Dr Katharina von Ruckteschell-Katte
Director of the Goethe-Institut London and regional director for North West Europe
Since November 2018 Katharina von Ruckteschell-Katte is the director of the Goethe-Institut London and regional director for North West Europe, focusing on the development of the EU in the context of Brexit.
She was born 1962 in Bonn/Germany and spent most of her childhood in Asia. She holds a PhD from the University of Bonn majoring in comparative literature, art history and Germanic studies. She joined the Goethe-Institut in 1990 and worked in various capacities, with her first posting abroad in Moscow in 1995 and after that in Bangkok. In 2008 she became regional director of the Goethe-Institut in Johannesburg/South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa. From November 2013 to October 2018 she worked in Sao Paulo/Brazil as regional director of the Goethe-Institut in South America. In both regions her focus was on the South-South relations, on the post-colonial and feminisms.
photo©Goethe-Institut
Stefan Hilterhaus
Artistic Director and Executive Director of PACT Zollverein, Essen, Germany
Stefan Hilterhaus is the artistic director and executive director of PACT Zollverein which he co-founded in 2002. PACT’s unique working model consolidates a wide range of interests in the performing arts and embraces international exchange platforms long and lasting collaborations with the fields of science, the fine arts and a variety of research areas. As international residence, stage and production house for art in its relation to society and environment, it also promotes the professional, transdisciplinary development and networking of artists, experts, activists and academics. Its aim to connect different methodologies and fields of knowledge implies the engagement in projects concerned with the role and impact of urban space on communities and connections between various forms of societies and its people. After studying history as well as dance and choreography, Hilterhaus worked internationally as a dancer, performer, curator and director. He is a member of various boards of trustees, advisory boards and juries.
photo©Julia Reschucha
Brigitta Muntendorf
Composer, Artistic Director of Ensemble Garage, Cologne, Germany
The German-Austrian composer Brigitta Muntendorf creates music that exists at the intersection of various art forms and modes of expression, a web of multi-layered references and connections. A multimedia and interdisciplinary artist by default and steeped in the theatrical tradition, she aims to create a space for experimentation, both in her compositional work and as Artistic Director of Ensemble Garage. She treats music not as pure sound art, but as a social and aesthetic phenomenon in a society characterized by new digital media.
Brigitta Muntendorf completed her composition studies with Younghi Paagh-Paan at the Hochschule für Künste Bremen, as well as with Krzysztof Meyer, Rebecca Saunders and Johannes Schöllhorn at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln. She has received grants from the Cité Internationale des Arts Paris (2010), Ensemble Modern Akademie (2012), Villa Concordia Bamberg (2014/15) and Villa Kamogawa Kyoto (2017). In 2014 she received the Ernst von Siemens Composers Prize in connection with the release of her CD It may be all an illusion. Most recently, she was awarded the 2017 German Music Authors’ Prize by GEMA in the Young Talent category. Since 2017 Brigitta Muntendorf has been Professor of Composition at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln.
photo©Manfred Daams
Fernando Zugno
Director of the International Performing Arts Festival Porto Alegre em Cena, Porto Alegre, Brazil
Since 2017 Fernando Zugno is the coordinator of the municipal sector of performing arts in the city of Porto Alegre and the director and general director and curator of the international performing arts festival, Porto Alegre em Cena.
He Graduated in Performing Arts from the Teatro Escola de Porto Alegre – TEPA in November, 2005 and in journalism from Pontifícia Universidade Católica from Rio Grande do Sul – PUCRS in 2010.
He has worked with artists and companies of Peter Brook, Ariane Mnouchkine and the Théâtre du Soleil, Patrice Chereau, Robert Wilson, Pina Bausch, Maguy Marin, Frank Castorf, Romeo Castelucci, Eimutas Nekrosius, Meredith Monk, Angelica Liddell and many others.
Since 2012 he has worked as producer and creator of theatre plays and independent events organised by his company Artworks Produções, that takes charge of building new theatre, dance and music productions, tour with them and organise events that invite foreign productions e.g. Class enemy by Luciano Alabarse, Parole d’acteur, by Maurice Durozier, the Companhia Brasileira de Teatro directed by Marcio Abreu, Gonzagão, a lenda directed by João Falcão, Godspell directed by Zé Adão Barbosa, and a concert by Bibi Ferreira and artistic residencies with dancers of the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch and performers of Theater Rotterdam.