THE TEAM
Born in 1976, Sophia Stepf grew up in Kassel with stints in
New Zealand and Canada where she studied at Toronto's York
University. She holds an MA in dramaturgy for theatre and media from
the HMT Leipzig and qualified as a business cultural trainer at IH
London and as an Anti-Bias trainer at EBJW Weimar.
Since 2003, Sophia has been developing and managing theatre projects for the
Goethe-Institut MMB in India and a number of international
festivals (Theater der
Welt 2005, Vienna Festwochen 2007, Linz 09) where her duties included programming, writing,
translating and hosting public talks. An expert on theatre, Sophia was a researcher with the German
Federal Endowment for the Arts and the Goethe-Institut in New Delhi. She
writes on Indian theatre for the magazine "Theater Heute" and is
currently developing and managing the partnership between Ranga Shankara
Bangalore and Schnawwl am Nationaltheater Mannheim.
Sophia regularly conducts seminars and workshops on theatre, intercultural communication, and cultural management. In her training, she emphasizes an experiential approach while also developing new training methods based on the concepts of European Theatre Pedagogy. With clients from the educational, public administrative, and the corporate sector, Sophia has been at the forefront of advancing the intercultural dialogue between India and Germany.
In her remaining time, Sophia writes and stages contemporary plays on the friction between globalisation, the local and cultural identities with the company Flinntheater. She recently taught the course "Intercultural Dramaturgy" at the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig.
Anja Schütze was born in 1978 and grew up near Dresden.
She has an MA in Culture and Media Education from the FH Merseburg and qualified as a business cultural trainer at IH London.
After finishing high school, she worked as a volunteer in the kibbutzim Yahel and Kinneret in Israel.
Since 2003, she has been an education consultant for the German Federation of Associations for Cultural Youth Education, advising cultural establishments and training volunteers. She also collaborated with Germany's biggest umbrella organisation for disabled people, Aktion Mensch, to create and implement a model project for promoting young people's participation in the arts.
Moreover, she has made documentary films in Germany, India and Afghanistan. Her documentary "Barbershop Politics" about the Kashmir conflict, won the 3sat newcomer prize in 2004. Since 2001, she has given regular workshops on short film, music video, animation and Bollywood (SR Film Institute Kolkata / University of Kabul / German Technical Cooperation Lithuania). In 2007, she was part of a federal German delegation that went to China to develop Sino-German cultural exchange.
She has worked as an intercultural trainer in education and business for the past two years.