Hanne Tjersland

Hanne is an Open Floor teacher, a theatre pedagogue, and a peace researcher. She focuses in her work on embodied and arts-based approaches to peace and conflict transformation, combining the practical experiences with especially Open Floor and theatre with research in the peace studies field.Hanne loves to learn, grow and expand by encountering different people from different places and with different perspectives. She has herself worked, studied and travelled in more than 60 countries worldwide, and speaks Norwegian, English, Spanish and German. Now she aims to learn Urdu as her next language project. During her bachelor, master, PhD and further education studies, she has studied in India, Austria, Nicaragua, France, Spain and Argentina, in addition to her home country Norway. At the moment, she is writing her doctorate dissertation in International Studies in Peace, Conflict and Development on the topic of her heart: ‘Open Floor as a Resource for Peace’, and is continuously passionate about exploring how the arts and embodiment can further the unfolding of peace.What motivates Hanne throughout her teaching and research is to understand how embodied and artistic wisdom can help unfold and encourage deeper peace by manifesting more authentic encounters with oneself and each other, encouraging in this way alternative and more peaceful ways to live together on this planet.