Davide Giovanzana is an Italian and Swiss theatre director, theatre pedagogue and researcher based in Helsinki, Finland. He has a strong background in physical theatre, mask and object theatre. His first education was in painting. His doctoral artistic research, Theatre Enters!, examined the playful manifestation and political application of the play within the play in post-dramatic theatre. His post doc artistic research, The Imagination of Violence, reconsidered the potential and limits of the representation of violence on stage. He is Honorary Professor of the Latvian Culture Academy, he has been visiting professor of artistic research at the Theatre Academy of Helsinki and he is currently university lecturer in acting at the Tampere University.
Luca is a young Italian director and actor. He studied at the National Academy of Dramatic Arts “Silvio D’Amico” in Rome, and currently live and work in Lithuania. Luca’s most recent works are “All the world inside”, a diptych on Pirandello’s novels; “Valley of Baka”, a performance inspired by the book of Psalms, and “Lungs”, a play by Duncan Macmillan.
Luca also acted in “Bacchantes”, directed by Emma Dante, and most recently in “Hamletmachine”, directed by Robert Wilson.
Markéta Fantová is a scenic, lighting and costume designer for theatre, dance, and performance art. She has worked in theatres, galleries and visually inspiring sites in both the United States and Europe. Her costume and set designs were included in the USITT-USA PQ National Exhibit (2007) and World Stage Design Exhibit in Seoul, South Korea (2009). She is currently living in Prague, Czech Republic, where she is holding the position of Artistic Director of the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space.
Besides professional design work Marketa held several teaching positions starting as an assistant professor at Texas Woman’s, visiting assistant professor at the University of North Texas; later on an associate professor of Performance Design at Alfred University, NY where she received tenure. Two years before moving back to the Czech Republic she led Performance Design at Rowan University. While teaching she had been an active member of USITT where she served as a Vice President of International Activities from 2011 to 2016, which included the work of an artistic director for the USITT-USA PQ Exhibition in 2015. She continues to be a member of OISTAT where she held the position of chair of Performance Design Commission from 2015 to 2019.
Kata Csató – puppet theatre director, actress, cultural manager and theacher of puppet theatre acting and directing for puppet theatre. She graduated from Department of Cultural Organisation (specialisation: theatrical) at Janus Pannonius Academy in Pécs, Hungary in 2000. In 2001 she enrolled at the Aleksander Zelwerowicz State Academy of Theatre Arts – Puppet Theatre Art Department in Białystok and graduated in 2006 with a degree in both specializations: puppet theatre acting and directing. Since 2008 she has been pursuing a PhD degree at at the Aleksander Zelwerowicz State Academy of Theatre Arts – Puppet Theatre Art Department in Białystok, Poland.
At first she worked in Budapest as programming assistant at HBO, then assistant director in Szkéné Theatre and an actress in various Budapest theatres. Since 2004 she has been acting and directing independently in Hungary and abroad. She have made performances in Budapest, Zalaegerszeg, Veszprém, Szombathely, Miskolc, Eger and Kecskemét in Hungary, have worked in Lithuania, Serbia, Romania, Russia, Siberia and Poland. She was teaching puppet theatre acting and directing for puppet theatre at the University of Theatre and Film Arts in Budapest since 2010.
She has received many awards for her work, and recently also for best directorial prizes (best directing in “Theatre Festival for Children” – Subotica, in “Spring Festival” – Krasnoyarsk, in “International Puppet Festival” – Kurgan, in “UNIMA Puppet Festival for Children” – Békéscsaba and in “Puppet Festival for Adult” – Pécs).
From 2021 she is a member of the Executive Committee of UNIMA (Union Internationale de la Marionette).
She is a founding member and from autum 2021 she is the president of the Socity.
