Abdul Karim Hakib is a doctoral researcher at the LMU on the European Research Council’s funded project on Developing Theatre: Building Expert Networks for Theatre in Emerging Countries after 1945. His research focuses on Historicizing Theatre for Development (TfD). It will explore networks and institutional perspectives.
Abdul Karim Hakib was born and educated in Ghana, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) and a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degrees in Theatre for Development. He has, before joining LMU been, a lecturer at the Theatre Arts Department of University of Ghana; the executive director of Global Arts and Development Centre-Ghana, the deputy chair of Arterial Network Ghana Chapter and the General Secretary of the ITI Centre in Ghana.
He is a theatre for development practitioner, who specializes in the use of the creative arts and culture for development. He has been engaged in a number of works for and with organizations like Solidaridad West Africa, Environmental Protection Agency of Ghana, Plan Ghana, Theatre for a Change, Africa Adaptation Program on Climate Change, United Nation Organization and UNESCO and other International organizations. He is a fellow of the National Arts Strategies in the USA, a creative community fellows program that brings together a unique community of innovators committed to using arts and culture to design solutions for community problems.
Abdul Karim Hakib has directed a number of plays with varied focus and across genres and media. Notable among the works he directed are the Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler, An adaptation of the iconic local Ghanaian movie “I Told You So” for the stage, the Wogbejeke series. He served as the casting director and a publicist for Dr. Agyeman Ossei’s adaptation of Ayi Kwei Armah’s novels,The beautiful ones are not yet born and Osiris Rising.
His research interest covers Theatre for Development, performance studies, theatre and culture, intangible cultural heritage and performance, theatre and other media, and organizational politics and development.
Prof. Christopher Balme
Speaker, Principle Investigator
Christopher Balme holds the chair in theatre studies at the University of Munich.
He was born and educated in New Zealand where he graduated from the University of Otago. He has lived and worked in Germany since 1985 with positions at the universities of Würzburg, Munich and Mainz. From 2004 to 2006 he held the chair in theatre studies at the University of Amsterdam. He has published widely on German theatre, intercultural theatre and theatre and other media.
Prof. Balme is past-president of the German Society for Theatre Research and of the IFTR. He was Senior Editor of Theatre Research International from 2004-2006. He currently edits the journal Forum Modernes Theater.
Contact
Phone: +49 (0) 89 / 2180 – 3686
Fax: +49 (0) 89 / 2180 – 6344
Email: theaterwissenschaft@lrz.uni-muenchen.de
Website: http://www.theaterwissenschaft.uni-muenchen.de/personen2/leitung/balme/index.html
PD Dr. Nic Leonhardt
Associate Director & Senior Researcher
Nic Leonhardt is a theatre and media historian as well as a writer based in Munich. She studied Theatre Studies and Audiovisual Media, German Philology and Art History at the Universities of Erlangen-Nürnberg and Mainz and received a Dr. phil. in Performance and Media Studies from the University of Mainz (2006).
Her scholarly activities are characterized by a strong interdisciplinary approach and focus on global theatre, media and popular cultures at the turn of the 20th century as well on contemporary visual and urban cultures and Digital Humanities. Nic worked as a researcher, lecturer and coordinator at the University of Music Cologne (2000-2002), the University of Music and Theatre in Leipzig (2006-2007), and the Cluster of Excellence “Asia & Europe in a Global Context” (Heidelberg University, 2008-2010). In 2007, she held the position of a guest lecturer (“Gastdozentin”) at the German Department of Barnard College and Columbia University, New York. From 2010 to 2015 Nic was the associate director of the international research project Global Theatre Histories (LMU Munich); from 2015 to September 2016 she was visiting professor for Inter Artes at the University of Cologne.
Since October 2016, Nic Leonhardt has been associate director of and senior researcher with the ERC project “Developing Theatre”, LMU Munich.
Nic Leonhardt is on leave until 31 March, 2019.
Contact
Dept Kunstwissenschaften
Theaterwissenschaft
Georgenstrasse 11
D-80799 Muenchen
Phone: +49 (0) 89 2180 5941
Email: nic.leonhardt@lrz.uni-muenchen.de
Website: https://nicleonhardt.wordpress.com/
Postdoctoral Researchers
Judith Rottenburg, Dr. Des.
After completing a BA in Comparative Literature at the Free University of Berlin and a MA in Kunstwissenschaft at the University of Arts and Design in Karlsruhe, Judith Rottenburg received her PhD in Art History from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU) in 2017. As a member of the international doctoral program MIMESIS at LMU from 2013 to 2016, she undertook research visits to Dakar, New York City and Paris, completing her PhD dissertation on the cosmopolitan arts in post-independence Senegal. In 2016/2017, she was a research fellow at the German Forum for Art History Paris in the context of the annual theme “L’art en France à la croisée des cultures”. Since 2017, she is a post-doctoral researcher in the ERC funded project „Developing Theatre“ at LMU. Since 2018, she also works in the research project “Bilderfahrzeuge. Aby Warburg’s Legacy and the Future of Iconology” at Humboldt University Berlin.
Contact
Email: Judith.rottenburg@lmu.de
Ziad Adwan Dr.
Ziad Adwan studied for an MA in Text and Performance Studies at Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and King’s College in London, and then took a PhD in Theatre Studies at Royal Holloway, University of London; his thesis was on „Mistakes and Making Mistakes in Cultural Representations“. Ziad’s work comprises acting, directing and writing for theatre as well as academic works. He taught Performance Studies and Systems of Rehearsals at the Higher Institute of Dramatic Arts in Damascus/ Syria 2009-2013. His theatre projects include text-based plays, choreography, performance art and community theatre.
Ziad is currently based in Germany. He was affiliated with the Global Theatre Histories Research Project at LMU Munich, and is currently a researcher in the ERC funded project ‘Developing Theatre’ at LMU-Munich, and publishes articles in several academic journals. He co-founded TANWEEN Company for Theatre and Dance and is a consultant at Mamdouh Adwan Publishing House.
Contact
Email: zadwan76@hotmail.com
Fellows
Viviana Iacob, Dr.
Viviana Iacob is currently affiliated with the Centre for Global Theatre History at LMU. Her research interests centre on theatre history after 1945 in Eastern Europe, Cold War internationalism and the role of international organizations in the cultural diplomacy of state socialist regimes.
In 2019 she was awarded a postdoctoral Humboldt fellowship for the duration of 2 years (May 2020-April 2022). Her project examines theatre exchanges in relation with contributions from the socialist space by identifying practices and networks that allowed East European cultures to overcome peripherialization in relation with the international community. She currently works on a monograph that places Romanian theatre within global circulations among the East, the West, and the South. Among her publications are: “Scenes of Cold War Diplomacy: Romania and the International Theatre Institute, 1956–1969.” East Central Europe 45, (2018): 184-214; “Caragiale in Calcutta: Romanian-Indian Theatre Diplomacy during the Cold War.” Journal of Global Theatre History 2, (2017): 37-46.
contact: V.Iacob@campus.lmu.de
Rebecca Sturm, M.A.
Rebecca Sturm studied for her B.A. and M.A. in Theatre Studies at the Ludwig Maximilian university in Munich and was a student research assistant on the project „Geschichte der Bayerischen Staatsoper 1933-1963“.
In 2016 she graduated with her master’s thesis on the Bavarian State Theatre in the early post-war period.
As a doctoral researcher at the ERC project „Developing Theatre“ she now focusses on the international efforts of the East and West German centres of the International Theatre Institute during the Cold War.
Contact
Email: rebecca.sturm@lmu.de
Karim Hakib, M.A.
Contact
Email: Hakib.Karim@lmu.de
Gideon Ime Morison, M.A.
Gideon Ime Morison is a poet, academic, researcher, blogger, and theatre/cultural critic. He is an Alumnus of the Department of Theatre, Film and Carnival Studies, University of Calabar and the Department of Theatre Arts, University of Uyo, Nigeria; where he obtained his Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees respectively.
Gideon has featured in several stage productions and developmental media projects for organizations such as the Calabar University Theatre (CUT), Wildlife Conservation Fund, Ars Pro Vita, Greenwich Media Plus and Finest Communications amongst others. Prominent among these productions include Man-Child Blues (2017), Ifufe (2014), Linda’s Joint (2014), When Tomorrow Comes (2009), The Twist (2008), Ekpogogoroo (2008), Midnight Hotel (2008), Blood and Bondage (2007), Not a Thing out of Place (2006), Dilemma (2005), No More Harvest (2005) etc.
As a researcher, Gideon Morison has tutored, partnered and consulted widely for individuals and bodies corporate. His research output, which straddle areas such as media/theatre theory, history and criticism, development communication and comparative cultural studies, has been published severally in the Nigerian Theatre Journal, The Parnassus, and Banchi Journal.
He served as a Tutoring Assistant in the Department of Theatre Arts, University of Uyo, Uyo before his appointment as a Lecturer and Head at the Department of Theatre Arts, School of Secondary Education (Arts and Social Sciences), Federal College of Education (Technical), Omoku, Rivers State – Nigeria. Gideon is, currently, a Doctoral Researcher and Student for the European Research Council (ERC) Project ´Developing Theatre´ at the Institute for Theatre Studies, Ludwig-Maximillian University of Munich, Germany.
Contact
Email: Gideon.morison@lmu.de
Former Post Doctoral Researchers
Rashna Darius Nicholson, Dr.
Rashna Darius Nicholson is a theatre historian with specializations in South Asian and Palestinian theatre. She studied Performance Studies at the Université Libre de Bruxelles and the University of Copenhagen and holds a PhD (summa cum laude) from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.
her thesis ‚The Theatre of Empire‘ is a critical history of the nineteenth century Parsi theatre, South and South East Asia’s earliest and most prolific commercial theatrical phenomenon. Her interests include early modern and modern Asian and Middle Eastern performative traditions, world literature, fascism, religious reformations and the globalization of opera.
She ist currently Assistant Professor in Drama and English Literary Studies at the University of Hong Kong.
Prior to joining HKU she held a research fellowship at the ERC-Developing Theatres Project on „Theatrical Heterotopias in Conflict Zones“.
Contact
Email: : rnich@hku.hk