Meet the team

Yaël Koutouan

Yaël Koutouan (she/her) is Black and queer. She studied theater studies at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. In 2022, her master’s thesis “Machtspiele im Theater – Rassimus als belief system” was published by Tectum Verlag. She pursues a critical-phenomenological approach and combines performance analysis, interviews and German colonial history with her own biography.

Her research interests lie in the fields of race and postcolonial studies. She has been a freelance writer for Theater der Zeit since February 2023 and has also written occasionally for Theater heute since October 2023. Yaël Koutouan is also a member of the jury for the Berlin Theatertreffen 2026.

She is critical of discrimination and intersectional in her writing and work in the cultural sector and wants to open up spaces for migrant voices and counter-narratives from urban society in particular.

She has been supporting africologne as a curator since 2025.