Samara Hersch is an Australian theatre maker, director and teaching artist whose practice explores the intersection of contemporary performance and community engagement. She often works with both professional and non-professionally trained performers as a way of opening up new conversations, methodologies and unlikely encounters. She has a curiosity about voice, sound and the ethics and potentialities of creating space for diverse perspectives to be heard. Samara is currently studying her Masters at DAS Theatre in Amsterdam. Her research is an exploration into radical modes of listening and public acts of intimacy, particularly through imagining new performative frames for non-professional performers and audiences to inhabit.

Be SpectACTive! is a large-scale European cooperation project - co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union - that operates in performing arts through artistic productions and participatory practices aimed at involving the citizens in creative processes. It involves 19 partners, located in 18 cities and in 15 different European countries: Kilowatt Festival (IT) - the project leader - Artemrede (PT), Bakelit Multi Art Center (HU), brut (AT), BUDA (BE), CdAT – Café de las Artes Teatro (ES), Domino (HR), Dublin Theatre Festival (IE), Gothenburg Dance and Theatre Festival (SE), SKCNS - Institution Student Cultural Centre of Novi Sad (RS), International Theatre Festival Divadelná Nitra (SK), Plesni Teater Ljubljana (SI), Occitanie en scène (FR), Tanec Praha (CZ), Teatrul National Radu Stanca Sibiu (RO). Research aspects are followed by Fondazione Fitzcarraldo (IT), Universitat de Barcelona (ES), Université de Montpellier (FR) and CNRS (FR).