TFTS: Hungary

CURATOR: Zsófi Rebeka Kozma

Zsófi was born in Budapest. She moved to the US to study Sociology then transferred, getting her BA in Theater from the CUNY Hunter College. Returning to Hungary, her interest focused on autobiographical, interactive and movement theater and she created her first solo performance, Present Imperfect, as a theatre and performance art student at the Freeszfe Society. She works as a freelance performer, actor and creator and has been part of theater education projects as a teaching artist. She was a 2021 European Theater Convention Artist in Residence and is part of the 2022/23 Titánium Grant program for new project development.

MODERATOR: Dr. Anikó Szűcs

Dr. Anikó Szűcs is a Visiting Assistant Professor in Theater at Skidmore College. Her research interests include Central and East European political theatre, protest movements and performances, and the genealogy and critique of state surveillance. Dr. Szucs holds a Ph.D. in Performance Studies from New York University and an M.F.A. in Theater Studies and Dramaturgy from the University of Theater and Film Arts in Budapest. Before her appointment at Skidmore, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the Russian, East European, and Eurasian programs at Yale University. She has worked both as a resident and a production dramaturg in theaters across the US and Hungary.

ARTIST: VERA JONES

Vera Jones is a Hungarian singer-songwriter, and band leader of Vera Jonas Experiment for over a decade. They released four studio albums, an EP, and many singles over the years, and toured Europe and the far East several times, performing at festivals like Eurosonic, Zandari, Sziget, and Tauron Life to name a few. In recent years she's been working closely with an experimental choir called Soharoza, performing, improvising, and even composing together with unusual techniques. She's now living in Berlin.

ARTIST: Kristóf Horváth

Kristóf Horváth is an actor, director, writer, two times winner of the Hungarian National Slam Poetry Championship. Having a strong Roma identity, he is the founder of the Tudás Hatalom Csoport (Knowledge is Power Group), a countrywide talent education system, and leads drama courses for kids living in the settlements of Hungary. Fearing being useless, he despises the „l'art pour l'art” approach and is constantly fighting to live up to the image of the "useful artist".

ARTIST: Gergő Dávid Farkas

Gergo D. Farkas (1996, they/them) is a choreographer, dancer, clubber, and bartender currently based in Stockholm and Budapest.

Gergo choreographs spaces where humans, non-humans, material, and immaterial are equally super welcome to dance. Their latest piece Deep Fake is currently on tour as a selected work for Aerowaves Twenty22.

In the season 2021/2022 they have been facilitating LGBTQ+ inclusive box and Hungarian folk dance workshops as a member of the OMOH collective in Budapest.

ARTIST: Rodrigó Balogh

Rodrigo Balogh is the founder and artistic leader of the Independent Theater Hungary. Hungarian-gypsy director, playwright, and trainer. 

Artistic director of the Roma Heroes International Roma Theater Festival, and the curator of the Roma Heroes Digital Collection of European Roma Theater and Drama. 

His mission is to ensure comprehensive visibility and development for the European GRT (Gipsy-Roma-Traveller) drama and theater and thereby support the empowerment of GRT communities. 

Rodrigó adores his couple, dogs, and colleagues.

ARTIST: Mikolt Tózsa

Mikolt Tózsa (1992) is an artist and performer based in Budapest, who graduated from Freeszfe Association’s theatre and performance studies course, which is the first education program in performance art in Hungary.  Her work is based on critical practices, defined by experimentation with the boundaries of theatre, the social and communal dilemmas that shape the present and thinking about gender roles. She sees theatre as an event where the spectator is an active participant. She works with living material in her creations, her work is dynamized by the impulses of her environment and her personal experiences. She stands for a collaborative creative process. Theatre pedagogy is a significant element in her work.

ARTIST: Veronika Szabó

Veronika Szabó is a freelance actor, director, and clown based in Budapest. She graduated from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London studying contemporary theatre making after gaining a diploma in Applied Theatre at Goldsmiths University.  In her performances, she uses playful, comic, and grotesque language inviting audiences to interact. She often creates site-specific, immersive shows. Her shows are about gender, queerness, the female and the grotesque body, and Humanimal behaviors. They have been presented at theaters and festivals internationally. Recently she works as a choreographer with director Ildikó Gaspar at Dailes Theatre in Riga and Göteborg Stadttheater. Queendom's show won the Audience Award at Theater Festival and the Smeraldina Prize for her acting at Vidor Festival. She is the founder and theatre lecturer of the Performance and Theatre course at Friesz Fe.

ARTIST: Martin Boross

Martin Boross is a theatre director and the artistic director of STEREO AKT.

His work has been presented in 39 cities in 13 countries.

He earned his diploma at Budapest’s University of Theatre and Film Arts. Since 2011, he has directed 20 original theatre productions including on-stage, site-specific, opera, documentary, and participatory works.

His post-dramatic pieces are political and interdisciplinary, he is interested in using interaction as a dramaturgical technique for critical, creative, reflective audience involvement.

Martin started filmmaking in 2017. He has directed 2 short films and a documentary, currently working on his first feature film.

Artist: Panni Néder

Panni Néder (director, author, and performer) studied stage directing at the University of Theater and Film Arts in Hungary and the HfS Ernst Busch Berlin as a DAAD guest student. Her diploma work was performed in Budapest for 10 years. She defines herself as a multidisciplinary artist who explores the different forms of autobiographical and documentary theater and interweaves her texts with physical theater elements, songs, or video art.

She develops socio-political stage performances in which, beyond categories, an honest encounter between the audience and actors takes place. Her successful Berlin stage debut "When was the last time you had sex on top of a mountain?" was invited to several German and international theater festivals.