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Dr. Benjamin Hoesch

Dr. Benjamin Hoesch

Research Associate in the project "Nachwuchsfestivals — Zwischen Event und der Suche nach neuen Formen"


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Short Biography

Benjamin Hoesch (*1987) studied Theater Studies as well as General and Comparative Literature in Mainz, Valencia, and Tel Aviv. After completing his Magister degree in 2013, he worked as a research associate in Mainz while simultaneously beginning a Master’s program in Applied Theater Studies in Gießen. In Mainz, he served as coordinator of the International PhD Program (IPP) “Performance & Media Studies” and co-founded the working group “Immersive Spaces” at the Research Center of Social and Cultural Studies Mainz (SoCuM); in Gießen, he co-organized and co-curated DISKURS 15 – Festival on Spatial Arts.

Artistically, he has worked at the Stadttheater Gießen and the Junges Staatstheater Kassel, as well as repeatedly at Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm and Kampnagel Hamburg, primarily as part of a directing duo with Gregor Glogowski. Their joint works, situated between installation, performance, and music theater, have been invited to festivals such as Radikal Jung, Tonlagen – Festival for Contemporary Music Dresden, Transeuropa, and World Stage Design. Together, they have led practical workshops and scenic projects—among others on rhythm and lighting design—at the Taiwan National University of the Arts and the Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Utrecht. They are also founding members of Matter of Facts Studio e.V., a production platform for experimental music theater.

Since 2018, Hoesch has been a research associate in Gießen and a member of the nationwide interdisciplinary DFG research group 2734: „Krisengefüge der Künste. Institutionelle Transformationsdynamiken in den darstellenden Künsten der Gegenwart.“ Within the subproject “Festivals for Emerging Artists: Between Event and the Search for New Forms” (2018–2021), and affiliated with the Gießen Centre for the Study of Culture (GCSC), he completed his PhD in 2022 with a dissertation entitled Festivals for Emerging Artists: Institution, Organization, and Transformation in Contemporary Theater. Since then, Hoesch has been conducting postdoctoral research in the follow-up project “European Emerging Theater Makers: The Transformation of Directing Training” (2021–2025), and teaches courses, for example in 2023 at the Zurich University of the Arts. Within the German Society for Theater Studies (GTW), he is a founding member of the working group “Institutional Transformation” as well as the network group “Theater Studies-Informed Teaching in Artistic Training Contexts.”