The workshop is a part of the artistic research project Blind Spot – Staring Down the Void, financed by PKU (Program for kunstnerisk utviklingsarbeid) and Akademi for scenekunst ved Høgskolen i Østfold in cooperation with and supported by HZT / UDK Berlin, BIT Stiftelsen Bergen Internasjonale Teater, BEK Bergen Electronic Arts Center, Tranzit Foundation Bucharest Romania, Canada Council for the Arts, Conseil des Arts et des Lettres Quebec. 

Sodja Zupanc Lotker is the Course Leader of Master in Directing Devised and Object Theatre at the Prague Performing Arts Academy (DAMU). She works as a dramaturg for independent theatre, dance and site specific projects (with Cristina Maldonado, Farm in the Cave, Lotte van den Berg, TAAT, Kristýna Lhotáková, Wojtek Ziemilski). She was artistic director of the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space 2008 – 2015, event she has worked for since 1999. Prague Quadrennial has won EFFE Award 2015-16. She has curated and commissioned costume exhibitions and projects such as Extreme Costume (PQ 2011); living installation/performance for Intersection: Intimacy and Spectacle (PQ 2011) and the Tribes (costumes in public space PQ 2015). Within the Prague Quadrennial she has collaborated with artists such as Claudia Bosse, Arpad Schilling/Kretakor, Societas Rafaello Sanzio, Kirsten Dehlholm, Ilya Kabakov, Josef Nadj, Theatre NO99, Brett Bailey etc.  She has also served as coordinating curator for a number of international artistic research projects such as: Global City Local City, Space – Performing Arts in Public Space and Urban Heat. She has given lectures at Columbia University, Yale School of Drama, Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and teaches devised dramaturgy in the international program of DAMU Prague. From 2014 she is on Editorial Board of Theatre and Performance Design Journal; and on Editorial Board of Performance Research Journal, both published by Routledge.

Karmenlara Ely is Professor and Artistic Director of Acting at Østfold University College/Norwegian Theatre Academy. Before NTA, Karmenlara taught full time at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, where she holds a PhD in Performance Studies. She collaborates internationally as a performer, creator, dramaturg and scenic artist on theatre and performance works, most recently with Muriel Miguel and Spiderwoman Theater at La Mama E.T.C., Tony Hall of Lordstreet Theatre (Trinidad and Tobago) and Composer Sxip Shirey (NYC). Involved in leading and advising projects in artistic research, her topics of inquiry usually examine the critical role of the body in taboo breaking, the materialities of intimacy, memory, ethics and pleasure in the creation of art. Her areas of study include the shared territories between ritual and performance forms and carnival and festival arts, including questions around embodiment and desire in post-colonial realities. She has taught workshops in a variety of contexts outside NTA including Iceland Academy for the Arts, Ruhrtriennale Festivalcampus (under Heiner Goebbels), and Oslo International Acting Festival. She is co-editor of the recent books Infinite Record: Archive Memory Performance and Responsive Listening: Theater Training for Contemporary Spaces both released in collaboration with Brooklyn Arts Press. Karmenlara has also lived a parallel life as a designer and maker in millinery and fashion industry where performative materials, the moving body and street life play a big part in the creative process.