Where to Next? A Residency for Watching and Talking

Born in 1991 in Angeles City, Philippines. Actor, dramaturg, and educator. Through the MEXT scholarship grant, she earned an MA in Global Arts from Tokyo University of the Arts. Her work explores decolonial and feminist practices across performance and education. She recently worked with chelfitsch's "Window of the Spaceship In-Between" as an actor and with Philippine Educational Theater Association × BRDG's "Sari-Sali: Portal Cafe" as a dramaturg. She is also a co-founder of interdiscplinary collective, Salikhain Kolektib. She has played leading roles in films such as Raya Martin's "Now Showing" (Cannes 2008) and "How to Disappear Completely" (Locarno 2013, MoMA 2017).
www.nessroque.com

Sumenep (Indonesia)
Theatre Director

Fikril Akbar is a cultural activist, interdisciplinary artist, and farmer from Sumenep, Madura, East Java. In 2021, he co-founded Lembâna Artgroecosystem, a platform that connects rural communities and contemporary art, aiming to nurture citizen participation. Its main program is Babad Lembâna, an annual art festival that connects artists from different regions of Indonesia and Lembana local residents, creating spaces for collective reflection and strengthening social bonds. Through Babad Lembâna, Lembâna Artgroecosystem empowers youth and residents to reclaim their cultural identity, addressing local issues and bridging gaps between marginalized communities and the broader world. His work builds solidarity and nurtures deeper connections, enabling the community to imagine a more inclusive and sustainable future. He is also one of the founding members of Garasi Performance Institute, a performance academy and open hub that works with performance praxis paradigms of diverse socio-cultural phenomena.

https://www.instagram.com/circkpick/

Basel (Switzerland)
Dramaturg, Curator

Max Brands is a dramaturg at Kaserne Basel, one of Switzerland’s leading venues for contemporary performing arts. He works at the intersection of artists, audiences, and institutions, supporting projects from conception to realization. His practice reflects a strong interest in new theatrical forms, cross-disciplinary collaboration, and socio-political issues. He sees Kaserne as both a laboratory for artistic experimentation and an open space of encounter. Max studied Applied Theatre Studies in Giessen and, before joining Kaserne, worked in the independent theatre scene and for the artistic direction of the Ruhrtriennale, the international Festival of the Arts in the Ruhr region.
https://kaserne-basel.ch/en

Iligan City (Philippines)
Artist, Cultural Worker

Bjork Colao is an artist, space maker, and cultural worker engaged in ongoing research on Filipino culture and heritage, as manifested in daily performativity, tradition, language, natural and communal ecologies, and archipelagic imagination. Working across dance, film, writing, community documentation, and art activation, she explores the role of art and culture in community building and spirituality. Guided by a commitment to the eco-cultural consciousness of an archipelagic body in the post-colonial Philippines, she founded Ila Ila Journal and co-founded Curbada Dive as micro-spaces for storytelling and intersecting advocacies. She is pursuing a Master's degree in Culture and Arts Studies and currently serves as Cultural Director of TAYO House of Culture and Creativity, a design studio and consultancy anchored in archipelagic design. Most recently, she deepened her work on the Pangalay and her broader performance-making journey as a fellow of Performance Ecologies, organized by the Goethe-Institut Philippinen in partnership with Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm, Orange Project, and Linangan Art Residency.
https://www.instagram.com/bjorkcolao

Jakarta (Indonesia)
Performing Arts Producer/Manager

Halida (Dida) Bunga Fisandra is a performing arts producer and manager based in Jakarta, Indonesia. She is currently the Program Manager of Performing Arts and Education at Komunitas Salihara Arts Center, and the co-founder and director of Perempuan Komponis: Forum & Lab, a collective of Indonesian women and gender-diverse composers. With a background in music composition and anthropology, her work explores space and media, knowledge production, and decolonization in Indonesian contemporary music. Dida is currently the Indonesian delegate for the British Council x Factory International: Global Creative Producers 2025–2026 program.
https://www.instagram.com/didafisandra/

Bangkok (Thailand)
Producer, Artist

Based in Bangkok, Naruebet Jaksusuwan is a graduate of Chulalongkorn University, where he majored in Performing Arts. He works as a performer and actor in short films and theatrical productions, while also aspiring to become a producer for theater plays and performative projects. Naruebet is interested in "things beyond normal eyesight" due to his mid-level color deficiency, which fuels his curiosity about how his unique perception of the world differs from that of people with normal vision. He explores what he might see or perceive differently and extends this curiosity to other ways of seeing—both beyond human vision and beyond sight itself. Over the past three years, Naruebet has gained recognition for his inventive and boundary-pushing projects. In 2024, he participated in the ADAM Artist Lab residency, an experience that deepened his creative practice and fostered meaningful collaboration with fellow artists. He also serves as the project manager for the second edition of H0M0HAUS, an ongoing theatre festival celebrating diversity in Bangkok. Naruebet is a member of the MORASUM Network, a collective that explores new ways of doing and being an art producer in Southeast Asia. Most recently, he was selected as one of the fellows of the International Forum 2025 at Theatertreffen in Berlin, Germany.
https://naruebetjaksusuwan.wixsite.com/my-site-2

Tokyo/Kyoto (Japan)
Playwright

Born in 1998 in Kyoto, Japan. In 2022, received the Tabata Minoru Playwriting Award Grand Prize for her graduation project at Kyoto University of the Arts. The following year, she won the AAF Playwriting Award Special Prize for her work inspired by vlogs in which women in their 20s share stories of their daily lives. In 2025, she launched MADO-machine, and her first work under this project, CELL/AUTOMATIC, was created through research into the routines of people working around supermarkets and presented in a narrative form. She continues to develop works that start from the reality of everyday life and the underlying fears within it.
https://www.instagram.com/mado_machine/
https://x.com/mado_machine

Hà Nội (Vietnam)
Theatre Maker, Puppeteer, Dancer

Linh is a Hanoi-based artist who began with contemporary dance. In 2024, Linh joined ToLo Puppet Theatre, where she expanded her artistic practice into theatre and experimental puppetry. Her current research focuses on the creations that blur the boundaries between body, object, and sensation, challenging conventional distinctions between animate and inanimate, presence and absence. With a background in Physics, Linh is also developing interdisciplinary approaches that integrate sensors, robotics, and machinery, driven by curiosity about their expressive potential. Her recent piece, (Neg)entropy, reflects on her transition from a Physics teacher to an artist, and her ongoing exploration of identity through the lens of movement, lecture, and machinery.

Barcelona (Catalonia, Spain)
Performing Arts Programmer

Núria Ramis Masachs (Barcelona, 1992) holds a degree in Humanities from the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona (2016) and an MA in Theatre Studies from the Universitat Autònoma in Barcelona (2020). Her master’s research focused on critical discourses and contemporary journalistic criticism of Catalan theatre. Alongside her academic work, she has worked as an assistant director and dramaturg in various theatre productions. From 2020 to 2024, she served as Assistant to the Artistic Director at Teatre Lliure. She is currently the Deputy Artistic Director of the Grec Festival, an international festival organized by the Barcelona City Council that presents performances across different disciplines throughout the city during the month of July.

Bangkok (Thailand)
Theatre Writer, Director

Panmas Tongpan is a Bangkok-based theatre maker working across writing, directing, performing, and composing. Their work explores gender, spirituality, and technology in Thai and Asian contexts, often through absurd humor and non-traditional forms. A founding member of Anti-Thesis theatre group, Panmas has created award-winning works like Dilok Von Siam (2023) and the sci-fi/comedy musical Women with a Time Machine. Their experience spans devised, text-based, and improvised theatre, featured in festivals such as Bangkok Theatre Festival and BIPAM. They are currently developing stripped-down musical theatre and building space for former theatre students and practitioners to reconnect with performance-making amid limited structural support.
https://www.facebook.com/panmas.tongpan/

Tokyo (Japan)
Performing Arts Communicator

Born in March 1999. In college, she majored in English and American literature and participated in a seminar on Shakespeare’s plays. After graduation, she joined Nevula Enterprises, Inc., where she worked extensively in public relations support for the performing arts industry, including writing articles to promote performances and managing social networking services, and became a freelancer in 2023. In addition to her public relations work in the arts, she has also been involved in marketing for other industries. She is also interested in creating new audiences for the performing arts. In 2024, she started “Vacant land for the Arts,” a collective that plans and implements initiatives to attract new audiences to the performing arts.
https://nanaminanohana.jp
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100055795730064