We capstone our Intersections conference with a roundtable discussion on Cross-Cultural Theater in Germany and the U.S. on Saturday, March 22, 2014, at 10:30 AM in the Montgomery Theater of the Annenberg Center for Performing Arts, 3680 Walnut Street. 

Panelists include:

Ibrahim Miari

Actor and Director, Hebrew Lecturer at Penn

Ibrahim holds an MFA in Theater Education from Boston University.  Originally from Israel, he resides in the Philadelphia area. Since 1996 Ibrahim has been a member of the Acco Theatre Center Ensemble, acting and dancing in ensemble based projects for both young and adult audiences throughout Israel, Europe and the United States, as well as performing solo shows in Arabic, Hebrew and English. Ibrahim is also a Sufi dancer and sacred dances instructor, performing and leading workshops at universities and international festivals.  Credits include: Superior Donuts (Max) Colonial Playhouse Theater, Arabian Nights (multiple) Central Square Theater, The Fever Chart (Ali) Underground Railway Theater,  for which he was nominated for an IRNE award in the solo performance category. Blood Relative (Ibi) Traveling Jewish Theater, Round trip to Monte Carlo (Ahmed) Best actor - Audience choice, Boston Playwrights' Platform Festival. Film and television credits include Water Dogs (MCS Films), Naz + Maalik (Pecking Wilds LLC), Brains On Trial with Alan Alda (PBS). Since 2005 he has directed the drama program at several peace camps with high school age Israeli and Palestinian youth. Currently he is performing his semi autobiographical one man show In Between at universities and festivals. (www.inbetweenplay.com).

Nora Haakh 

Theater Ballhaus Naunynstraße, Berlin Graduate School Muslim Cultures and Societies

Nora Haakh is a theatremaker and researcher based in Berlin. She studied Middle Eastern Studies, Political Science and Modern History in Berlin, Paris, Istanbul and Cairo, gaining her M.A. with a thesis on postimigrant theatre's discoursive interventions into the debate on Islam in Germany. Already during her studies, she was involved in various theatre projects in, about and between Postmigrant Germany and the Middle East. Since 2012, she has been working as a dramaturg at Postmigrant Theatre Ballhaus Naunynstraße, working, amongst others, with writers like Imran Ayata, Marianna Salzmann and Deniz Utlu, Elizabeth Blonzen, Daniela Janjic and Rashid Novaire and directors like Nora Abdel-Maksoud, Lukas Langhoff and Neco Celik. Parallely, she is currently pursuing a Phd on „Strategies for Changing Stages – Transferring Theatre between the Middle East and Europe“ at Berlin Graduate School Muslim Cultures and Societies, Freie Universität Berlin. 

Ortrud Gutjahr

Intercultural Literary and Media Studies, University of Hamburg

Prof. Dr. Ortrud Gutjahr studied German, Sociology and Philosophy as triple majors at the University of Freiburg, wrote her dissertation about Ingeborg Bachmann and her post-doctoral thesis (Habilitationsschrift) on the self-reflection of literary modernism. In 1993, she accepted the offered professorship of German Literature and Intercultural German Studies at the University of Karlsruhe. In 1997 she was appointed chair professor for German Literature and Intercultural Literary Studies at the University of Hamburg. She held visiting professorships at the University of Adelaide, Sydney University, Stockholm University and Istanbul University as well as an adjunct professorship at Macquarie University in Sydney.

She is a member of numerous international committees and advisory boards for international scientific journals. As founder of the Center for Intercultural Literary and Media Studies at the University of Hamburg, she presides and manages third-party-funded projects such as: »Intercultural Topos Harbour City«, »Migration as a Shared Experience in German-Turkish and Turkish Film«, »Intercultural Poetics and the Aesthetic Productivity of Turkish-German and German-Turkish Stereotypes«. She is co-editor of Jahrbuch für Literartur und Psychoanalyse (Yearbook for Literature and Psychoanalysis) and editor of the series »Interkulturelle Moderne« (Intercultural Modernism). She regularly conducts conferences on remarkable theater productions and is editor of the series »Theater und Universität im Gespräch« (Theater and University in dialogue).

Her main areas of research and publication are: Intercultural Literary and Media Studies; 18th Century Literature and Literature from around 1900 up until today; Intercultural Film and Theater Studies; literature and psychoanalysis; cultural theory and theory of intercultural modernism.

Recently edited publications include among others: Hamburger Gastprofessur für Interkulturelle Poetik: Yoko Tawada – Fremde Wasser. Vorlesungen und wissenschaftliche Beiträge (2012); Transkulturalität und Intermedialität in der Germanistik des globalen Zeitalters (2012) as well as: Interkulturalität als Herausforderung und Forschungsparadigma der Literatur- und Medienwissenschaft (2012). Forthcoming editions are for example: Der zerbrochene Krug von Heinrich von Kleist and Hamburger Gastprofessur für Interkulturelle Poetik: Felicitas Hoppe – Abenteuer . Welten. Reisen. Vorlesungen und wissenschaftliche Beiträge (2014).

Robert Smythe

Founder and Artistic Director, Mum Puppettheatre   

Robert Smythe is an acclaimed theater artist turned academic. The recipient of Guggenheim, Pew, NEA and six Pennsylvania Council on the Arts fellowships, his work, according to Philadelphia City Paper, “sparked the theater renaissance that continues to this day.” He has won six Barrymore Awards for Excellence in Theater in areas ranging from education to choreography. A research-loving MFA, his work on motor contagion has been published in Acta Psychologica; his ground-breaking application of narrative theory to puppetry appeared in Puppetry International, and his article, “Reading a Puppet Show: Understanding the Three-Dimensional Narrative” will be published in 2014 in The Routledge Companion to Puppetry and Material Performance. 

According to the Puppeteers of America, Robert is one of the most influential puppeteers in the United States, widely acknowledged to have changed perceptions about puppetry and theater. For 23 years he was the founder and Artistic Director of Mum Puppettheatre, Philadelphia’s largest small theater and the only regional theater in the United States dedicated to puppetry. Many of those shows were also performed on tours throughout Europe, Japan, and North and Central America, and collectively won thirteen Barrymore Awards. He was named “Best Professor” in Philadelphia Magazine’s 2010 “Best of Philadelphia” issue. 

Torange Yeghiazarian

Golden Thread Productions, San Francisco 

Torange Yeghiazarian is a playwright and the founding Artistic Director of Golden Thread Productions in San Francisco, a theatre company which for almost 20 years has focused on the stories and peoples of the Middle East. Signature programs include Golden Thread’s tri-annual ReOrient Festival and Forum, the Fairytale Players youth program, and its Middle East America playwriting award (co-sponsored with The Lark & Silk Road Rising.) Torange has also published key articles about contemporary theatre in Iran.

Moderator: Marcia Ferguson

Theater Arts Program, University of Pennsylvania 

Dr. Ferguson received her Ph.D. in theatre from the City University of New York Graduate Center and has an MFA in acting and a BA in English. She has taught, acted and directed professionally in theatre, film and television in Philadelphia, New York, Rome and Tokyo, and in Philadelphia has taught at Temple University, Swarthmore College, and Penn. Areas of specialization include cultural studies and intercultural theatre, performance studies, Commedia dell'arte, movement for actors, and improvisation. She has published essays and criticism in journals and newspapers including Theatre Journal, Western European Stages, The Christian Science Monitor, and Slavic and Eastern European Performance. She has published two books, Writing About Theatre (Longman's, 2008), and Blanka and Jiri Zizka at The Wilma Theater: From the Underground to the Avenue (VDM, 2009).

 

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