Katrīna Dūka is an emerging performance maker and researcher from Latvia, working in the intersection of performance practices, feminist new materialism, and queerness in a Post-Soviet landscape. She obtained her Master’s degree in Performance Practices from ArtEZ University of the Arts in the Netherlands (2022), where she conducted a practice-led research on drag queens and broken gender technologies. Katrīna works collectively and engages in practices with local communities and non-professionals, exploring themes of collective identity and finding new ways to be together. Her works as a co-author have been presented in the International Festival of Contemporary Theatre “Homo Novus” (LV) and on independent stages in Latvia and Estonia.
Piotr Dobrowolski (dr hab., prof. UAM) is an academic researcher and teacher at the Department of Polish and Classical Philology at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, editor of the quarterly "Czas Kultury" [The Time of Culture] and the online magazine "czaskultury.pl", contributor to several academic and cultural magazines, associate – as an author and expert – of the The Zbigniew Raszewski Theatre Institute, a juror of the Gdynia Drama Award (Gdynska Nagroda Dramaturgiczna) and a member of the Polish Society for Theatre Research (PTBT). Author of three books (the last one: “Theatre and Politics. Political Discourses in Contemporary Polish Drama”, 2019), research papers and co-author of academic monographies; active theatre and literature critic, essayist and translator.
Þóranna Dögg Björnsdóttir ( b.1976) is an artist based in Reykjavík Iceland.
Björnsdóttir's works are focused on the act of listening, representing themes such as: sound as an intuitive medium and as knowledge - knowing and being; allowing sounds to ignite myriad images and associations which give rise to various outcomes in form, time and space; her work has built upon the interplay of film and live music performances and takes on the form of sculpture, performance and soundwork. Her subject matters are varied but often revolve around human nature and a person's worldview, and how it shapes and progresses. Through a multidisciplinary approach, her practice often places the viewer or audience at the centre of the work. Þóranna has exhibited her work widely and performed at numerous concerts and art festivals in Iceland and internationally.
Þóranna Dögg Björnsdóttir will present her presentation together with Antonín Šilar.
Antonín Šilar (born 1986) is a graduate of a stage design at the Prague-based KALD DAMU. He is generally engaged in stage and production design. He has been exploring the interpenetration of various forms of theatre and film for a long time. He is fascinated with the stage "twisted reality", with its reflection of the subconscious and states of mind.
He has participated in projects in Finland, USA, Japan, Iceland and the Berlin HAU Theatre.
Šilar has gained experience as a stage designer at the National Theatre in Prague, the Slovak National Theatre, the National Theatre in Mannheim, the Studio Hrdinů and the HaDivadlo - together with directors such as Petra Tejnorová, Kamila Polívková, Ivan Buraj and Jiří Havelka among many others.
He is the co-director of the Czech-Austrian experimental movie Menandros & Thaïs, which won the Association of Directors and Screenwriters Award, and the theatre production Gorgó at Prague's X10 Theatre.
Iryna Serebriakova is a Ukrainian scriptwriter, writer and playwright. Her dramedy"Tinderland" won the "Transmission.UA: drama on the move" contest co-organised by the British Council and Ukrainian Institute (2021). Her other theatre plays were performed in Timișoara, Kyiv, Narva, Almaty, Paris, Istanbul, Helsinki, New Delhi, Berlin, and Prague. Her collection of short stories tales for children and adults is going to be published in Sweden in Swedish translation. Her collection of short stories about the Latvian town of Pāvilosta is being translated into Latvian. Over 20 fiction and non-fiction books were published in her translation from French and English to Ukrainian and Russian.
Zuzana Černá is a PhD student at DAMU, studying Dramatic Arts. After two years of studies at Charles University, she graduated from the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague with a degree in Drama Acting. During her studies, she performed at the Kolowrat Theatre, where under the direction of Štěpán Pácl she created Katherine in the adaptation of Bergman's short story From the Life of Puppets or Nastenka in Dostoevsky's White Nights. In 2019 she joined the ensemble of the National Theatre Brno and her first role was Hanička in Lucerna (A. Jirásek), since then she has performed almost twenty other characters - among others Alena in The Owners of the Keys (M. Kundera), the student Aneta Tesarová in Feminist (M. Šindelka).
Matěj Nytra is a graduate of the Theatre Faculty of JAMU (2017) in Theatre Dramaturgy. Since 2018 he has been a PhD student at the Faculty of Theatre and collaborates with the Studio of Scenography. In 2015, he graduated from the Faculty of Arts at MUNI in Theory and History of Film and Audiovisual Culture. In 2016-2023 he was the main dramaturge of HaDivadlo. He collaborates on film and documentary projects, and is engaged in editorial and journalistic work and activist contacts.
Markéta Sára Valnohová (*1988) graduated in Combined Art Studies at Masaryk University and later in Radio and TV Dramaturgy and Scriptwriting at the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts, where she is currently completing her PhD studies. Since 2015, she has been cooperating with Czech Television as a freelance dramaturge and screenwriter for documentary series, feature-length solitaire films and children's shows. At JAMU, she teaches subjects related to scriptwriting, dramaturgy, and television, and in addition to theory, she also passes on her experience from actual projects to her students, which she tries to prepare them for. In her dissertation, she draws from her direct screenwriting experience with Czech Television and international co-productions, within which she analyses the creative, screenwriting, and dramaturgical limits.
Silvia Vyvijal Divéky is a PhD student at the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts in Brno. Aside from documentary-making, she explores narrative methods not only in video but also in writing. Her documentary films Dying Blue and The Tower of Sherpa were at the beginning of her artistic research journey, where she looked for new ways of capturing culture on screen. Currently, she is working on a documentary series about ultra-runners, where she explores how being part of the community affects her documentary skills and how distance vs. proximity to the subject matter brings different elements to the films. In the past year, she has been looking into the format of self-portraits in audiovisual work.
