Anna Anders has been working with the video medium since 1986 (films and installations). She created video productions for various cultural institutions, for instance, for the Bundeskunsthalle Bonn and the Kölner Oper.

She has been an artist-scientist at the Kunsthochschule für Medien (The Art Academy of Media) in Cologne since 1997.

Jérôme Bel lives in Paris. He studied at the Centre National de Danse Contemporaine in Angers and danced for Angelin Preljocaj, Joelle Bouvier and Régis Obadia, Daniel Larrieu and Catherina Sagne. He was Philippe Découflé's assistant, the director of the opening ceremonies for the 16th Winter Olympics in Albertville.

His previous productions include: "Nom donné par l'auteur" (1994), "Jérôme Bel" (1995), "Shirtology" (1997), "The last performance" (1998), "Xavier Le Roy" (2000), and "The show must go on" (2001).

Marie Brassard has been working for several years with the Quebecer "magician of the theater" Robert Lépage. She wrote and adapted texts for the stage and played the lead role in his most important works: "Polygraphe," "Les Sept Branches de la rivière Ota," and "la Géometrie des miracles."

In his Shakespeare cycle she performed the roles of Lady Macbeth, Ariel and Virgilia. Recently she has acted in the productions of "Asile" by Dominique Champagne and "Oreille, tigre et bruit" by Alexis

Giorgio Barberio Corsetti founded the theater group La Gaia Scienza in 1975, which immediately caused an international sensation. In the 1980s, with his new company Compagnia Giorgio Barberio Corsetti, he was one of the first to use the phenomenon of video on stage. Since 1996 Corsetti has been devoting most of his attention to Franz Kafka.

Giorgio Barberio Corsetti has been the artistic director of the theater division of the Biennale in Venice since 1999.

Serge Denoncourt co-founded the Théâtre de l'Opsis in 1993, where he caused a sensation with his first works as a director.

In the meantime Serge Denoncourt has directed 50 productions and is considered to be one of the leading directors in Canada. His piece Je suis une mouette ... is the start of a Chekhov cycle, which will be continued next year with Le Cérisier (The Cherry Orchard).

Eva Diamantstein has been working as a director and stage designer since 1985.

In 2000 she received a grant from Villa Waldberta in Feldafing, Germany, to develop the project Evening Meal.

She is currently doing research for a study entitled "Feldafing During National Socialism."

The Norwegian Camilla Dahl and the Berliner Berit Schweska have worked together as freelance artists in Berlin since 1998 (working in the areas of object art, installations, video, sound, music and photography). They also work freelance in the interior design field.

Forced Entertainment develops its themes and forms of expression during the process of working on a piece. Using ingenious timing, a virtuoso composition is developed from fragments of memories and concepts. According to The Guardian, Forced Entertainment is "one of the most influential modern British theater companies of the last 20 years."

www.forcedentertainment.com

www.gobsquad.com

Oliver Hangl operates at the interface between theater, film and graphic art. In his performances, which he usually develops together with actors and musicians, he combines elements of theater and film.

Oliver Hangl, who began his carreer in 1993 originally as an actor and stage designer for theater, film and TV, works in a broad field of activities, where he often switches between being an artist, producer or director.

Among other things, he was curator of a video program series, he founded a museum and he collaborates on a regular basis with other artists, e.g., Georgina Starr (Great Britain) - they play together in the Pop performance band PONY - and Andrea Gergely (Hungary) - they have collaborated on developing several series of performances.

Christine Hill sees herself as a "society tourist." She has slipped into the outfits of various service professions for limited periods of time.

Since 1991 she has worked as, among other professions, a hairstylist, a bootblack, a cigarette vendor and a "band girl." She sees her projects as "systems of interaction."

Using minimal shifts in reality, she provokes irritation, which stimulate an exchange between the audience and the artists.

Bernd Ernst and Stefan Kaegi created the label "Hygiene Heute" ("Hygiene Today") in 1997 at the Gießener Institut für angewandte Theaterwissen- schaften in order to enlarge the long history of theater with the small accidents of everyday life, the unpredictable.

Among their recent productions: the Identa 01 at the Münchner Gasteig (together with Ian Schultz), De Hermeneutische Fitness Studio (The Hermeneutic Fitness Studio) at the Beurschouwburg Brüssel, and Europa tanzt / 48 Stunden Meerschweinchen Kongress (Europe Dances / 48 Hours At A Guinea Pig Convention) in the museum quarter in Vienna.

www.hygieneheute.de

Bobo Jelcic gilt als einer der herausragenden Regisseure des jungen kroatischen Theaters. Zusammen mit seiner Koautorin Nataša Rajkovic arbeitet er an einer Dramaturgie des Alltags, an einer Form des "story telling", die das Aufregende in der Banalität entdeckt.

Nach ihren Inszenierungen "Promatranja" ("Beobachtungen") und "Usporovanja" ("Zeitlupe") gewannen sie 1999 mit "Nesigurna Prica" je zwei erste Preise bei Festivals in Split und Rijeka und erzielten bei einer Tournee in Großbritannien erstmals international Aufmerksamkeit.

After traveling and working odd jobs (male nurse, apprentice to an organ builder, sommelier, bar pianist), Jürg Kienberger studied German in Lausanne and Zurich.

In 1986 he started to work as a theater musician in Zurich and Basel and also at the TamS in Munich. During this time he started to work with Christoph Marthaler, a collaboration which is still going on today.

From 1992-97 Kienberger lived in Berlin and was an actor and member of the ensemble at the Volksbühne in Berlin for four years. He has directed productions and performed as a guest artist in Berlin, Hamburg and Frankfurt since 1996.

Recently Jürg Kienberger received acclaim at the Salzburger Festspiele 2001 for his performance in Christoph Marthaler's production of Mozart's "Figaro".

The Studio Theater Warsaw is one of the leading theaters in Poland, where the most important actors in the country have performed - they frequently had their debut here - and the theater offers the young generation of talented directors a chance to work, for instance the Lithuanian director Oskaras Koršunovas.
His piece "Sanatorium pod Klepsydra" had its premiere at Studio Theater Warsaw in February 2001.

Oskaras Koršunovas studied from 1989 to 1993 at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and has been teaching there since 1997.
From 1990 to 1998 he directed productions on a regular basis at the Lithuanian State Academy Theater (now called Nationaltheater), and in 1998 he founded his own theater group, Oskaras Koršunovas Theater.

Along with Eimuntas Nekrosius, whose production of "Makbetas" was performed at the SPIELART 1999, he is currently the best-known Lithuanian director. His production of "The Master and Margarita" also received international acclaim.

The ensemble Nico and the Navigators was founded in 1996 at the Bauhaus Dessau. Nico and the Navigators examine the complex forms of expression of interpersonal communication. Typical for their work: the stage settings are just as important as the acting.

www.navigators.de

The Theater am Sozialamt, abbreviated as TamS, transformed a civic bath into a theater. The Süddeutsche Zeitung referred to the theater as a "global rear courtyard theater." The theater is located in the heart of the artists' quarter in Munich, in Schwabing, on the corner of Occamstrasse and Haimhauserstrasse.

The theater was founded in 1970 by the author and actor Philip Arp and his partner Anette Spola, and its production of "Valentinaden" by Philip Arp brought the theater recognition and fame. The theater is part of the Karl Valentin tradition of Munich folk theater. Important authors had their world premieres and first performances here:
Peter Handke, Thomas Bernhard, Ernst Jandl, Georges Perec, Judith Herzberg, Robert Gernhardt and Elfriede Jelinek. Authors who are friends of the theater write pieces for TamS: Urs Widmer, Gerhard Polt and Ruedi Häusermann.

Theater ohne Grenzen explores the artificial worlds of animated objects and images. In addition to numerous coproductions and guest performances (in Berlin, Budapest, Istanbul, Johannesburg, London, Melbourne, Singapore and Turin, among other cities), Theater ohne Grenzen organizes the international puppet theater festival for adults in Vienna, the "Die Macht des Staunens" (The Power of Astonishment).

Martina Winkel studied theater and worked as a freelance theatermaker in Vienna and Berlin and also as a dramatic advisor at the Viennese Burgtheater before she founded Theater ohne Grenzen with Airan Berg in 1993.
Airan Berg worked in New York after completing his degree in theater, and then at the Burgtheater Wien and as a staff director at the Schillertheater Berlin. Airan Berg has been the artistic director of the Schauspielhaus Wien since July 2001.

www.tog.at

The media artist Christian Ziegler studied architecture and media art. He has been working at the ZKM Karlsruhe (Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie) since 1993. He develops prize-winning installations and CD-ROMs together with different international artists at the ZKM Karlsruhe, at the National Gallery of Canada, the Ballett Frankfurt and the Goethe-Institut; for example, the CD-ROM "Bill Forsythe: Improvisation Technologies" (1999).

He has been a guest artist at the ZKM Karlsruhe since 2000, where he has been creating Scanned, a media environment for dance and movement. He is working on different dance and technology projects that explore using the Internet as a possible extension of the definition of the stage.

www.movingimages.de

Under the direction of the actor, choreographer and director Johan Simons and the composer and director Paul Koek, the Theatergroep Hollandia (now called Zuidelijk Toneel Hollandia) has made a name for itself at home and abroad.

www.zuidelijkToneelHollandia.nl