Going Sideways with Danja Burchard and Epona Hamdan

Natascha Anahita Nassir Shahnian
Nataschas facilitation practice is informed of a collage of different methods she gathered in over 20 years of practice from a mix of social activism, youth work, political education, perfomance art, film making, empowerment work & process work. She loves the power of breath, connecting with the self and the universal space – and how awareness to the dance of the unconscious guides our way on what needs to come to light.

Alessandra Pomarico

Alessandra Pomarico is a curator, writer, and educator at the intersection of arts, pedagogy, and community building. Co-founder of Ecoversities Alliance; of the artistic and pedagogic initiative Free Home Universit since 2013 , and of the radio platform Firefly Frequencies. Recent projects are The School of the We, The New Alphabet School, and Seeding~Grounding. Editor at artseverywhere.ca, she edited Pedagogies Otherwise; What’s there to learn; and When the Roots Start Moving, Resonating with Zapatismo (Archive Books 2021). Upcoming publications include The School of the We Workbook, and Unlearning and Uplearning: Free Home University at 10.

Bek Berger (b. 1988) is an artist, curator and dramaturg originally from Australia, based now between Berlin and Riga, where from 2020 to 2024, she was curator of the International Festival of Contemporary Theatre, Homo Novus. Bek’s practice binds curiosity with innovation in order to design new models of connection, collaboration and reciprocity between artists and communities, across borders and art forms. Her expertise lies between festival making, dance dramaturgy and karaoke. In the last years she has instigated a number of large international collaborations such as Baltic Take Over Helsinki (LV, LT, EE, FI), The Shake Down with Rosendal Theatre (LV, NO), The Festivals Path with ANTI festival (LV, FI). As an artist she is currently concerned with exploiting magic, making new conditions for togetherness and improving the performing arts with pleasure centered design.

Saúl García-López aka La Saula is a performance artist, radical performance director, scholar, and pedagogue. He serves as Professor of Performance at the Norwegian Theatre Academy and co-artistic director of La Pocha Nostra. Saúl is also the co-author of La Pocha Nostra: A Handbook For The Rebel Artist in a Post-Democratic Society. His multidisciplinary artistic work spans body, text, and performance, challenging assumptions of cultural representation through the embodiment of simultaneous and contradictory identities. His research and practice focus on performance pedagogy, indigeneity, gender, postcoloniality, and decolonial theory, exploring the intersections of acting, performance theory, and indigenous strategies.

Danja Burchard (them/they) 

lives & works nomadic
currently between Hamburg, Berlin and Barcelona
Danja Burchard is an art worker based between Hamburg, Berlin, and Barcelona, whose work spans creative production, performance, curation, and writing, with a focus on collective processes, radical pedagogies, and discursive practices. Rooted in an intersectional queer- and feminist theoretical framework, Burchard explores speculative futures through process-based methods. They are a founding member of the project space NOGOODS, the research magazine bias, i.c.a.p., and the performance collective PORNOTOPIAcollectivo. Burchard has co-curated Dissident Publics: Future Artefacts of Queer Methodologies at ROM for kunst og arkitektur, developed interdisciplinary programs at NOGOODS, and collaborated with artists and institutions like Studio Tomás Saraceno, 71 Body Company, and BIT Teatergarasjen. In 2023, Burchard joined the IETM Producers Network, was a CIFAS Producers Academy fellow, and is currently a fellow at the Producer Academy 2024 of the Produktionshäuser.

Epona Hamdan (she/her)

Berlin

Epona Hamdan has been a creative producer, curator, writer, facilitator, and outside eye in live arts since 2016, based in Berlin. Her work spans local independent scenes and international collaborations, shaped by her experience as a German-Lebanese queer identity and mother. Hamdan’s practice focuses on anti-colonial culture production, critical pedagogies, and decentralizing knowledge and access, viewing art as a space for counterpublics. In 2022, she was an emerging curator for the 12th Berlin Biennale’s “It speaks to me” program. Her Berlin Senate-funded research on decolonial curatorial methodologies, explores these practices within European institutions. Hamdan has worked with Rimini Protokoll as a creative arts producer, and as a curatorial assistant and manager at Spielart Theaterfestival. She has managed the Akademie der Autodidakten, initiated community projects, and is involved in the Intersectional Feminist Leadership Platform in Live Arts, Helsinki, and the produktionsbande network for performing arts producers.