Contributors

Alex Chisholm is a director, dramaturg and producer based in Leeds. Her productions include Pick n Mix by Kat Rose-Martin, Nine Lives by Zodwa Nyoni, and Conscientious by Adam Z. Robinson. She was Co-Artistic Director of Freedom Studios in Bradford 2014-2022. Alex was appointed Literary Manager at the Leeds Playhouse in December 2001 and Associate Director in January 2006. In January 2005 she was invited by Yugoslav Drama Theatre in Belgrade to direct the Serbian premiere of Huddersfield which ran for over 10 years.

Ana Fazekaš (Zagreb, 1990) is a critic, editor, and essayist in the fields of performing arts, literature, and pop culture, currently working as freelance writer for various publications including Kulturpunkt.hr, Kazalište, Kretanja/Movements, Kritika HDP, and Booksa. She holds an MA in Comparative Literature and Russian Language and Literature, and is currently working on her PhD thesis on the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb, focused on psychoanalysis, gender studies and transdisciplinary art theory.

Ana Ogrizović is a Dramaturgy graduate from Serbia, recognised by multiple poetry, prose and playwriting competitions. She is currently pursing a Masters degree and editing her first poetry book.

Andrej Čanji is a theatre critic and theatrologist based in Belgrade.

Berat Bajrami is a young artist, activist and journalist from Kosovo. He studied Fine Arts in the Printmaking Department at the University of Prishtina. For more than five years he has worked as a journalist in the KOHA Group. He collaborated with Dr Ellen Frank during the Cities of Peace projects in Prishtina and received the status of “Artist Peace Builder”. From 2021 he has worked at Artpolis as project coordinator.

Bora Shpuza is a literary translator and freelance art reviewer based in Prishtina,

Borisav Matić is a critic and dramaturg from Serbia. He is the Regional Managing Editor at The Theatre Times. He regularly writes about theatre for a range of publications and media.

He’s a member of the feminist collective Rebel Readers with whom he co-edits Bookvica, their platform for literary criticism, and produces literary shows and podcasts. He occasionally works as a dramaturg or a scriptwriter for theatre, TV, radio and other media. He's the administrator of IDEA - the International Drama/Theatre and Education Association.

Dr. Darija Davidović is based in Bern, Switzerland and Vienna, Austria. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the research project “Aestheticisation of war violence in contemporary performing Arts” at the Institute of Practices and Theories in the Arts, Bern Academy of the Arts. She obtained her doctoral degree from the University of Vienna, Department of Theatre, Film and Media Studies with her theses “Contested Wartime Past(s): practicing politics of history in Serbian and Croatian Contemporary Theater”, which will be published in 2024. She has been involved as activist in many feminist and antifascist projects and campaigns in Germany and Austria.

Divna Stojanov is a dramaturg and playwright. She writes mainly for children and young people.

Duška Radosavljević Krojer is a writer, dramaturg and academic. She is the author of award-winning academic monograph Theatre-Making: Interplay Between Text and Performance in the 21st Century (2013) and editor of Theatre Criticism: Changing Landscapes (2016) and the Contemporary Ensemble: Interviews with Theatre-Makers (2013). Her work has been funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council in the UK multiple times including for www.auralia.space (2020-21) and The Mums and Babies Ensemble (2015). She is a regular contributor to The Stage, Exeunt and The Theatre Times.

Edona Kryeziu is a researcher, filmmaker and cultural journalist. After obtaining her BA in European Studies at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Maastricht University, she completed her MA in Migration and Diaspora Studies at SOAS London University, at the Faculty of Anthropology. Kryeziu works at the intersection of story-telling and knowledge production, mostly invested in post-migratism and anti-eurocentricism practices.

Ella Dorman-Gajic is a writer and actor of Serbian and Austrian heritage. Her writing has been described as “impassioned” by The Guardian. Her debut full-length play Trade premiered at Omnibus Theatre, VAULT Transfer Season. The play was shortlisted for the 2020 Snoo Wilson Prize and Slam Soaps New Writing Competition. Her work has been staged at Edinburgh Fringe, The Arcola, Camden People’s Theatre and The Old Red Lion. She has been selected by Roundhouse, New Writing South and Apples & Snakes for their respective writer development schemes. As an actor, she currently stars as Tam in the BBC Radio 4 Drama Song of the Reed. https://www.elladorman-gajic.co.uk/

Fatlinda Daku is a human rights activist who is currently working as a researcher and freelance journalist. She studied Political Science at the University of Prishtina and has working experience in the civil society sector.

Flamur Dardeshi is a freelance writer based in Tirana. He has contributed in the areas of translation, analysis, and poetry. His main fields of interest are literature, cinematography, and theatre.

Florida is a lover of words, and of art in all its forms: fiction, poetry and drama.

Gresa Hasa is co-founder and chief editor of the feminist magazine Shota. She publishes regularly in national and regional media concerning issues of politics, culture and feminism. She studied Political Science at the University of Tirana and for many years has been involved in grassroots organizing in Albania, initially with the student movement and currently with the Feminist Collective, a progressive movement which demands social justice and gender equality."

Igor Burić has 20 years of experience in journalism. He is active in arts criticism and cultural fields, as well as social engagement, writing articles, moderating roundtable debates, coordinating projects, programming festivals, and editing special editions.. He has received three awards for journalism and criticism, one for the newspaper Dnevnik, one international (the Konrad Adenauer award for young journalists) and one national (Sterija’s award for theatre criticism).

Igor is a Bosnian born British playwright based in London. His debut play Old Bridge won the 2020 Papatango New Writing Prize and premiered at the Bush Theatre, London, in November 2021’

Iva Š. Slosar is a student of dramaturgy and performing arts. She writes theatre criticism for web portals and participates in the cultural department of Radio Študent (Slovenia). She is also engaged in drama writing and theatrical creation as a practical dramaturg.

Ivana Kocutar is a young writer from Slovenia. She is a BA student of Philosophy and German Language at University of Ljubljana and a contributor to online critical platforms Neodvisni, and EU contemporary puppetry critical platform. Her main interests are contemporary dance and theatre.

Dr Ivanka Apostolova Baskar is a self-employed author, editor, translator, lecturer, programme producer, creator of video theatre projects, and visual dramaturg. She collaborates with the Theater Times USA, Mediantrop-Belgrade; Macedonian Center ITI/PRODUKCIJA, Skopje Kreativa - Festival for Creative Industries, Faculty for Art and Design/EURM Skopje, and Stone Design`s No Man`s Land-Macedonian Pavilion, Venice Biennial-Architecture 2016. She is author of Theater Comics 1997-2020; In Search of Lost Director 2008-2020; Antropologija izkušenj v gledališču, 2019.

Maja Mrđenović is a theatre critic and researcher in contemporary performing art. She is a teaching assistant at the Faculty for Montenegrin language and literature in Cetinje. Her texts from the field of performance studies and cultural politics are regularly published in several Montenegrin and regional journals. She is one of the founders and editors
of Peripetija.me, the only professional theatre journal in Montenegro. She acted as a member of the jury in several theatre festivals in Montenegro and the region.

Mina Milošević graduated from the Dramaturgy Department at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade and studies Master studies at the Department of Theory of drama arts and media at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade. She writes theatre criticism for SEEstage, texts about theatre and film for the magazine Iz Off-a'; and hosts the radio programme about theatre Radio Nezavisna on Radioaparat. As a political activist, she campaigned for students and the right to a home (United Action Roof Over Your Head). She participated in the work of the Academic Film Centre at the 'Studentski grad' cultural centre, where she now moderates discussions about student protests in 21st century and works as a screenwriter on the documentary film about that subject. As a dramaturge, she staged the play Orlando by Tanja Šljivar and Goran Ferčec, which is performed at the National Theatre in Belgrade. She has written scripts for several short films and translated feminist texts.

Miran Hadžić was born in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina. His play The Day After was nominated for an Origins Award for
Outstanding New Work at VAULT Festival 2015. In 2012 he was winner of the Old Red Lion’s short play competition RedFEST, which led to his first full- length play The Love and Devotion of Ridley Smith. In 2021 Miran was lead producer on Out of the Woods: New Plays from the Balkans, a collaboration with Tamasha Theatre, INTENT New Theatre and Counterpoint Arts. Out of the Woods is a new series of audio dramas written by writers from the Balkans, which you can listen to on Apple and Spotify. Series One: Kosovo features Miran’s play Fifth Dimension. The production was nominated for a Grassroots Award at the Audio Production Awards 2021.

Mirela is a student of comparative literature at the University of Belgrade. Since 2020, she has been writing literary criticism for the Bookvica.net. She is a lover of books, theatre and rainy fall days.

Mladen Bićanić was born 1949 in Bjelovar, in the former Yougoslavie, now Croatia, He worked for 15 years at Radio-Tuzla, and for the last 20 years, as a freelancer, at BHT 1 in Sarajevo. He writes theatre criticism for Oslobodjenje, in Sarajevo, and has published two books of his critical texts.

Natasha Tripney is a writer, editor and critic based in London and Belgrade. She is the international editor for The Stage, the newspaper of the UK theatre industry. In 2011, she co-founded Exeunt, an online theatre magazine, which she edited until 2016. She is a contributor to the Guardian, Evening Standard, the BBC, Tortoise and Kosovo 2.0

Nick Awde is a journalist, playwright, editor, critic and producer. Based in the UK, he is co-director of Morecambe's Alhambra Theatre. Books include Equal Stages (diversity and inclusion in theatre), Mellotron, Women In Islam, and translations of plays by other writers. Much of his work focuses on ethnoconflict and language/cultural genocide.

Nora Čulić Matošić (1998) is a student of Comparative Literature (MA) at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb. She has written theatre criticism for the Croatian radio programme Theatralia and web portal Kulturpunkt.hr. Besides theatre, her interests are other forms of performing arts (particularly dance performances) and film.

Oriada Dajko is a cultural researcher, young poet, and a short story writer. She has been representative of Albania in festivals and international literary activities
for young writers on several occasions.  Her research focuses on dealing with the past in the Balkans. Her collaborative research studies in the field of memory and dark heritage have been published in Germany and Bosnia and Herzegovina.