Sebastian Kaiser was born in East Berlin and studied Culture and Theatre in Berlin, Leipzig and Moscow. From 2008–2017 he was dramaturg at the Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, working together with Frank Castorf, Vegard Vinge & Ida Müller and others. For the Volksbühne he also curated large-scale political and artistic events, such as “Africa Conference – 130 Years of the Berlinization of a Continent”. He initiated the series of talks about Europe’s future with Slavoj Žižek, Yanis Varoufakis, Edward Snowden and Julian Assange. He also co-operated in founding the movement DiEM25. In 2006 and 2010 he was Artistic Director of the international festival Balaklava Odyssey that took place in former military compounds in Crimea. In 2007 he directed a documentary about the inhabitants of the closed military city Balaklava (Crimea). This was nominated for the Golden Key best film award at Dokfest Kassel. In 2018 he co-operation with Meng Jingui on the production “Teahouse” after Lao She, that premiered in Wuzhen, China. From 2014–2019 he has taught at the FU Berlin, University of Music and Theatre Leipzig, Nanjing University, Oslo National Academy of the Fine Arts, and has been a Visiting Scholar at the Segal Center, City University New York.
As of February 2019