MW

When a world loses its shape

My path took me from Wuppertal to Bayreuth, to Sydney, and back again — through the strange worlds of theatre, dance, and cultural theory.

I studied Theatre, Film and Television Studies, Musicology, and Classical Archaeology, and received my PhD in Media Aesthetics and Digital Culture from the University of Cologne (Digitaler Alltag, Utz Verlag, 2012).

From 2007 to 2009, I worked as an assistant to Pina Bausch. After her passing, I became Research and Development Manager of the Pina Bausch Foundation, where I co-developed the foundation’s archives and helped shape its early projects around legacy, memory, and cultural heritage.

In 2014, I founded the International Research Center for Contemporary Arts and Applied Cultural Theory – Ekeby Art & Research, based in the Netherlands.

Over the past two decades, I’ve worked across Europe and beyond as an author, archivist, dramaturge, director, creative producer, lecturer, and cultural manager — with a focus on artistic research, dance heritage, and living archives.

My current work — including the novel Something True, Something Cruel, Something Real – The Stories of Mr G — explores new ways of engaging with a complex world by finding our own path through it.

Selected publications:

mAPs – The Power of Transformation. A Toolkit for Dance, Film and Social Change (eds. Wagenbach/TANZRAUSCHEN), Wuppertal: TANZRAUSCHEN 2023 – And so you see …: On the Situatedness of Translating Audience Perceptions, in: Michaela Ott/Thomas Weber (eds.), Situated in Translations. Bielefeld: transcript 2019, pp. 191-214 (with Gabriele Klein); Archive des Kolonialen. Übersetzungen kulturellen Erbes im Tanz, in: Knopf/Lembcke/Recklies (eds.): Archive dekolonialisieren, Bielefeld: transcript 2018, pp.191- 206; Inheriting Dance. An Invitation from Pina (eds. Wagenbach/Pina Bausch Foundation), Bielefeld: transcript 2014