Meet the Team

Kerstin Ortmeier / Artistic Director africologne

Born in Nuremberg. She studied Modern German Literature, Romance Studies and Theater and Media Studies in Erlangen and Aix-en-Provence. She has worked for various daily newspapers as well as news and cultural editorial offices of public broadcasters and as an assistant director and production assistant for Eikon Media in Berlin.

She worked as an assistant dramaturg at the Staatstheater Nürnberg and as a freelancer in the fields of production, organization, PR and dramaturgy, among others for the international dance and theater festival and symposium off limits in Dortmund, the multimedia, interdisciplinary, EU-funded art project “HANGING AROUND/ HeimatQuartier” and the international authors’ meeting of the Mülheimer Theatertage NRW “Stücke ’06”.

Starting in 2008, she worked as an assistant to the artistic director (Amelie Deuflhard) at the Kampnagel International Cultural Center in Hamburg. From 2009 to 2016, she was a dramaturg at the Theater im Bauturm. In the fall of 2010, she provided dramaturgical support for the original productions at the Récréâtrales theater festival in Burkina Faso, and in 2011, together with Gerhardt Haag, she launched africologne, which she subsequently led as project director and curator. In 2023, she assumed the role of artistic director of the festival.

In 2022 and 2024, she also worked as a program curator and dramaturg at the Humboldt Forum in Berlin, including for the Transcontinental Festival. In 2025, she moderated all audience discussions in English during the festival’s second edition in December.