Lydia Ziemke, born 1978 in Potsdam, lives in Berlin. She studied Classics at the University of Edinburgh and was running the Gilded Balloon Studio Ensemble there for three years. Since 2006, after completing LAMDA’s one-year directing Pro-gramme, she divided her time between London and Berlin as a freelance director and dramaturg. In 2009 she assisted Ramin Gray and Mark Ravenhill at the Royal Court Theatre, was directing and dramaturgical assistant at the Schaubühne, Berlin, took part in the International Forum of the Berliner Theatertreffen, and founded the international company suite42 with the piece LAND WITHOUT WORDS by Dea Loher, which toured internationally until 2013 and has recently been restaged by the company in German and French. 2010 Ziemke was the German recipient of the British Council Cultural Leadership scholarship and travelled in five arabic countries and theatre scenes. 2011-2014 the company produced plays by contemporary Arab writers for the Heimathafen Neukölln and since then cooperates with companies in Lebanon, Palestine and Morocco. Ziemke writes radio features, i.e. about the refugee protest movement on Oranienplatz in Berlin Kreuzberg for Deutschlandradio Kultur, and articles for regional and international magazines. German theatre critic Patrick Wildermann called her a “translator of the unspeakable” in the theatre magazine “Theater der Zeit”. Since 2014 she curates and co-moderates the salon “ÜberMorgenLand” at the Radialsystem V, Berlin.