Her childhood in West Los Angeles was filled with creativity, music, and dance. Then, as a teen, Adina Mornell’s family move cross-country taught her to adapt to change and instilled her with curiosity for different cultures and world views. To this day, she continues to question the status quo, reject complacency in the face of challenge, and enjoy three passions simultaneously: art, science, and pursuit of knowledge.

Following her undergraduate studies at Oberlin College and Conservatory (Ohio), she received a Master’s degree at the Technical University Berlin in Musicology and Psychology. After publishing her thesis on the psychobiology of stage fright, Adina set out to find answers. Why should musicians, like Shakespeare’s Hamlet, be subject to the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune”? How can it be that performance outcomes remain unpredictable, despite hours, weeks, and years of practice? While others offered superstition or stayed silent when questioned about performance anxiety, Adina looked at outcomes achieved on the concert stage, asking what had gone right and what could still be improved. She set out to find effective and teachable preparation strategies that would make success both possible and probable.

Casting a wide net, she discovered experts in domains beyond the arts who also dealt with occupational stress. Yet, many of these professionals rely on proven preparation strategies, backup systems, and viable coping methods – none of which were being formally taught to musicians. In the field of aviation psychology, she discovered a philosophy that paired learning from experience with a mindset that avoided blame while remaining focused on solutions. She adapted these principles in her dissertation submitted to the University of Performing Arts Vienna, “The Musician’s Black Box. Analyzing Performance and Decoding Stage Fright Symptoms Using the Methods of Aviation Accident Prevention.”

Accepting a full professorship at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz (Austria), Adina continued to conduct research, combining the knowledge she gathered as a concert pianist, music psychologist, and educator. It was there in 2008 that she hatched the concept behind the series of symposia Art in Motion – Musical and Athletic Motor Learning and Performance. Again here, she chose to go her own way, inviting professionals and practitioners from within and outside of music psychology and pedagogy to come together and discuss common themes. 

Based upon the conviction that we learn best when we listen to one another and share our thoughts, symposia two through nine were held at the University of Music and Theatre Munich from 2010-2025. In 2027, the tenth Art in Motion will focus on the theme Body of Knowledge. Marking the 20th anniversary of this network of interdisciplinary and international innovators, this will be the first symposium presented at the Kulturraffinerie K714 in Monheim.

When people speak of the cultural renaissance of Monheim am Rhein, one name inevitably stands out: Martin Witkowski. Since September 2018, he has served as Artistic Director and Managing Director of Monheimer Kulturwerke, transforming the city into a cultural powerhouse whose influence extends far beyond the region. Born in Siegen in 1976, Witkowski is far more than an administrator—he is a creative cultural strategist in the truest sense of the word.

Before coming to Monheim am Rhein, the Deutsche Bank Foundation alumnus in cultural management gained extensive professional experience as Head of the Artistic Operations Office and Scheduling Manager at the renowned Tonhalle Düsseldorf, as well as Orchestra Director of the Weimar Staatskapelle.

He is known as someone who resists being pigeonholed. His approach is always content-driven, and he is passionate about providing artists with an open stage—whether in a traditional concert hall or in an entirely unconventional setting. Alongside his professional career, he also serves as a volunteer judge, reflecting both his grounded character and his versatility. Witkowski has successfully established the Monheimer Kulturwerke as a brand synonymous with high-quality yet accessible culture. His achievements are reflected in a series of remarkable projects.

His most ambitious undertaking is undoubtedly the Kulturraffinerie K714, the transformation of a former barrel-filling hall into a state-of-the-art event venue on the banks of the Rhine. As the author of the project's concept, he has overseen the €166 million development from the initial stripping of the industrial heritage building through to its scheduled opening in September 2026.

In an act of cultural solidarity, Witkowski, together with Monheim’s former mayor and with the unanimous support of the city council, brought the Kyiv Symphony Orchestra to Monheim in 2024. The musicians now live and work permanently in the city, enriching its cultural life as the resident orchestra of Monheimer Kulturwerke.
From the “Culture Promenade,” featuring the 250-meter-long “Long Table,” where a thousand people from near and far gather to enjoy dinner together while experiencing an open-air cultural program, to performances by internationally renowned artists from the worlds of rock, pop, classical music, and jazz, Witkowski makes culture accessible to everyone. He frequently stages events in places rarely associated with culture, such as parking garages, street tunnels, and construction sites.

Martin Witkowski is distinguished by a working style that is both pragmatic and visionary. He embraces the city's freedom to experiment with ideas that elsewhere might be hindered by bureaucracy. He personally curates art installations and has a remarkable talent for attracting celebrated figures — including Michelin-starred chefs such as Tim Mälzer — to events held in the most unexpected locations, even on active construction sites. His guiding philosophy appears to be that culture does not have to be elitist to be excellent. By combining artistic excellence with broad public appeal, he has helped create a distinctive cultural identity for Monheim am Rhein — one that inspires residents and visitors alike. Under his leadership, Monheimer Kulturwerke received the “European Cultural Brand Award for City Culture” as early as 2020.

Bettina Bläsing is a cognitive and movement scientist whose career spans neurobiology, animal behavior, human motor cognition and sport psychology, she also is a dance enthusiast in theory and practice. She studied at Bielefeld, Münster and Edinburgh, earning her PhD in Biology in 2004. Since 2018, she holds the venia legendi for sports science at Bielefeld University for her habilitation on memory, learning and expertise in dance. She has published more than 50 scientific articles and book chapters on dance and movement cognition and edited several books featuring neurocognitive perspectives on dance and the performing arts, with over 2,700 citations to her work. Bettina worked as postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology at Leipzig, responsible investigator at the Center of Excellence Cognitive Interaction Technologies (CITEC) at Bielefeld, and senior lecturer in Rehabilitation Science at TU Dortmund. Alongside her academic portfolio, she has trained and worked as dance pedagogue and science journalist. Since 2025, she has been engaged primarily in the field of public education, and has been head of the Volkshochschule (municipal center for adult education) at Bad Salzuflen since 2026. Bettina is known for her interdisciplinary work bridging science and the arts, including interviews and public talks on creative and democratic empowerment through movement and dance.

Sascha Gogl works for an audience that has not yet learned art but is discovering it – and does so with the whole body, not with the programme booklet. This way into music mattered to him early on: at various instruments from childhood, later at a music-focused secondary school, and for years through playing and singing together in ensembles, bands, dance groups, choirs and orchestras – the kind of practice in which understanding one another succeeds without words. Out of it grew questions that led him into a degree in musicology and philosophy, and on to a master's in cultural and music management: what actually happens between practising, rehearsing, performing and the audience?

Understanding alone, however, was never enough for him, he wanted to make things possible. He gained experience in strategy consulting for cultural institutions and in organising nationwide professional development formats, learning to think concepts, budgets and schedules together. In various artistic planning and production offices he took responsibility for cultural events from the first planning stage to the final applause, experiencing how much a concert evening depends on precise scheduling and how much of it is ultimately carried by the people on and behind the stage.

Today he directs the education programme of the Opernfestspiele Heidenheim (Heidenheim Opera Festival), opening up concert and theatre for children and young people. Because his own hands-on practice matters to him, he is additionally completing a qualification in theatre pedagogy (BuT®).

He has been part of Art in Motion since 2021. That knowledge arises in the body and is passed on through doing things together is not a hypothesis for him but the daily experience of his work – and precisely the reason why he is looking forward to Body of Knowledge.