Fabienne Gorges was born in Luxembourg. A student in psychology, she developed a liking for spoken word in the United States, where she joined a collective and learned the art of spoken word poetry from scratch. Among other things, she learned how important it is for text, voice, role and posture to be in tune if a spoken word performance is to be successful.

Fabienne is a fresh and important voice in a fast-moving world that is currently undergoing dramatic changes.She stands for a young generation that is expected to take on several global crises at once: climate, war, pandemic. The young poet takes her audience on a highly emotional journey punctuated by bombastic rhymes and moving words.

Jackie Moontan is a man from the moon – or so he says. He is known for his fondness for kitsch and for donning satin shirts and brightly coloured suits on stage. His shows are full of surprises and unpredictable performances. Sometimes he goes into a trance like an evangelist and howls, delighting his audiences with a dance interlude or falling off the stage – all of which can happen at the same time. When Moontan enters the room, human conventions go out the window. But he is also a sharp observer, a fabulous pop singer and a brilliant verbal acrobat whose part-absurd, part-moving stories never fail to mesmerise the public.

Cosimo Suglia was born in Luxembourg in 1995. After obtaining a bachelor’s degree in European culture, he successfully completed his master in Luxembourgish studies with a thesis on Luxembourgish science fiction (both academic courses offered by the University of Luxembourg). He writes short stories, poems and plays, and has contributed to various specialist publications including Les Cahiers Luxembourgeois, Black Fountain Press, Nos Cahiers and Solarpunk Magazine.

In 2021, he won the Chrysalis Award, which distinguishes emerging writers in the field of speculative fiction, for Luxembourg. In September of the same year, he won the first Luxembourg National Poetry Slam Competition organised by the collective Géisskann. He also represented Luxembourg at the European Poetry Slam Championship in Brussels.

For Gina Árvai, writing has long been a means to put into words her experiences as a child of immigrant parents. She began her career by performing her own texts at poetry slam events. In 2016, she won the Prix Laurence, a literature prize for young contemporary poetry.

Since this key experience, she has been working relentlessly on developing her performances, in which she essentially explores the concept of ‘bad taste’ in spoken word. In spring 2022, she was invited to perform on the picturesque Place Saint-Sulpice in the heart of Paris as part of the prestigious festival Printemps des poètes. Gina, who refers to herself as a word mechanic, speaks and writes in Luxembourgish, French, German, English, Hungarian and Italian.

Growing up on the German Baltic Sea coast, Franziska Peschel let the wind, her studies and her curiosity carry her across Germany and Europe to the coasts of France, Sweden and Italy. The pandemic left her stranded in Luxembourg, far from the sea, where she started working as a journalist. She has always been comfortable with a pen and a notebook – as much, in fact, as with being on stage and speaking into a microphone.

But only in Luxemburg was she able to combine her two passions, and in 2021 she promptly came second in the National Poetry Slam Championship. Whether in journalism or in writing fiction, her focus always lies on the narrative. Before she commits a single stroke to the page, she observes, listens, smells and touches. Her texts want to create a sense of place and people, to inseminate images in the listeners’ minds – and, more critically, they want to be read and heard up to the end.

Pascale Noé Adam is an actress and director born in Luxembourg. She has played several title roles in theatre, notably in pieces by the Luxembourgish author Raphaël Kohn. She played in Büchner’s Woyzeckunder the direction of Romanian director Vlad Massaci as part of the Sibiu International Theatre Festival, and has participated in numerous cross-border productions for young audiences. While working intermittently as an assistant director, she developed a taste for direction, and in 2015 she wrote and created her first pieces based on short monologues. Together with her twin sister, visual artist Nathalie Noé Adam, she founded the artist collective Bombyx, which aims to merge visual and performing arts.

Max Gindorff was born in 1994 in Belvaux, Luxembourg. He studied acting at the Max-Reinhardt-Seminar in Vienna. Besides his studies, he worked at the Théâtre National du Luxembourg and the Kaleidoskoptheater, among others. Engagements followed at the Volkstheater Wien and the Wiener Schauspielhaus in Vienna. With Der Himmelblaue Herr at the Kasemattentheater in Luxembourg, he directed his first play in collaboration with the collective Childhood:Destiny. After a year as a permanent member of the ensemble of the Residenztheater in Munich, he moved on to the Wiener Burgtheater for the 2019/20 season.

His performance is created in collaboration with the German actor Markus Bernhard Börger. From 2013 to 2017, Börger studied acting at the Max-Reinhardt-Seminar in Vienna. He has since been working mainly in Austria, among others at the Volkstheater and the Akademietheater. With Der Himmelblaue Herr, he premiered in Luxembourg with his own collective Childhood:Destiny.

Luc Spada works with words and loves the stage. The Luxembourg-born artist writes about the good and the bad in people, highlighting their excesses, animosities and evils while also acknowledging their beauty. He writes poetry, prose, song lyrics, theatre plays and screenplays. He also curates and moderates various kinds of cultural events. From 2008 to 2018, he toured with solo literary shows and made short appearances on reading stages and literature festivals across Germany, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Austria and Estonia. He has written and performed various solo programmes, among others for the festival Humour pour la paix, the Lyrik Kabinett in Munich, the Hate Festival and the Mudam Café. On 19 November 2021, he released his first music album entitled Ciao Luca. He lives and works in Berlin and Luxembourg.