THEIR VOICES WILL BE HEARD:
Artist Responses to the Israeli-Palestinian Situation

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Panel Discussions
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Panel Discussion: What is the Role of Art in Representing the Situation?
Panelists: Danny Gidron, Nathalie Handal, Rebekah Maggor and Najla Said
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Panel Discussion: Art as Documentary vs. Art as Response
Moderator: Melia Bensussen
Panelists: Noit Banai, Ayelet Bechar, Barbara Grossman, Ibrahim Miari, and Samir Srouji

 

Moderator Biographies

Melia Bensussen
Melia Bensussen is the recipient of an OBIE Award for Outstanding Direction, and has directed extensively around the country, including work at Baltimore Centerstage, Hartford Stage Company, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, La Jolla Playhouse, the New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theater, Manhattan Class Company, Primary Stages, the Long Wharf, Actors Theatre of Louisville, People's Light and Theatre Company (Barrymore nomination for Best Direction), Merrimack Repertory Theatre, and many others.  She was twice given Directing Awards by the Princess Grace Foundation, USA, including their top honor, the Statuette Award for Sustained Excellence in Directing.  Her edition of the Langston Hughes translation of Garcia Lorca's Blood Wedding is in its sixth printing by Theatre Communications Group.  Melia is the Producing Director of Emerson Stage, and the Interim Chair of the Performing Arts Department at Emerson College.

Panelist Biographies

Noit Banai
Noit Banai received her Ph.D. in Art History from Columbia University, where she specialized in modern and contemporary art. She is currently a Lecturer in the Department of Visual and Critical Studies at Tufts University/School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Noit's scholarship focuses on the neo-avant-garde and the role of aesthetics in the reconstruction of the post-war public sphere. She is a frequent contributor to journals of contemporary art such as Art Papers and Modern Painters, and catalogs of major international exhibitions, including Yves Klein retrospectives at the Schirn Kunsthalle, the Barbican Art Gallery, and the Centre Georges Pompidou. Noit was a Teaching Fellow at Columbia University, a Lecturer at the Museum of Modern Art, and served for three years as an assistant editor at RES: Journal of Anthropology and Aesthetics. She is currently working on a book manuscript focusing on Yves Klein and the Aesthetics of Charlatanism.

Ayelet Bechar
Ayelet Bechar is an Israeli documentary film maker and journalist. Her debut award winning film Just Married (Documentary, 71 minutes, Israel, 2005) follows two Palestinian couples who marry knowing they will not be allowed to live together legally because of Israel’s new Law of Citizenship. Ayelet is a freelance feature writer and former TV reporter and producer.  She is a graduate of the Tel Aviv University Film and Television department, and of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York.  Ayelet lives in Tel Aviv, Israel with her family. This year she is a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University.

Daniel Gidron
Daniel Gidron was born in Israel, earned Fulbright and Wien Scholarships, and received his MFA from Brandeis University. Daniel has taught at Tel Aviv University, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Brandeis. He currently teaches at U Mass Boston. In Israel he has directed for Habimah National Theatre, Haifa Municipal Theatre (his adaptation of Amos Oz’s Late Love), Beit Lessin (Beckett’s Endgame featuring a cast of Arabs and Jews), Arab Theatre in Israel (Accidental Death of an Anarchist), and Beersheva Municipal Theatre (Beauty Queen of Leenane).  Directing credits in the USA include Peterborough Players (Absurd Person Singular, The Fantasticks), Jewish Theatre of New England (Broadway Bound, Beau Jest, Sisters Rosensweig, Social Security, Last Night of Ballyhoo, Old Wicked Songs), Ltric Stage Company of Boston (Communicating Doors, Complete History of America Abridged, The Underpants),Worcester Foothills, La Mama, Gloucester Stage Company, Merrimack Repertory (Visiting Mr. Green), Mountain Playhouse, Jennerstown, PA (The Underpants and The Foreigner), Shakespeare & Company, and Nora Theatre Company, where he serves as Associate Director.

He directed Annette Miller in the world premiere of William Gibson’s Golda’s Balcony for Shakespeare & Company in Lenox and at the Tremont Theatre, Boston (IRNE and Elliot Norton Award winner, Best Solo Performance). Recent credits include The Unexpected Man, Smelling a Rat, Antigone, How I Got That Story, and Buried Child (Nora Theatre), Dying City (Lyric Stage) Full Gallop (Nora and Shakespeare & Company).The Loman Family Picnic (Gloucester Stage), Julius Caesar, Macbeth, and A Midsummer Night's Dream (Shakespeare Now), In the Alleys of our Soul (Dror Theatre, Jerusalem), and The Consul (Opera Boston).

Barbara W. Grossman
Associate Professor and Chair of the Drama and Dance Department at Tufts University, Barbara Wallace Grossman is a theatre historian and director. Author of Funny Woman: The Life and Times of Fanny Brice, she has just completed "A Spectacle of Suffering": Clara Morris, Actress in the Gilded Age for Southern Illinois University Press's Theater in the Americas series. A Presidential appointee to the National Council on the Arts (1994-1999) and the United States Holocaust Memorial Council (2000-2005), she currently serves on the Holocaust Museum's Committee on Conscience. A former board member of the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities, she was named Vice Chair of the Massachusetts Cultural Council by Governor Deval Patrick in February 2007. She is a member and former chair of the American Repertory Theatre's Advisory Board, and holds a position on the board of MassEquality (a coalition of local and national organizations defending equal marriage rights for same-sex couples in Massachusetts). Professor Grossman is an adjunct faculty member of the Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service at Tufts. She also serves on the Faculty Grievance Panel and the Academic Awards Committee, as well as on the advisory boards of the Center for the Humanities, the Communication and Media Studies Program, Tufts Hillel, and the Institute for Global Leadership. A magna cum laude graduate of Smith College with a M.F.A. in Directing from Boston University's College of Fine Arts, Professor Grossman earned her Ph.D. from Tufts University.

Nathalie Handal
Nathalie Handal has been involved either as a writer, director or producer in over twenty theatrical and/or film productions worldwide. She is currently in residence at The New York Theatre Workshop (NYTW) finishing a new play, and working on the feature film, Gibran. Some of her recent theatrical credits include: The Stonecutters (Writer; Loews Theatre, co-produced by New York Theatre Workshop and Nibras, 2007), La Cosa Dei Sogni (Writer; The Public Theatre, New York, 2006), and Between Our Lips (Writer; The Public Theatre’s “New Works Now,” 2006); The Details of Silence (Writer; Symphony Space and Claudia Cassidy Theatre-produced by Silk Road and the City of Chicago). She is a member of Nibras Theatre Collective, co-founder of PTheatre in Motion (PTIM) and Associate Artist and Development Executive for the production company, The Kazbah Project.

Rebekah Maggor
Rebekah Maggor is a playwright, actress and voice and speech specialist. Her play, Two Days at Home Three Days in Prison, received a New Play Commission Grant from the National Foundation for Jewish Culture, was selected for the Huntington Theatre Company's Breaking Ground Festival (with Pablo Schreiber in the role of Beni) and received readings at the New York Theatre Workshop (with Oscar Isaac as Beni), and the Old Vic Theatre in London. Her other writing includes How Do You Get the News? a solo performance exploring the Israeli perspective on the September 11th attacks (American Repertory Theatre, Aftermath production.), and  Shakespeare’s Actresses in America, (recently at the Huntington Theatre  in January 2008, past performances at the American Repertory Theatre , Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater, The Players Club, recipient Cambridge Arts Council Grant). As an actress, she has performed in the United States, Russia, Italy, and Israel and worked with directors including Anne Bogart, Peter Sellers, Andrei Serban, and Robert Woodruff. Maggor also teaches and coaches voice and speech. She is an Associate Editor of the International Dialects of English Archive and an Associate Teacher of Fitzmaurice Voicework. She has coached regionally and on Broadway and served as voice and speech coach on the recent Tony award-winning production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?  She is a former Huntington Theatre Company Playwriting Fellow and Middle Eastern Theater Project fellow. She is currently Director of the Program in Speaking and Learning at the Derek Bok Center  at Harvard University and Vice President of the A.R.T. Institute Alumni Association. She holds a B.A. in drama and theatre arts from Columbia University and an M.F.A. in acting from the American Repertory Theatre.

Ibrahim Miari
Born in Acco, Israel, graduated from the Western Galilee College in 1997 and the Acco Theatre Center's Actor Training Program in 1999. As a member of the Acco Theatre Center Ensemble for nearly 12 years, Ibrahim's acting credits include: Arabic Dream, Tower or Babble, Kohelet (in Germany and Austria 1999) The Lioness (a solo show), Acco 2000 in the Scope of Time, Prayer,(performed in Turkey, Vienna, New York City, Albuquerque, and Santa Fe) Wedding Night (at the 2000 Israel Festival in Jerusalem), Landscapes (an international collaboration at Germany's 2002 Manheim Festival), and Dibu & Naoje (a play for children), and wrote and directed one woman show Private Moment in Masraheed solo show festival 2005. His most recent production with Acco Theater Center  a solo show Silhouettes directed by Ariah Yass, which premiered in Hakameri Theater in Tel Aviv summer 2006.  Since 1996, Ibrahim has also been performing folkloric and sacred dances and acting in various commercials and short films. Ibrahim is the director of a drama program at Peace Camp Canada and Peace Camp Boston with high school age Israeli and Palestinian youth.  In 2005, Ibrahim performed in Blood Relative (a world premiere at the Traveling Jewish Theatre in San Francisco) and in The Ambassadors of Very Good Will (Nephesh Theatre) in the Bay Area of California. Currently Ibrahim is an M.F.A candidate in Theater Education and Directing at Boston University 2009.

Najla Said
Najla Said is an award-winning actress, comedian and writer. As an actress, she has appeared Off-Broadway, regionally and internationally, as wellas in film and television.  Recent credits include Heather Raffo's solo show Nine Parts of Desire at Seattle Rep, and the world premiere of Sunlight at Midnight at Amnesty International in London.  Najla is a founding member of Nibras Arab-American Theatre Collective, and served as its artistic director from 2005-2006.  She is one of New York Theatre Workshop's Usual Suspects, and her writing has appeared in such varied publications as Mizna, the Arab-American literary journal, and Heeb magazine. Najla is currently working on her own one woman show, Palestine, which premiered at the "New Works Now" festival at Public Theatre in 2006.  Training: The Actors Center, The Public Theatre/NYSF. Najla is a graduate of Princeton University.

Samir Srouji
Architect/Artist/Art Director
Born in Nazareth 1961, He has been living and working between Nazareth and Boston. Studied architecture at the University of Oklahoma, graduated in 1986. Worked in Boston for 10 years before establishing ‘Samir Y. Srouji Architect’ in Nazareth in 1996; where he worked on various institutional, residential and architectural installation projects including in Jerusalem and Bethlehem. His art works include multi-media, installations, and architectural interventions.  Exhibited in various solo and group shows including; at Sharjah Biennial 8, Gallery Anadiel, and Kibbutz Gallery.  He is a founding member of Al-mámal foundation for Contemporary Art in Jerusalem. He also works as art director and stage set designer, most notably with filmmaker Elia Suleiman on Chronicle of a Disappearance, 1996, and Divine Intervention, 2002. Currently he is an associate principal with Wilson Architects of Boston involved with academic projects including the new physical sciences center at Harvard with Studio Rafael Moneo.

 

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All events, including Panelists, are subject to change.

 

 

This program is supported in part by a grant from the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities, a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Watertown Cultural Council.