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Principal Investigator
Rossella Ferrari is a Professor of Chinese Studies at the University of Vienna. She specializes in the performance cultures of the contemporary Sinophone region. Her research focuses on experimental theatre, intercultural and inter-Asian performance networks, memory politics, adaptation, and the intersections of aesthetics, ideology, and economics in postsocialist China. She is the author of Pop Goes the Avant-garde: Experimental Theatre in Contemporary China (2012), Transnational Chinese Theatres: Intercultural Performance Networks in East Asia (2020), and Performance and Postsocialism in Postmillennial China (2025).
Co-Investigator
Fabrizio Massini holds an MA in Chinese Studies from SOAS/University of London and a BA in Intercultural Studies from the University of Florence. Between 2009 and 2019 he was based in China, where he has worked as a producer, dramaturg and curator. Between 2016 and 2020 he has served as artistic director at Ibsen International. Fabrizio is currently a PhD candidate at the Institute of East Asian Studies at the University of Vienna. His research focuses on Chinese contemporary performance practices, independent theatre, and feminist and queer performance.
Co-Investigator
Li Yizhuo is a Ph.D. candidate at the Institute of East Asian Studies, University of Vienna. Her research focuses on the history and concept of experiment in contemporary Chinese art and artistic forms of transnational postsocialism. In 2025, Li founded BEK Forum in Vienna, an exhibition space and production platform for visual arts and performance. From 2018 to 2020, she directed research and programs at the nonprofit organization FRESCO Collective in New York. Li holds an MA from NYU’s Institute of Fine Arts and BA and BS degrees from Tsinghua University.