Istanbul (Turkey) , where she also co-managed the EU project Temps d'Images. She joined the team of Marseille-Provence 2013 European Capital of Culture as project manager for performing arts. Since 2014 she collaborates with several performing arts companies in France and in Greece, she co-founded and co-manages Institut des Croisements (FR) with Benjamin Perchet and Arkadi Zaides. She is the international programme adviser and coordinator for KentFest in Ankara (TR).
Roger Sala Reyner is a performance artist living and working in Berlin. He completed a four-year BA degree in physical theatre at the Institut del Teatre in Barcelona and a BA degree in choreography at the School for New Dance Development (SNDO) in Amsterdam. During the last ten years he has regularly worked with a number of well known choreographers, Meg Stuart and Jefta Van Dinther a. o. He considers his own artistic practice to be based on collaborative processes and is currently developing a shared working platform with choreographer Guillaume Marie and dramaturg Igor Dobricic. Roger is also a long term member of John the Houseband, a nomadic performative amateur music band.
Arkadi Zaides is an Israeli independent choreographer and visual artist of Belorussian origin, currently living in France. In Israel, he performed in several companies such as the Batsheva Dance Company and the Yasmeen Godder Dance Group before embarking on an independent career in 2004. He obtained a master's degree at the AHK Academy of Theater and Dance in Amsterdam (NL). He is currently obtaining his joint practice-based PhD degree at the Antwerp University, Royal Conservatoire Antwerp, Ghent University and KASK/School of Arts (HoGent). He is a member of CORPoREAL research group at the Royal Conservatoire Antwerp and a member of S:PAM (Studies in Performing Arts & Media) in the Ghent University. His performances and installations have been presented in numerous dance and theatre festivals, museums, and galleries across Europe, North and South America, and Asia. Over the years he has curated projects such as New Dance Project (2010-2011) with choreographer Anat Danieli, Moves Without Borders (2012-2015) in cooperation with Goethe Institute Tel Aviv, and Violence of Inscriptions (2015-2018) with the scholar, curator, and dramaturge Sandra Noeth. The latter gathered artists, thinkers, and human-rights activists to negotiate the role of the body in producing, maintaining, legitimising, representing, and aestheticizing structural violence. He is a recipient of numerous prizes, among them a prize for demonstrating engagement in human-rights issues, awarded to Zaides by The Emile Zola Chair for Interdisciplinary Human Rights Dialogue (IL).
Aftertalk:
Esther Siddiquie is a choreographer, performance artist and PhD Researcher. Her works range from photography to performative occasions and choreographic installations. Siddiquie is Visiting Scholar at Bennington College and curator of the artist talk series called 'Love Café'. She has held conversations with Rebecca Schneider, Arkadi Zaides, Naeem Moheimen, MADEYOULOOK, Susan Leigh Foster, Isabel Lewis, Thomas De Frantz, Phanuel Antwi, Irit Rogoff and more.
