Keynote Address 

In Our Own Words  

Keynote Address

Hamid Dabashi: In Our Own Words

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Saturday, November 17, 9:45 – 10:30 AM

Hamid Dabashi, professor of Middle East Studies at Columbia University, discusses the current state of the arts, identity, alterity, and representation in the current climate of change and upheaval.

Panels, Day 1  Saturday, November 17, 2012

The Arab Spring and Its Dramatic Reverberations   

The Arab Spring and Its Dramatic Reverberations

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Chairs: JJ El-Far & Tracy Cameron Francis, Hybrid Theater Works Panelists: Jay Abdo (actor, Syria), Nasreddine Ben Maati (Tunisia, via Skype), Hadia Mousa (visiting scholar at NYU, Egypt), Naghmeh Samini (playwright and critic, Iran) Sponsor: Hybrid Theatre Works

Hybrid Theatre Works brings together artists from the Arab World and Iran to reflect upon the socio-political transformation initiated by the current events in the Middle East. The discussion will consider how the “Arab Spring” has changed the landscape for artistic practice as well as what, if any, “revolutionary” aesthetics emerged among Middle East and Arab-American artists both within theater and cross-disciplinary work. Panelists will discuss the role of social media and global audience vis-à-vis local censorship and limitations to Internet access and will further address how performances both at the street level and in professional theatres contributed to and were informed by the uprisings. Panelists will reflect upon what they specifically see as the role of theater artists in shaping a new cultural identity in the wake of political change.

Staging the Middle East  

Staging the Middle East

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Chair: Brad Erikson, Theatre Bay Area Panelists: Michael Butler (Center Rep), Carey Perloff (American Conservatory Theater), Sean San Jose (Campo Santo/Intersection), Marissa Wolf (Crowded Fire) Sponsor: Theatre Bay Area

Bay Area theatre companies discuss the distinct challenges and rewards of staging plays about the Middle East. More plays about the Middle East have been produced in the US in recent years than ever before. Theatre Bay Area asks artistic directors of four diverse San Francisco theatre companies with recent productions about or from the Middle East to reflect upon the challenges and rewards of that experience. What was their impetus for the production? How did they manage casting, dramaturgy, and audience outreach? How did they prepare audiences to receive the work? What was the response to the production? What might help spark further reflection, conversation, and action?

Comedic Counter Terrorism   

Comedic Counter Terrorism

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Chair: Joan Holden, playwright Panelists: Yussef El Guindi (playwright), Sara Felder (theater artist/humorist/juggler), Zahra Noorbakhsh (comedian)

A playwright, a juggler, and a standup comedian walk into a panel… Comedy has long been the social critic’s tool for education and transformation. From Aristophanes to Oscar Wilde to Tawfiq Al Hakim, playwrights have chosen humor and satire to attract and engage audiences when addressing the most serious or sensitive issues. In today’s global reality, no issue is more serious or sensitive than the Middle East. The artists on this panel will share their strategies for combatting the fear and ignorance that continue to surround this heaviest of topics and other thorny subjects like identity, sexuality, religion, and political divisions. The panel will follow the staged reading of Yussef El Guindi’s new play, The Mummy and the Revolution.

Panels, Day 2  Sunday, November 18, 2012

Rapid Response: Protecting Artists Under Threat  

Rapid Response: Protecting Artists Under Threat

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Chair: Roberto Varea, Performing Arts and Social Justice Program at University of San Francisco & Theatre Without Borders Panelists: Sidd Joag (freeDimensional), Nazy Kaviani (writer and artist advocate), Jessica Litwak (Theater Without Borders), William Butkus (Amnesty International) Sponsor: Theater Without Borders & freeDimensional

Theatre Without Borders and freeDimensional facilitate a discussion about practical guidelines for providing safe house to artists in danger. Artists have historically been among the most vulnerable during political upheaval, particularly since their artistic work gives them an increased visibility. Theatre Without Borders and freeDimensional are two grassroots networks that have initiated a new partnership to help artists under threat globally. Their representatives will join a field organizer from Amnesty International and a local blogger/advocate in order to discuss their experience helping artists in various parts of the world and consider how these protocols can be a model for working with Middle Eastern artists. Inquiring whether or not there can be a universal model for helping artists under threat, panelists will discuss practical guidelines for providing safe house for artists and the need for a nuanced understanding of their complex situations.

Engaged Performance:

Building Dialogue Through Intercultural Artistic Exchange  

Engaged Performance: Building Dialogue Through Intercultural Artistic Exchange

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Chair: Roberta Levitow, International & East Africa Sundance Institute Theatre Program and Co‐founder and Director of Theatre Without Borders Panelists: Gülgün Kayim & Calling Shift collaboration, Philip Kan Gotanda (playwright), Andrew Wood (San Francisco International Art Festival) Sponsor: Theatre Without Borders

Artists, producers, and presenters discuss ways in which making theatre serves as a means to restoring social relationships affected by political trauma. Making theatre requires a high level of dialogue and collaboration, making it uniquely suited for bringing together diverse, even opposing, narratives and perspectives. Thus, theatre-making offers the potential for engaging and healing communities that have experienced various forms of political and social traumas such as war, racism, and displacement. This panel will feature a diverse range of panelists who will consider how artists work through these traumas in order to engage opposing communities and renew community and global relations. The discussion will include such topics as US-Iraq relations since the U.S. “War on Terror” and Greek-Turkish relations in Cyprus. Panelists will reflect upon whether or not the creative process of making theatre can support intercultural exchange, rebuilding fraught relationships, and work as a conduit for healing political and social wounds.

Re-Traditioning the Verse: Poetry in Performance   

Re-Traditioning the Verse: Poetry in Performance

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Chair: Haleh Hatami, Golden Thread Productions Panelists: Amir Baradaran (new media visual artist and performer), Hafiz Karmali (auteur director), Zara Houshmand (poet, translator, director), Torange Yeghiazarian (writer, director)

Artists explore the path to dramatizing poetry, the revered art of the Middle East. Poetry—classical, spiritual, and contemporary—has long been considered among the most revered arts of the Middle East. Incorporating poetry into other art forms can lend instant (and often unwarranted) credibility to a project. At the same time, it can also raise the ire of purists who equate innovations to original poems (even their mere translation) with artistic heresy. Beyond these two extreme challenges, those who venture to integrate original Middle Eastern poetry into contemporary performance face a variety of tasks. Four performance and theater artists share, discuss, and debate their approach to translation and incorporation of poetry into their respective art practices. Panelist expertise includes: staging Islamic texts and Sufi poetry; staging contemporary Persian poetry; and incorporating classical poetry into new media performance art. The panel will follow featured presentation of Hafiz Karmali’s latest work, Rumi x 7 = Tales from the Masnavi.

From “War on Drugs” to “War on Terror”:

Parallels in Latino/Chicano and Middle East American Performance  

From “War on Drugs” to “War on Terror”

Parallels in Latino/Chicano and Middle East American Performance

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Chair: Torange Yeghiazarian, Golden Thread Productions Panelists: Jose Luis Valenzuela (LATC), Angela Marino (UC Berkeley dept. of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies), Octavio Solis (playwright), RobertoVarea (Chair of Center for Latino Studies, University of San Francisco) Sponsor: Center for Latino Studies, University of San Francisco

Golden Thread Productions invites leaders of Chicano/Latino theatre to explore the shared journey of two communities responding creatively to vilification. During the 1980s, Chicano/Latino communities in the U.S. experienced extreme forms of social ostracism as a result of the civil unrest and political turmoil in Central America. This ostracism was exacerbated by U.S. involvement in the region and the creation of the “War on Drugs,” which militarized the region in attempts to counter socialist forces. Likewise, the decade following the events of 9/11 has witnessed a similar vilification of Middle Eastern and Muslim communities in the U.S. as American forces have militarized the Middle East under the title of “War on Terror.” This panel, led by Golden Thread Productions artistic director, will explore the ways in which Chicano/Latino and Middle Eastern theater artists have responded to these trends and what lies ahead for hyphenated theatre in the US.

Closing Night Concert and Reception Featuring

Hafez Modirzadeh and Friends

Sunday, November 18, at 7:00pm | Z Space  Buy Tickets

Bay Area jazz saxophonist, Hafez Modirzadeh will be joined by longtime collaborators Ramin Zoufonoun (Piano) Jamsheed Agahi (percussion) and Timothy Volpicella (guitar) for an unforgettable evening of live music that is sure to “ReOrient.”

“ a radical cultural exchange” - New York Times

“ thick with ideas and inspiration” - LA Times

“ a place where jazz, Middle Eastern music and the avant-garde converge” - Chicago Tribune

The Mummy and the Revolution by Yussef El Guindi

Saturday, November 17, at 2:30pm | Z Space | Free Admission

Jamil Khoury, founding artistic director of Silk Road Rising, interviews Yussef El Guindi, the 2011 Middle East America Distinguished Playwright, Yussef El Guindi, followed by a staged reading of his MEA commissioned play. Launched in 2008 by Silk Road Rising, Lark Play Development Center and Golden Thread Productions, the Middle East America National New Plays Initiative (MEA) aims to discover and support the development of Middle Eastern American playwrights and plays of the highest artistic caliber and to enrich the canon of American dramatic literature. The program aims to challenge both the lack of representation and the one-dimensional stereotypical representation of persons of Middle Eastern descent on America’s stages.

An Egyptian revolutionary, an American collector, and a reanimated mummy—just three of the characters in this comedic gem from the writer that brought Golden Thread audiences Language Rooms, Jihad Jones and the Kalashnikov Babes, and Back of the Throat. Golden Thread mainstay Yussef El Guindi’s unique voice has been nationally recognized with the 2011 Middle East America Award and the 2012 Harold and Mimi Steinberg/American Theatre Critics Circle New Play Award.

Middle East America: A National New Plays Initiative (MEA) Sponsors: Silk Road Rising & Lark Play Development Center

Rumi x 7 = Tales From the Masnavi  directed by Hafiz Karmali

Sunday, November 18, at 2:00pm | Z Space  Buy Tickets

Rumi comes to life as never before through this lively adaptation of one of the world’s greatest poets in Rumi x 7= Tales from the Masnavi. Rumi’s timeless tales explore the ties that bind human kind to the natural world, to their dreams and to their infinite potential. Seven breathtaking vignettes fuse classical Persian poetry with a dazzling panorama of circus arts and commedia dell arte. Let your imagination soar through this awe-inspiring journey that celebrates the cycle of life and humanity’s universal bond.

Tickets for this family-friendly production are $20 ($15 for students and seniors, free admission for children under 12)

ReOrient 2012 Forum

Z Space | Saturday, November 17, 2012 9am – 6:30pm | Sunday, November 18, 2012 9am – 6pm

General Registration (Free) $0

All panels and readings are free and open to the public. Advanced registration is recommended.

ReOrient 2012 Rumi x 7: Tales From the Masnavi

Z Space | Sunday, November 18, 2012 2pm

General Admission (Adult) $20 | General Admission (Stu/Snr/TBA Discount) $15 | Children under 12 (Free) $0 | Please bring your student ID or TBA Membership card when you pick-up your tickets at Will Call.

ReOrient 2012 Hafez Modirzadeh & Friends

Z Space | Sunday, November 18, 2012 7pm to 11pm

General Admission (Adult) $30 | General Admission (Stu/Snr/TBA Discount) $20 | Admission to this event includes the concert and a closing night reception with food and drink. | Please bring your student ID or TBA Membership card when you pick-up your tickets at Will Call.

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Jay Abdo (panelist, ASDR)  Syrian actor Jay Abdo has performed in television and on stage. He started his acting career on stage in 1984 in Cluj-Napoca Romania, where he was studying civil engineering. His studies also include four years of Drama School in Syria and three years of Spanish at Cervantes Institute. Film: Valley Of The Wolves (The Kurdish Leader); over 40 films in Syria; Revered as the Father(University of Michigan student film). Television: Over 70 serial productions in Syria (Arabic, English and Spanish), including Ikhwat Al-Turab, Bab Al-Hara, and many others. Theatre: Over 20 plays in Romania and Syria, including Accidental Death of an Anarchist (Bertotio) 1992 and Don Juan (title character) at Damascus National Theater. He also plays violin professionally. Jay is heavily involved with charity work and has done work for children with cancer, Mongolians, and orphans.

Amir Baradaran (panelist, RTV)  Amir Baradaran, a New York-based media and performance artist, was born in Tehran and raised in Montreal. Baradaran’s experience in academia and activism launched his artistic practice. Baradaran engages in speculative, participatory public experiences through notions of technology, authorship and identity. Under the title FutARism, he employed Augmented Reality (AR) as an installation medium. Iterations include SamovAR &The Tempest in the Teahouse (Armory Arts Week, NYC, 2012), Growing Panes (British Museum, Art & Patronage Summit, London, UK, 2012), and The BuZZZ (Miami Art Basel, 2011), Venice Augmented (54th Biennale, Italy, 2011), Frenchising Mona Lisa (Louvre Museum, Paris, France, 2011), and Takeoff (MOMA, NYC, 2010). Simple as Drinking Water, was selected as the winner of 2011 International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR). Past works include Marry Me to the End of Love (2012); Cité Internationale des Arts of Paris; Transient (2010), and The Other Artist Is Present (2010).

Nasreddine Ben Maati (panelist, ASDR)  After receiving a bachelor’s degree, Nasreddine Ben Maati studied to cinema in the Higher Institute of Arts and Multimedia. From the young age 17 years he joined the Tunisian Federation of Filmmakers (FTCA), where he worked as a cameraman and assistant director in shorts amateur and independent films. He has also participated in several workshops supported by the FTCA. Nasreddine worked as assistant director in two short films made by the Tunisian director Bahri Ben Yahmed and worked as a supervisor in the filming of 3D clip of the theater play of Souade Slimene. In September 2010, Nasreddine participated in a writing and production workshop, entitled “Young Seen By Young People” organized by the Ministry of Culture and directed the short film The Corner, which was selected for the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. He also took a documentary writing workshop organized by the French Institute of Cooperation and Francophonie, and after the workshop he completed his documentary Generation Maudite. Nasreddine is the founder of living art (iche el fane), a Tunisian association, where he shares his experiences with other young artists.

William Butkus (panelist, RR)  William Butkus is the Amnesty International Field Organizer for Alaska, Hawaii, Montana, Nevada and Northern California.

Michael Butler (panelist, SME) Michael Butler is the Artistic Director of Center REP, the resident professional company of the Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek. His directing work has also been seen in New York (The Public Theatre, The Actors Studio), Los Angeles (The Odyssey), at regional theatres around the country (Seattle Rep, San Jose Rep, Cleveland Playhouse) and at The Juilliard School, of which he is a graduate. He is a published songwriter and the co-writer and composer of numerous music-theatre pieces, which he has directed and performed in NY, LA, and at festivals in India and Morocco. In his career as a performer he has worked on Broadway and off, in film and television, performed with the Erick Hawkins Dance Company, portrayed the villainous Pierre LeChance on The Guiding Light, and played guitar and harmonica in many rock, blues, and country western bands at all the notable dives in NYC.

Tracy Cameron Francis (cochair, ASDR)  Tracy Cameron Francis is an Egyptian-American theatre director and artistic director of Hybrid Theatre Works in NYC. She has directed and developed work with Red Bull Theatre, New York Theatre Workshop, Williamstown Theatre Festival, LaMama Umbria (Italy), NY Arab American Comedy Festival, Martin Segal Theatre, Monarch Theatre, NY International Fringe, Falaki Theatre (Egypt), Alwan For the Arts, International Wow, Terra Nova Collective, among others. Francis also creates interdisciplinary performance works collaborating with artists from all over the world, including the Middle East, South America, Asia, and the USA. She has worked as a teaching artist for recent immigrants at the International Center in NYC and has served as a guest director for the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute. A core member of Theatre Without Borders, she earned a B.A. in Middle East Studies and Theatre from Fordham University where she wrote her thesis on political theatre in Egypt.

Hamid Dabashi (keynote speaker)  Hamid Dabashi is the Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York, the oldest and most prestigious chair in his field. He is a founding member of the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society, as well as a founding member of the Center for Palestine Studies at Columbia University. In the context of his commitment to advancing transnational art and independent world cinema, Hamid Dabashi is the founder of Dreams of a Nation, a Palestinian Film Project, dedicated to preserving and safeguarding Palestinian Cinema. He is also chiefly responsible for opening up the study of Persian literature and Iranian culture at Columbia University to students of comparative literature and society. A committed teacher in the past three decades, Hamid Dabashi lives in New York with his wife and colleague, the Iranian-Swedish feminist, Golbarg Bashi.

JJ El-Far (cochair, ASDR)  J.J. El-Far is an Arab-American producer, director, and interdisciplinary artist based in Harlem, New York. J.J. holds a B.A. from Brandeis University in Theater Arts and International Global Studies. She is the founding executive director of Hybrid Theatre Works and the founding creative director of the multi-disciplinary Harlem Arts Festival. She is a core team member of Theatre Without Borders. J.J. is the theater critic for Uptown Flavor and has worked with Ted X Harlem, LaGuardia Performing Arts Center, the NY Arab American Comedy Fest, Planet Connections Theatre Festivity, Berkshire Theatre Festival, and the Jerash Festival of Arts and Culture (Amman, Jordan). She has presented at the “Arts in the One World” conference at Brown University, was recently named one of the Nathan L. Cummings Young Leaders of Color for TCG’s 2012 Conference, and attended the 2010 La Mama International Symposium for Directors in Umbria, Italy.

Yussef El Guindi (panelist, CCT)  Yussef El Guindi’s most recent productions include Pilgrims Musa and Sheri in the New World (Steinberg Best New Play Award, 2012) and Language Rooms (Edgerton Foundation New American Play Award and ACT Theatre New Play Award). El Guindi’s plays have been produced by Golden Thread Productions and Asian American Theater Company in San Francisco; by Wilma Theater in Philadelphia; and by Latino Theater Company at the Los Angeles Theater Center. His plays, Back of the Throat, as well as Such a Beautiful Voice is Sayeda’s and Karima’s City, have been published by Dramatists Play Service. The latter one-acts have also been included in The Best American Short Plays: 2004-2005, published by Applause Books in 2008. His play Ten Acrobats in an Amazing Leap of Faith is included in Salaam/Peace: An Anthology of Middle Eastern American Playwrights, published by TCG, 2009. El Guindi is the current recipient of the Middle East America Award.

Sara Felder (panelist, CCT)  Sara Felder is a solo theater artist, playwright, humorist, teacher, activist, and juggler, based in Oakland, CA. She ran away with San Francisco’s Pickle Family Circus, was a featured act in Joel Grey’s Borscht Capades, and toured Cuba & Nicaragua with Jugglers for Peace. Felder opened for Joan Rivers and has also taught juggling and performance in California prisons. Her solo plays have included the themes of Jewish same-sex marriage (June Bride), the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (Out of Sight), and grief (A Queer Divine)—all comedies. Felder has earned fellowships, commissions, and residencies from the SF Arts Council, the California Arts Council, Headlands Center for the Arts, Philadelphia Theatre Initiative, the Leeway Transformation grant (awarded to artists committed to social change), and the Creative Work Fund for the upcoming Melancholy, A Comedy (a play on Abraham Lincoln). She currently teaches at Berkeley Rep School of Theater and tours her solo plays. www.sarafelder.com

Philip Kan Gotanda (panelist, EP)  Philip Kan Gotanda has done much to broaden our definition of theater in America. Through his plays and advocacy, Philip has been instrumental in bringing stories of Asians in the United States to American theater as well as to Europe and Asia. Among his works include: After the War, I Dream of Chang and Eng, Love in American Times, #5 Angry Red Drum, Apricots of Andujar (opera). His plays have been produced by: American Conservatory Theater, Asian American Theater Company, Berkeley Repertory Theater, Campo Santo+Intersection, San Jose Repertory, The Gate Theater, Hungtington Theater, Manhattan Theater Club, Mingei Geikidan, New York Shakespeare Festival among others. philipkangotanda.com

Haleh Hatami (chair, RTV)  Haleh Hatami’s poems, essays, and translations have been published in various journals, including Brooklyn Review, Phoebe, Faultline, Chain, FO A RM, ZZYZYVA, and Fourteen Hills as well as in anthologies like Bay Poetics (Faux Press), Let Me Tell You Where I’ve Been: Writings from Women in the Iranian Diaspora (University of Arkansas). Translations from Persian appear in Kenyon Review, 26, and Strange Times, My Dear: The PEN Anthology of Contemporary Iranian Literature. She received the CPIC Life Poetry Award at San Francisco State University and the Ann Fields Poetry Award judged by Gillian Conoley. She has taught courses in Creative Writing at San Francisco State and at Mills College Currently, she applies her poetics to the production of short videos.

Joan Holden (chair, CCT)  Joan Holden was resident playwright for more than three decades at the country’s longest-running political theater, the San Francisco Mime Troupe. Her farcical satires and historical epics with the company toured nationally from 1967 to 1999, winning the Troupe three Obie (Off-Broadway) awards and the 1987 Tony Award for Regional Theatre. Nationally, Joan is best known as author of the widely-produced stage adaptation of Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed. She has also adapted comedies by Ben Jonson, Molière, Beaumarchais, and Dario Fo for American Conservatory Theater and Berkeley Repertory Theatre; taught playwriting at the University of California, Davis and San Francisco State University; has written influential articles on comedy and melodrama; and has participated in many international collaborations.

Zara Houshmand (panelist, RTV)  Zara Houshmand is an Iranian-American writer who has worked in theatre as a director and designer, studying with Bijan Mofid whose plays she translated. Her own play, The Future Ain’t What It Used to Be, was produced at the Burbage Theatre in Los Angeles, directed by Deborah LaVine. An interest in traditional Asian theatre led her to study Balinese shadow puppetry and Tibetan opera. She was involved in the development of virtual reality as an art form, and created the installation, Beyond Manzanar, in collaboration with Tamiko Thiel. The piece, exploring parallels between the lives of Japanese-Americans during World War II and Iranian-Americans now, has been exhibited internationally and is in the permanent collection of the San Jose Museum of Art. She is the coauthor of A Mirror Garden, a memoir of Iranian artist Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, and her poetry has appeared in many journals and anthologies.

Sidd Joag (panelist, RR)  Prior to joining freeDimensional, where he serves as director, Sidd Joag has worked with community arts projects in New York, India, China and co-founded an artist residency/exchange program in Southwestern China, which focuses on ethnic minority cultural preservation in the China-Burma borderlands. Sidd has an MSc in Sociology from the London School of Economics and Political Science with concentrations in crime, control and globalization, cultural theory and new media and a BA in sociology from New York University. His paintings, installations, and experimental films have been seen in the United States, Canada, India, the Philippines, China, and Northern Ireland. He is a cofounder of Zero Capital Arts, which supports low-cost socially and politically engaged creative projects and exhibitions.

Hafiz Karmali (panelist, RTV)  After pursuing his MFA (Directing) at Carnegie-Mellon University School of Drama, Hafiz Karmali served an apprenticeship at the American Repertory Theatre (ART) at Harvard where he assisted internationally renowned directors Robert Wilson and Andrei Serban. While at the ART, he was a Teaching Fellow in the English Department at Harvard University for courses taught by Professor Robert Brustein. Most recently, Hafiz remounted his favorite Sufi poem Conference of the Birds by Farid uddin Attar in Vancouver. Hafiz has directed Rumi x 7 = Tales from the Masnavi in circus style at Golden Thread Productions, San Francisco (2011). As a special event to commemorate Prince Karim Aga Khan’s golden jubilee as spiritual leader, Hafiz cowrote and directed an international touring theatre production, Ali to Karim—A Tribute to the Ismaili Imams (London 2008). Mr. Karmali has a special interest in crosscultural performances with a view to showcasing indigenous performing arts of the Islamic world.

Nazy Kaviani (panelist, RR)  Nazy Kaviani is a writer, human rights worker, and promoter of Iranian arts and culture in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is also a translator and researcher, focusing on violations of human rights in Iran. She is a frequent contributor to the websites Iranian.com, and others. Nazy’s poetry and writing have been published in The Poetry of Iranian Women, and in the Confronting the Clash: The Suppressed Voices of Iran, to be released in the Fall of 2012. She has recently completed translating and editing Sketches of Iran, a book of essays and cartoons about the situation of human rights in Iran, published by the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, planned to be released in the upcoming months.

Gülgün Kayim (panelist, EP)  Gülgün Kayim is an artist, curator, writer, teacher, and cofounder of Skewed Visions, an award winning Minneapolis based, site-specific performance collective. She is the Director of Arts, Culture and Creative Economy for the City of Minneapolis and teaches at the University of Minnesota Department of Theatre Arts and Dance. Her large-scale sited performances engage spoken word, movement, installation and sound, to investigate the cultural resonances of conflict through location, biography and memory. She has worked in her homeland of Cyprus, the US, London, and Russia. Her work has been recognized by a Creative Capital Grant, Shannon Leadership Fellowship, International Peace Fellowship, an Archibald Bush Foundation Artist Fellowship, Jerome Foundation Travel/Study Grant, three Minnesota State Arts Board Theatre Fellowships, Trust for Mutual Understanding funding, NEA, and McKnight Foundation support among others. Kayim was a 2006 Walker Art Center resident artist and a 2004 City Pages Artist of the Year.

Jamil Khoury (panelist, MEAP)  Jamil Khoury serves as the artistic director of Chicago’s Silk Road Rising and is an award–winning playwright. His plays focus on Middle Eastern theme of diaspora and he is particularly interested in the intersection of culture, national identity, sexuality, and class. Currently writing the new feature film/docudrama, Mosque Alert, Khoury is developing a first-of-its-kind, interactive, online, play development and civic engagement process. Khoury has conceived of numerous plays, including: the cabarets Re-Spiced: A Silk Road Cabaret (2012) and Silk Road Cabaret: Broadway Sings the Silk Road (2009); Silk Road’s production of The DNA Trail: A Genealogy of Short Plays about Ancestry, Identity, and Utter Confusion (2010); the short play WASP: White Arab Slovak Pole, which inspired the short video-play both/and (2011) and the documentary film Not Quite White: Arabs, Slavs, and the Contours of Contested Whiteness (2012); The Balancing Arab (2012); Precious Stones, which won Gay Chicago Magazine’s 2003 After Dark Award for Outstanding New Work; Fitna, performed at the University of Chicago; and Azizati, performed at Café Voltaire.

Roberta Levitow (panelist, EP)  Roberta Levitow has directed over 50 productions nationally, with a particular emphasis on developing original writing and new American work. She is cofounder of Theatre Without Borders, an informal group supporting international theatre exchange at theatrewithoutborders.com. With Golden Thread, Roberta initiated the Iran-Israel-US project, which evolved into the play, Benedictus (2007); presented Iraqi and Pakistani artists at the TCG Conference 2011; and participated in the planning and implementation of 2009 ReOrient Forum. She was the American Honoree at the 15th Cairo International Festival, 2003 and received TCG’s Alan Schneider Award for directorial excellence in 1992. Roberta is a Fulbright Ambassador and an Artistic Associate at the Sundance Institute East Africa.

Jessica Litwak (panelist, RR) Jessica Litwak, is a theatre artist (playwright and performer), registered drama therapist, teacher, and an activist/organizer. A coleader of the Arts and Human Rights initiative for TWB, Litwak is a trainer for Acting Together On The World Stage for freeDimensional . Teaching courses in Theatre for Personal and Social Change, he is a co-founder of The Dream Act Union, Artistic Director of the New Generation Theatre Ensemble, and The H.E.A.T. Collective – and organization dedicated to Healing, Education, Activism and Theatre. Litwak’s work has been published by Applause Books, Smith and Krause, and The New York Times. Her many plays include: The Emma Goldman Trilogy: Love Anarchy and Other Affairs, The Snake and The Falcon, Nobody Is Sleeping, and A Pirate’s Lullaby. Litwak has a BFA from New York University’s Experimental Theatre Wing and an MFA from Columbia University. She is a PhD candidate at Antioch University in Leadership and Change Through the Arts.

Angela Marino (panelist, WDWT)  Angela Marino received her PhD in performance studies from New York University. She is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of California, Berkeley in the Department of Theater, Dance and Performance Studies. Her research focuses on politics and performance in the Americas. Marino is co-editor and curator of a book and website on the devil in festive performance, which traces the devil figure in religious fiestas, carnival, and theater in the American hemisphere.

Hafez Modirzadeh (performer)  Saxophonist/theorist Hafez Modirzadeh has performed, recorded, published, and lectured internationally on original crosscultural musical concepts, which include Convergence Liberation (in Critical Studies in Improvisation, 2011), Compost Music (in Leonardo, 2009), Aural Archetypes (in Black Music Research, 2001), as well as Chromodality (for Wesleyan University, 1992). Twice an NEA Jazz Fellow, in 2006, Modirzadeh was granted a Senior Fulbright Award to work with Flamenco and Gnawan traditions in Andalucia and Morocco. His decades-long collaboration with Ramin Zoufonoun includes the CD, The Mystery of Sama (AsianImprov Records, 1998), while his latest release, Post-Chromodal Out! (Pi Records, 2012) is available at pirecordings.com/album/pi44. Dr. Modirzadeh is currently a Professor of World Cultures in Music at San Francisco State University. hafezmodirzadeh.com.

Hadia Mousa (panelist, ASDR)  Hadia Ahmed Mousa is an Assistant Lecturer at Helwan University, Egypt (Faculty of Arts, Theatre Department). She is currently a PhD student and scholar-in-residence at City University of New York (CUNY). She is conducting her research under the supervision of Professor Marvin Carlson. Her field of interest is women studies and the Western and Egyptian avant-garde theatre. Her book Women Directors in the Egyptian Theatre is soon to be published by the Supreme Egyptian Council of Culture. She has also published articles in various magazines such as China Today and Ebdaa Magazine.

Zahra Noorbakhsh (panelist, CCT)  Zahra Noorbakhsh is a writer, performer, and stand-up comedian.  New Yorker Magazine dubbed her one-woman show, All Atheists Are Muslim, a highlight of the New York International Fringe Festival. She has had sold-out performances in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Zahra contributed the piece The Birds, The Bees—and My Hole to the Groundbreaking, New York Times-featured anthology, Love Inshallah: The Secret Love Lives of American Muslim Women. Zahra has also performed at colleges around the country, the SF Theatre Festival, the Solo Performance Workshop Festival, and is one-third of the troupe DISoriented, a trio of Asian-American performers, touring nationwide. As a comedian, she was a finalist in the Aspen National Rooftop College Comedy Competition and has performed with international acts, Maz Jobrani (Axis of Evil), and Shazia Mirza (Last Comic Standing).

Carey Perloff (panelist, SME)  A vigorous proponent of unusual classical literature and a passionate advocate of new work and theatrical forms, Carey Perloff has been artistic director of acclaimed American Conservatory Theater (ACT) in San Francisco since 1992. Perloff has directed dozens of award–winning productions for ACT, including the American premieres of works by Tom Stoppard, Harold Pinter, and Timberlake Wertenbaker, world premieres by Philip Kan Gotanda, Constance Congdon, and Mac Wellman, and new interpretations of Schiller, Webster, Euripides, Gorky, Gogol, and Molière. Perloff collaborated with choreographer Val Caniparoli on The Tosca Project. An accomplished playwright, Perloff is the author of Luminescence Dating, The Colossus of Rhodes, Higher, and Waiting for the Flood. Perloff received a BA in classics and comparative literature from Stanford University and was a Fulbright Fellow at Oxford University. Before joining ACT, Perloff was Artistic Director of OBIE award-winning Classic Stage Company in New York. She was recently honored with France’s Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Naghmeh Samini (panelist, ASDR)  Naghmeh Samini was born in 1973 in Iran and received her BA in drama and MA in cinema both from the University of Tehran, holding a PhD in drama and mythology. Her award–winning plays include The Spell of Burnt Temple (2001), Sleeping in an Empty Cup (2003), Death and Poet (2006), The Home (2009), Born in 1982 (2010) and have been staged in Iran, France, India, Germany. She has also written several screenplays, including Main Line, Three Women, and Heiran. She is a professor at the University of Tehran and has also run several workshops in Iran and abroad. Along with her plays, she has had two papers about Thousand and One Nights and Iranian Drama and Mythology have been published.

Sean San José (panelist, SME)  Sean San José, co-founder of Campo Santo of San Francisco’s Intersection for the Arts, is Program Director of Theatre for Intersection for the Arts, San José has helped create and curate a new program called the Hybrid Project, formed to bring together artists of all genres, merging differing and emerging styles of performance in order to find a new performance language. He conceived the theater project Pieces of the Quilt, a collection of short plays confronting the AIDS epidemic. San José organized and created the AIDS Service Arts organization Alma Delfina Group-Teatro Contra el SIDA. He has been awarded the Audrey Skirball-Kennis TIME Grant Awards, San Francisco Arts Commission Individual Artist Commission, two residencies at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts from the Wattis Artist Residency, a Bay Area Critics’ Circle Award, the DramaLogue Award, Backstage West, the Cable Car Award, and the Bay Guardian Goldie  Artistic Achievement in Theatre Award.

Octavio Solis (panelist, WDWT)  Octavio Solis is a playwright and director living in San Francisco. His works (Cloudlands, The Pastures of Heaven, Ghosts of the River, Quixote, Lydia, June in a Box, Lethe, Marfa Lights, Gibraltar, The Ballad of Pancho and Lucy, The 7 Visions of Encarnación, Bethlehem, Dreamlandia, El Otro, Man of the Flesh, Prospect, El Paso Blue, Santos & Santos, and La Posada Mágica) have been mounted throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and across the country. His anthology The River Plays is published by NoPassport Press. He is a 2012 United States Artists Fellow, a Thornton Wilder Fellow for the MacDowell Colony, a New Dramatists alumnus, and a member of the Dramatists Guild. He is presently working on new pieces for the Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Magic Theatre, and Yale Repertory Theatre.

José Luis Valenzuela (panelist, WDWT)  José Luis Valenzuela, artistic director of Los Angeles Theater Center, is an award winning theater/film director and tenured professor at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. He has directed at the Los Angeles Theatre Center where he created the Latino Theatre Lab in 1985, and at the Mark Taper Forum where he established the Latino Theater Initiative. He most recently directed La Victima by El Teatro de La Esperanza (LATC), and La Virgen de Guadalupe, Dios Inantzin (Our Lady of the Angels Cathedral), all produced by the Latino Theater Company. His international directing credits include Henrik Ibsen’s Peer Gynt at the Norland Theatre in Norway and Manuel Puig’s Kiss of the Spider Woman at the National Theatre of Norway. In 2002 he directed the World premiere of Dementia. Mr. Valenzuela has been featured in the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times for his annual pageant play La Virgen de Guadalupe, Dios Inantzin. Mr. Valenzuela’s has received numerous awards including the Ann C. Rosenfield Distinguished Community Partnership Prize presented by UCLA Center for Community Partnerships, and the Hispanic Heritage Month Local Hero of the Year Award.

Roberto Gutiérrez Varea (chair, RR / panelist, WDWT)  Roberto Gutiérrez Varea began his career in theater in his native Argentina. His research and creative work focuses on live performance as means of resistance and peace building in the context of social conflict and state violence. Varea’s stage work in the United States includes directing premieres of works by Migdalia Cruz, Ariel Dorfman, Cherrié Moraga, and José Rivera, among others. He is the founding artistic director of Soapstone Theatre Company, a collective of male ex-offenders and women survivors of violent crime, and El Teatro Jornalero!, a performance company that brings the voice of Latin American immigrant workers to the stage. He is a regular contributor to journals in performance/peace building, and is coeditor and coauthor of the two-volume anthology Acting Together: Performance and the Creative Transformation of Conflict (New Village Press). Varea is the director of the Center for Latino Studies in the Americas (CELASA) at the University of San Francisco.

Marissa Wolf (panelist, SME)  Artistic Director of Crowded Fire Theater, Marissa Wolf’s recent directing credits include Precious Little by Madeleine George at Shotgun Players, and the West Coast Premiere of Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven by Young Jean Lee for Crowded Fire and AATC, for which she was nominated for Best Director by Broadway World San Francisco and the Bay Area Critics’ Circle Award. She has directed at Magic Theatre, Cutting Ball Theatre, Shotgun Players, Vanguardian Productions, and Playwrights Foundation. Wolf previously held the Bret C. Harte Directing Internship at Berkeley Rep for two years, where she assisted renowned directors, including Tony Taccone, Les Waters, Lisa Peterson, Frank Galati, and Mary Zimmerman. Marissa has her degree in drama from Vassar College, and received additional training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.

Andrew Wood (panelist, EP)  A native of England, Andrew Wood is the founder of the San Francisco International Arts Festival (SFIAF), which coordinates multiple Bay Area non-profit organizations and artists to produce an annual series. SFIAF both commissions and produces new work by local artists engaged in international projects and presents the existing repertoire of ensembles from around the world. Andrew has had the good fortune to work with many world-class international artists and their equally brilliant local counterparts to present their projects on the Festival’s stages. Prior to creating SFIAF, Andrew was the director of ODC Theater transforming the venue from being primarily a rental facility with an annual income of $150,000 into a multi-disciplinary presenting organization with a budget of nearly half a million dollars. Andrew has been an artist manager and arranged touring engagements for numerous ensembles including the San Francisco Mime Troupe.

Torange Yeghiazarian (chair, WDWT / panelist, PP)  Torange is the Founding Artistic Director of Golden Thread Productions and has published articles on contemporary theatre in The Drama Review (2012), American Theatre Magazine (2010) and Theatre Bay Area (2010). Torange’s latest play, 444 Days will premiere at Golden Thread in 2013. Her play Call Me Mehdi is included in “Salaam/Peace: An Anthology of Middle Eastern- American Drama” TCG, 2009. Other plays include Waves, Dawn at Midnight, Behind Glass Windows, and Publicly Resting. A collaborator among Iranian, Israeli and American artists responsible for Benedictus (2007), Torange also adapted the poetry of Simin Behbehani to the stage in I Sell Souls (2008). Other directing credits include A Girl’s War by Joyce Van Dyke, Nine Armenians by Leslie Ayvasian, Tamam by Betty Shamieh, Three Stops and Scenic Routes by Yussef el Guindi. Born in Iran and of Armenian heritage, Torange holds a Master’s degree in Theatre Arts from San Francisco State University.

Special Student Matinee Performances of 

Rumi x 7 = Tales from the Masnavi

Appropriate for 4^th Grade and Up

Rumi comes to life as never before through this lively adaptation of one of the world’s greatest poets in Rumi x 7= Tales from the Masnavi. Rumi’s timeless tales explore the ties that bind human kind to the natural world, to their dreams and to their infinite potential. Seven breathtaking vignettes fuse classical Persian poetry with a dazzling panorama of circus arts and commedia dell arte. Let your imagination soar through this awe-inspiring journey that celebrates the cycle of life and humanity’s universal bond.

Date and Time: Thursday, November 15^th at 11am Location: Z Space, 450 Florida Street, San Francisco Running Time: 50 minutes followed by a 15-minute Q & A with cast and director.

Contact: laine@goldenthread.org

Participating Schools

• International Studies Academy
• Town High School for Boys
• Children’s Day School
• Mission Delores Academy
• Downtown High School
• Mission High School

Add your school to the list!! 

Email laine@goldenthread.org today for discount rates!

Download:

ReOrient Press Kit ReOrient Press Release

Rumi x 7 Press Release Modirzadeh Press Release Dabashi Keynote Press Release

Articles and Reviews:

What American Theatre has to say about ReOrient. Download

Re-Orienting the Story by Haleh Hatami on the Arab Review. Read Article

ReOrienting Myself by Torange Yeghiazarian (on Howlaround.com) Download

KQED Feature Download    |    SF Bay Guardian Listing Download

Return to ReOrient by Sam Hurwitt (on TheIdiolect.com) Download

On Representation: Dr. Hamid Dabshi on the Exiled Intellectual as Cultural Artist Download