Ada Mukhína (born 1988 in St.Petersburg / lives in Berlin) is a nomadic artist, theatre director, writer, interdisciplinary researcher and performer. She creates political, investigative and participatory theatre performances across genres and borders that often invite the audience to step in. When researching topics, she draws inspiration from interviews, spaces, and collaborations with artists from different parts of the world. Her bold performances often investigate power structures as well as distribution of resources, risks and privileges. With humour and lightness of touch, she questions the existing systems and critiques both worlds of politics and performance.
Ada Mukhína holds a Law Diploma with distinction and two Master degrees in Performing Arts from Saint Petersburg Theatre Academy and London’s Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. Before moving to Germany, she was the founder of Theatre project Vmeste whose team became one of the flagships of Russian socially engaged theatre in 2010s. She directed and co-created critically acclaimed feminist and political theatre pieces such as Locker Room Talk and Caries of Capitalism, which were named among the most notable theatre productions of the season by the Golden Mask National Theatre Award. Her work quickly gained international attention and was presented in Germany, the Netherlands, South Africa, France, India, Austria, the USA and the UK.
Her recent theatre pieces, including participatory performances about risk in art and artists at risk, Risk Lab, a humorous lecture-performance about the Western art market, How to Sell Yourself To the West, and performative walk to the places of exile in the city, Exile Promenade, have been presented i.a. at the Berliner Festspiele, the Deutsches Theater and Sophiensaele in Berlin, Staatstheater in Mainz, Theater Rampe in Stuttgart, at Deutschlandfunk and WDR Radio, at the Camden People’s Theatre in London and Frascati in Amsterdam. She was awarded i.a. a Fellowship from the Berlin Akademie der Künste (Academy of Arts), a Global Exchange Stipend in South Africa from the Federal State of Berlin, the Institute français x Cité internationale des arts residency in Paris, and a Fellowship of the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics from the Georgetown University, Washington, DC.
Ada Mukhína is a guest lecturer in the arts school in Germany and the UK, and a mentor for transnational artists at the Performing Arts Program Berlin. As a German Chancellor Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, she conducted research on socially engaged arts and published texts in various languages in Deutsche Bühne, Journal der Künste, Teatr, Eye-to-Eye Magazine, Indent: Body and Performative, etc. She is frequently invited to be a jury member as well as speaker on issues such as arts and politics, including her appearances at Theater podcast’s Episode 45 (React on War with Active Desperation) together with Birgit Lengers and the European Festivals Association’s documentary Take 5* together with Romeo Castellucci, Nele Hertling, Haris Pasovic, and Serge Aimé Coulibaly.