Round Table Medeas: Dialogues on a Despoiled Shore.

A dialogue with Anja Quickert, Daniela Sacco, Azadeh Sharifi and Agata Tomšič, moderated by Benedetta Bronzini

In collaboration with Goethe-Institut Mailand


Benedetta Bronzini is Junior Research Fellow at the University of Modena e Reggio Emilia (Italy). She holds al PhD in Germanic and Comparative Studies focusing on Heiner Müller’s Interviews as a performative and documentary act, and took part in the international Project “Spacex (Spatial Practices in Arts & Architecture for Empathetic Exchange). The main topics of her research are Theater, Transmediality, 20th-Century and contemporary German Performance Studies, Franz Kafka, and Heiner Müller. She writes for “Rivista di Letterature Moderne e Comparate e Storia delle Arti”, “Amsterdam Museum Journal”, “Stratagemmi. Prospettive teatrali”, and “Visioni del Tragico”. In 2020 she published her first monograph Dare forma al silenzio. Heiner Müller e Pier Paolo Pasolini artisti dell’intervista.

Anja Quickert lives in Berlin and writes as a freelance author for Theater heute, among others. As a dramaturge, she has initiated and dramaturgically supervised numerous independent projects and worked at the Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz. She has been managing director of the International Heiner Müller Society since 2011 and has been responsible for its regular series of events, worked on the dramaturgical/production side of various workshops of the society, co-chaired the international conference The Enigma of Freedom on Heiner Müller (2014) and initiated and curated the theatre festival Heiner Müller! at HAU Hebbel am Ufer (2016). In February 2020, the music theatre evening Wir sind das Volk based on texts by Heiner Müller premiered at HAU Hebbel am Ufer with the Slovenian collective Laibach. From 2018 to 2024, Anja Quickert was part of the DFG research group Krisengefüge der Künste. From 2018 to 2021, she was a research assistant at the University of Trier, then at the Universities of Hildesheim and Hannover. In 2022/23 she has been a guest lecturer at the Berlin University of the Arts and currently teaches the seminar Producing Performing Arts at the Potsdam University of Applied Sciences.

Daniela Sacco teaches Performing Arts Disciplines at the IUAV University of Venice. She was a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Fellow at the University of Milan and at UQÀM, Université du Québec à Montréal, where she taught at the École supérieure de théâtre (2018-2019 and 2021-2022). She has received research grants for several projects and her interests cover a range of areas: contemporary reflections on tragedy, the relevance of myth, Aby Warburg’s thought, morphological aesthetics and decolonial studies. She is the author of several publications, including monographs, essays and articles in academic journals; she also writes for the stage. Her publications include: Pensiero in azione. Bertolt Brecht, Robert Wilson, Peter Sellars: tre protagonisti del teatro contemporaneo (2012); Mito e teatro: il principio drammaturgico del montaggio (2013); Goethe in Italia, formazione estetica e teoria morfologica (2016); Tragico contemporaneo: forme della tragedia e del mito nel teatro italiano [1995-2015] (2018); Immaginari incarnati. Appropriazioni culturali, cinema, arti dal vivo (2024) (co-written with Marco Bertozzi).

Azadeh Sharifi is a theatre and performance scholar based in Berlin and currently substituting for the professor of the theory and history of theatre at the University of Fine Arts Berlin. Previously, she was a visiting professor at the Department of Theatre Studies at Free University Berlin, a visiting assistant professor at the University of Toronto, and a visiting professor at the University of the Arts (UdK) Berlin. Her research focuses on (post)colonial and (post)migrant theatre and their histories, contemporary performance art, and decolonial and activist practices in theatrical spaces. She is currently working on the monograph Theatre in Post-migrant Germany. Performing Race, Migration and Coloniality since 1945 (Palgrave Macmillan/ under review) and Theatre & Postmigration (Bloomsbury/ under review). Her recent co-edited publication Theaterwissenschaft postkolonial/ decolonial has been published with transcript (2022).

Agata Tomšič is an actress, dramaturg, director, artistic director and theorist. Co-founder in 2010 of ErosAntEros, within which she carries out vocal-sound research aimed at experimentation with different musicians and composers, such as Davide Sacco, Matevž Kolenc, Laibach, Bruno Dorella, Quartetto Noûs. Trained with various artists of the contemporary scene (Socìetas, Schaubühne, Odin Teatret, Motus, Eva-Maria Bertschy, Living Theatre, Teatro Valdoca, Fanny & Alexander, Anagoor, Francesca Della Monica), she received her Master’s Degree in Disciplines of Live Performance from the University of Bologna with prof. Marco De Marinis in 2014, continuing to publish her writings in books and journals (AkropolisLibri, “Culture Teatrali,” “Engramma”), translate and edit publications (Editoria & Spettacolo), organize and participate in international conferences. With ErosAntEros she produces multidisciplinary and politically engaged performances with major European theaters: Emilia Romagna Teatro ERT / Teatro Nazionale, Slovensko Mladinsko Gledalisce, TNL – Théâtre National du Luxembourg, Ravenna Festival, Campania Teatro Festival, Teatro della Toscana, TPE – Teatro Piemonte Europa, Teatro Stabile di Bolzano, Teatro della Tosse. Since 2018 she co-directs POLIS Teatro Festival in Ravenna, an international festival of contemporary theater with a particular focus on active audience participation and European programming. Since 2020 she has been an active member of EASTAP – European Association for the Studies of Theater and Performance (international conferences Sitges 2024, Aarhus 2023; Milan 2022; Bologna 2020). In 2023, she obtained a Second level Master’s Degree in Vocal Music Singing and 20th-century and contemporary music theater at the State Conservatory “Giuseppe Verdi” in Ravenna (among her teachers: Alda Caiello, Mauro Montalbetti, Marco Baliani, Marco Di Bari, Antonio Greco, Andrea Cappelleri). Establishing more and more also in the role of artistic and managerial direction, her presence intensifies within international projects and networks (FiraB! Balearic Islands’ Performing Arts Professional Market 2024; Festival d’Avignon 2023, 2022, 2018; Kosovo Theater Showcase 2022; Pika2025 European Capital of Culture 2019-2020).