Florian Malzacher 
Not just a mirror. Looking for the political theatre today [EPUB ebook] 
Performing Urgency 1

Florian Malzacher is an independent performing arts curator, dramaturge and writer. He was artistic director of Impulse Theater Festival in Cologne, Dusseldorf and Mulheim/Ruhr (2013-2017), co-curator of the multidisciplinary arts festival steirischer herbst in Graz/Austria (2006-2012) and curatorial advisor of the Ruhrtriennale (2018-20).
Among his current projects is discoursive program ‘The Art of Assembly’ (since 2021) and ‘Training for the Future’ (together with Jonas Staal, since 2018). For summer semester 2021 is guest professor at the Institute of Applied Theater Studies, University Giessen. He is co-editor of the ongoing book-series ‘Postdramatisches Theater in Portraits’ at Alexander Verlag.
After graduating at the Institute for Applied Theater Studies in Gießen he worked till 2005 mainly as a freelance theatre journalist for daily newspapers and has continued since then to contribute regularly to international magazines like Theater Heute (DE), Tanz (DE), Frakcija (HR), Didaskalia (PL) and Camera Austria (AT) etc.
Florian Malzacher has worked as a freelance dramaturge at theatres like Burgtheater Vienna or Mousonturm Frankfurt with artists like Rimini Protokoll (DE), Lola Arias (ARG), Mariano Pensotti (ARG), Tania Bruguera (CUB) and regularly with Nature Theater of Oklahoma (USA). He was a founding member of the independent curators’ collective Unfriendly Takeover (2001 – 2008) in Frankfurt/Main.
Florian Malzacher (co-)curated next to his festivals e.g. the 4th and 5th International Summer Academy (Mousonturm Frankfurt 2002 and 2004), the ‘Dictionary of War’ (2006/07), the series ‘Performing Lectures’ (Frankfurt, 2004-06), the 170 hours non-stop marathon camp ‘Truth is concrete’ on artistic strategies in politics (Graz, 2012), the congress ‘Artist Organisations International’ (together with Jonas Staal and Joanna Warsza, HAU Berlin, 2015), and ‘Sense of Possibility’ on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the revolution (St. Petersburg, 2017), ‘Training for the Future’ (together with Jonas Staal, since 2018), and ‘After Supervising the Machinery’ on the occasion of the 200th birthday of Friedrich Engels (Engelskirchen, 2020), as well as performative conferences like ‘Appropriations’ (Ethnologisches Museum Berlin, 2014) and ‘Acting and Preenacting’ (HZT Berlin, 2018).
He taught and/or lectured among others at universities and academies in Amsterdam, Berlin, Chicago, Frankfurt, Vienna, Oslo, Stockholm, Taipei and Zurich and was a member of the advisory board of Das Arts – Master of Theatre, Amsterdam (2009-2014). 2021 he is guest professor at the Institute of Applied Theater Studies, University Giessen.
He was series editor of ‘Performing Urgency’ (2014-2017) and is a co-editor of the book series ‘Postdramatisches Theater in Portraits’ (since 2019). He was a on the advisory board for theatre of the Goethe-Institut (2015 – 2020) and is a member of the Theaterkommission Zurich (since 2013).
He is (co-)editor of books like ‘Not even A Game Anymore. The Theatre of Forced Entertainment’ (Berlin, 2004), ‘Experts of the Everyday. The Theatre of Rimini Protokoll’ (Berlin, 2008) or ‘Curating Performing Arts’ (Frakcija/Zagreb 2010). His latest publications include ‘Truth is concrete. A Handbook for Artistic Strategies in Real Politics’ (Berlin, 2014), ‘Not Just a Mirror. Looking for the Political Theatre of Today’ (Berlin/Live Arts Development Agency, 2015), ‘The Silent University. Towards a Transversal Pedagogy’ (Berlin, 2016), ‘Empty Stages, Crowded Flats. Performativity as Curatorial Strategy’ (2017) and ‘The Life and Work of Nature Theater of Oklahoma’ (2019). His latest book is ‘Gesellschaftsspiele. Politisches Theater heute’ (2020).