Tone Pernille Østern has a Dr. of Arts in Dance focused on dance and disability from the Theatre Academy at the University of the Arts Helsinki (Finland). Her doctoral project (Østern, 2009) was practice-led and included the foundation and development of artistic working methods of the Dance Laboratory in Trondheim, Norway, a company with disabled and non-disabled dancers now housed by DansiT Choreographic Center. With three decades of leading disability-affirmative research and inclusive arts education, she is Professor in Arts Education with a focus on Dance at the Department for Teacher Education at NTNU (Norway). She is also Visiting Professor in Dance Education in Contemporary Contexts at Stockholm University of the Arts (Sweden). She has taught extensively on Master and PhD level. She is the leader of NTNU’s research group, How to do things with disability (DOABLE) and she has led several research projects such as the Arts and Culture Norway commissioned work resulting in Artist – an available profession? A research project about artists with disabilities in Norway (Østern et al., 2023), and edited and published widely, such as Glørstad, V., Østern, T.P., McCaffrey, T., Chikonzo, K., & Chivandikwa, N. (Eds.), Theatre and Performing Arts, Disability Citizenship and Community Development – Perspectives from the Global South and North.

Dr. Syrus Marcus Ware is a Vanier Scholar, visual artist, activist, curator, and educator. Syrus is Assistant Professor at the School of the Arts, McMaster University (Canada). Using drawing, installation, theatre/ performance, Syrus works with social justice frameworks and Black activist culture. His work was part of the inaugural Toronto Biennial of Art (2019, 2022) in conjunction with the Image Centre (Antarctica and Ancestors, Can You Read Us? (Dispatches from the Future and MBL: Freedom). Syrus holds a doctorate from York University (Canada), and he is the co-editor of the best-selling Until We Are Free: Reflections on Black Lives Matter in Canada (2020), Marvellous Grounds: Queer of Colour Histories of Toronto (2018) and Queering Urban Justice: Queer of Colour Formations in Toronto (2018). Syrus has authored several children’s books including Abolition Is Love (2023). He is part of the Performance Disability Art Collective and co-programmed Crip Your World: An Intergalactic Queer/POC Sick and Disabled Extravaganza as part of Mayworks 2014. Syrus is also co-curator of The Cycle, a two-year disability arts performance initiative of the National Arts Centre (Ottawa). He is a co-founder of Black Lives Matter-Canada and the Wildseed Centre for Art & Activism.

Matthew Reason is Professor of Theatre and Director of the Institute for Social Justice at York St John University (UK). His research focuses on politically and socially engaged arts practice, audience research and co-productive and participatory research methodologies. He is interested in research as a creative and relational activity and the relationships between research, activism and epistemic justice. Central to his work is collaborative partnerships with arts organisations, with examples including Imaginate, Mind the Gap, Teatrecentrum and Theatre Hullabaloo. He has received research funding from the Arts and Humanities and Natural Environment research councils, including for I’m Me (2023-25) which explored themes of identity, representation and voice with learning disabled and autistic artists. He has published widely in journal and book form. Recent publications include the Routledge Companion to Audiences and the Performing Arts (co-edited with Conner, Johanson and Walmsley, 2022).

Libe García Zarranz is Professor of Cultural Theory and Literatures in English in the Department of Teacher Education at NTNU (Norway). She is also Research Affiliate for the Centre for Literatures in Canada at the University of Alberta (Canada). Her work sits at the intersection of feminist, queer, crip, and trans literatures, visual cultures, theories, and pedagogies. She is the author of TransCanadian Feminist Fictions: New Cross-Border Ethics (2017), the co-editor of the special issue Affect and Feminist Literary and Cultural Production (2018) for Atlantis: Critical Studies in Gender, Culture, and Social Justice, and the co-editor of the collection Living and Learning with Feminist Ethics, Literature, and Art (2024). She is the leader of NTNU’s research group TransLit: Sustainable Ethics, Affects, and Pedagogies and a member of the international research project Communitas/Immunitas: Relational Ontologies in Atlantic Anglophone Cultures of the 21st Century, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. She has 16 years of university teaching experience, with more than 40 different courses taught at the undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral levels. One of the joys of her profession is to learn and unlearn with Master’s and PhD students. Born and raised in Spain, and educated in Canada and the UK, Libe currently teaches, researches, and contributes to public outreach in Trondheim.