Mariam was born in 1992 and is a multimedia artist, actress and co-founder of the Georgian children theatre company Aitsona-Daitsona. After graduating with a BA in law from Georgian Technical University, she pursued a career as an artist and studied at the Centre of Contemporary Arts Tbilisi. She is currently doing her MA in graphic design at Tbilisi State Academy of Arts. Together with Mareike Wenzel and Lili Mamulashvili she founded the NGO and children theatre company Aitsona-Daitsona. She acts in all Aitsona-Daitsona’s plays, works as project manager and runs and devises workshops for children and teachers. Outside her work with Aitsona-Daitsona, Mariam is a professional artist. She works in various mediums of art, mostly in fine art, design and performance, and her works have been shown in solo and group exhibitions. She is also a member and co-founder of the feminist art collective “Gorgonas”.
Lili, born in 1992, is one of the co-founders of Aitsona-Daitsona, for which she works as an actress and educational programme manager. She is a cultural educator and has acquired a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and a Master’s degree in Sociology of Culture and Media. She studies the representations of femininity in pop music. Lili acts in all of Aitsona-Daitsona’s plays and runs workshops for teacher and children. As Aitsona-Daitsona’s educational programme manager, she coordinates activities with schools and cultural centres and is part of the team devising the workshops. Lili also works as a journalist writing on feminism and pop culture. She has been hosting the feminist podcast “Femstream” together with the Boell Foundation and the Women’s Fund in Georgia.
Mareike, born in 1978, is an actress and theatre-maker and graduated with a BA(Hons) in Acting from Birmingham School of Acting in 2004. She has been a member of the performance company SIGNA since 2007 and has performed at various theatres and festivals all over Europe. In 2017, she founded the Georgian NGO and children’s theatre Aitsona-Daitsona together with Mariam Gabritchidze and Lili Mamulashvili with the aim to bring modern, emancipatory children’s theatre especially to the regions of Georgia. Mareike is Aitsona-Daitsona’s artistic director has directed all of Aitsona-Daitsona’s plays, and together with the team, she created the educational programme and runs theatre workshops for children and teachers.
Mareike’s focus is on narrative spaces and immersive performances. Her own performances have been invited to Tbilisi Triennial, Gallery Nectar Tbilisi, FLARE 15 Festival and others. She ran theatre workshops for organisations such as the Women’s Initiative Supporting Group Tbilisi, the Boell Foundation and Goethe Institute Georgia, DVV International and Civic Education Teacher’s Forum. She is currently a fellow at “Artistic Interventions in Cultural Education” of Hildesheim University.