Kunafa and Shay

Dr. Samer Al-Saber joins hosts Marina Johnson and Nabra Nelson for a conversation around resistant ventriloquism and postcolonial courtesy. Dr. Al-Saber also shares stories from his upcoming book about the Palestinian theatre movement in the 1970s and 1980s.

Hosts Marina Johnson and Nabra Nelson learn from Dr. Amir Al-Azraki about Iraqi theatrical traditions, the birth of modern Iraqi theatre springing from church drama in Mosul in the late nineteenth century, Iraqi plays in translation, and Afro-Iraqi theatre. 

Hosts Marina Johnson and Nabra Nelson are joined by Fidaa Ataya, a Palestinian storyteller who talks with us about the tradition of the hakawati and how she and her work are looking at different forms of storytelling from ancient traditions to new ways of storytelling in Palestine.

Nubia has a long history of theatre, both before and after the displacement of the 1960s. In this episode, hosts Marina Johnson and Nabra Nelson highlight Nubian theatre, including the only Nubian opera, Opera El Aml by Mohy El Din Sherif. With special guest Mazen Alaa from Nubian Geographic, this episode focus on Nubian theatre in Abu Simbel and the effect that the displacement had and continues to have on theatre in Nubia and the Nubian diaspora today.

Hosts Marina Johnson and Nabra Nelson look at MENA and SWANA puppetry traditions with guest artivist Dr. Sarah Fahmy. They talk about her production of the first recorded full play in English of Ibn Daniyal, The Shadow Spirit; the Aragoz Puppet; and, coming more into current puppetry practice by MENA folks, Fahmy's own ecofeminist puppetry practice.

How can theatre make an impact in moments of crisis? During a time of ongoing genocide and brutal occupation in Palestine, this special episode focuses on Palestinian theatre and political action across borders. We discuss The Gaza Monologues and To The Good People of Gaza. Then Palestinian actor, writer, and scenographer Jeries AbuJaber joins us in conversation about what is currently happening in the West Bank and Gaza and his experience as a theatre artist in Palestine.

How can we think of queerness as a form of political intervention? In this episode, we talk with Erdem Avşar about Turkish theatre, queer utopias, and ghosts. We examine queer dramaturgies in Turkish and international theatre, discuss translation into and from Turkish, re-think temporality in playwriting, and question what queer utopias look like onstage.

This season, we have talked about what it means to create characters who break out of boxes and create new queer representations. Once these characters are created, then comes the challenge of having your work produced. In this episode, we talk with Kareem Fahmy who has dealt with the considerations of producibility and what it means to have his work produced on stages in the United States.

This season, we further complicate notions of MENA womanhood by exploring the additional intersection of queerness in femme MENA theatremaking. Two queer Lebanese femme theatremakers based in the United States, Lama El Homaïssi and Sarah Bitar, join us to discuss how intersectional identities show up in their work and life, and the social atmosphere for femme MENA theatre artists in Lebanon and the United States.

Affinity spaces have been an undercurrent of discussion across the three seasons of Kunafa and Shay. In this live session at the 2023 MENATMA Convening at Golden Thread Productions in San Francisco, in partnership with Mizna+RAWIfest, Marina and Nabra sit down with artists to discuss the nuances of MENA and SWANA affinity spaces and MENATMA, Mizna, and RAWI’s roles in facilitating national cultural affinity among artists of intersectional identities.

MENA cultures are deeply familial with a strong connection to home, defined geographically and through close family bonds. With fraught political and religious opinions about queerness throughout the region, making queer art can threaten those deep connections. How do queer MENA artists consider those complications when making theatre? How do individuals change culture in the face of possible exile? Multi-hyphenate artists Zeyn Joukhadar and Raphaël Aimé Khouri interrogate these questions.

Film reaches a larger public than theatre due to the way it is produced and disseminated. In this way, it has a large and lasting cultural impact. In this episode with Mike Mossalem and Amin El Gamal, we discuss the ways the film and theatre fields influence each other as they both contribute to culture change and performance methodologies.

Activism and storytelling often go hand in hand. What does it mean for queer art and activism to take center stage? How can we look to the future while honoring the places and people from where we all came? In this episode, Sivan Battat talks about their ancestral storytelling workshops within queer and Middle Eastern communities and how they see the relationship between art and activism.

Is art inherently political? Must artists consider sociopolitics in the development of their work? Hamed Sinno’s art has been constantly and publicly politicized. In this episode, we hear about Sinno’s own artistic process and how they approach their art in light of this politicization and their perspective on the role of art in politics in the MENA region and beyond.

Queer SWANA theatremakers are constantly breaking out of boxes. Even within queer and/or SWANA spheres, some artists are pushing boundaries and redefining broad identity categories. Join two such artists, Bazeed and Pooya Mohseni, in a discussion on the present and future of SWANA theatremaking.

In this episode, playwright and dramaturg Adam Ashraf Elsayigh joins co-hosts Nabra Nelson and Marina Johnson to unpack what it means to put queer SWANA characters on stage and discuss the future of representation in the United States.

In this special episode, Marina and Nabra sit down with Lebanese actor, theatremakers, and peacebuilder Raffi Feghali to talk about the Buffer Fringe Festival. Buffer Fringe is an annual festival with a mission for peacebuilding and social justice, organized by Home for Cooperation and situated in the buffer zone in Cyprus. Buffer Fringe runs 7-9 October 2022, presenting three days of international, interdisciplinary, experimental performances under the theme of Pockets (beyond). Join us as we explore improv in Lebanon, experimental theatre in a geographically contentious area, and artistic curation for peacebuilding.

As politicized ethnic groups, playwriting comes with a sense of responsibility and history for many MENA and SWANA writers. Balancing drama and comedy in plays that deal with MENA politics, identity, and history can be difficult, but is also crucial for inviting audiences into our stories and addressing stereotypes and historical harm. Join two prominent playwrights and pillars of the MENA community, Yussef El-Guindi and Leila Buck, as we have an open conversation about how they approach their writing and reflect on what their work means in a greater societal context.

Artistic identities can be complicated, and many theatremakers work equally within two or more disciplines simultaneously. The most interesting work is rarely created in a vacuum. These multidisciplinary artists create diverse projects in all senses of the word, broadening our idea of what theatre can and should be. Today, two such multihyphenate artists, Denmo Ibrahim and Sarah Fahmy, converse about their multiple identities, how they reconcile and manage their myriad expertise, and the role of multihyphenate artists in today’s theatre landscape.

MENA artists continue to work hard to create representation in large theatrical arenas by pushing for their work to be produced on contemporary stages. However, since some major theatres only allot 1 or 2 slots a year for plays by BIPOC artists, and MENA artists have frequently been ignored. They have found other ways to create thriving artistic spaces for actors, directors, and playwrights alike. Masrah Cleveland Al Arabi has created a space for MENA artists to thrive. This artist-led organizational infrastructure serves as an example of how change can be made within existing theatrical structures. Today we are joined by Raymond Bobgan and Omar Kurdi.

In the greater conversation about MENA or SWANA identity, many national and ethnic groups do not neatly fit into that category or are in between geographic areas. One of the largest groups that are both within and without what is considered the “Middle East” is Iran. So many Iranian leaders are making intentional space for the diversity and specificity of their culture by creating companies for Iranian artists. In this episode, we highlight two Iranian theatre companies: Seda Iranian Theatre Ensemble in Seattle, WA, and Peydah Theatre Company in NYC.

For artists, getting a quality review of their show is often critical to continued success. It can make or break new plays and emerging artists. However, works by BIPOC artists have often been subjected to the white critical gaze in reviews, which has frequently not made any attempt to account for the complexity of culture outside of the reviewer’s own understanding. There has been a major push by BIPOC artists to counter the white supremacy of reviews, including who writes the critiques and what they write about. In this episode, Arti Ishak and Yasmin Zacaria Mikhaiel talk about their experiences as MENA artists and critics, how they negotiate the field of criticism, and what changes can and must be made to the landscape.

Community engagement is more than a post-show talk or touring production. These two directors and administrative leaders are community engagement practitioners in everything that they do, including their artmaking and program curation. They work both as independent artists and through organizations. We will discuss the nature of community engagement as an artistic practice, how their MENA backgrounds influence their practice, and how the theatre atmosphere is or should shift to be community engaged in an authentic and equitable way.

Site-specific performances have the possibility to truly make all the world a stage. To produce site-specific and devised theatre performances in the United States and abroad, artists must engage with the questions of the politics of any space, what communities inhabit or use it, and who is invited into it. Sahar Assaf, a Lebanese theatremaker and the new artistic director of Golden Thread Productions, and Zeina Daccache, an actor, director, and the founder of Catharsis: Lebanese Center for Drama Therapy come together to talk about site-specific and devised theatre pieces in Lebanon, the rest of the MENA world, and the United States.

Theatre is a powerful tool for political and community advocacy efforts. From the stage to the streets, theatre can illuminate underheard narratives, reveal different perspectives on political events, and humanize the struggles of groups. There is a long history of theatre as a tool for advocacy in the Palestinian community in the US and abroad. In this episode, we talk to two Palestinian writers and theatremakers who have been using the art form as a way to bring awareness to the conflict in Palestine, give audiences with concrete tools for change, and provide direct relief to Palestinians internationally.

Last season we talked about on-stage representation in contemporary theatre. But what does representation look like behind the scenes and why is it important? How does the process change when there are MENA creative team members, production staff, directors, and playwrights involved from the inception of a project to its closing night? What role does this representation play in new work development? We will discuss all of this and more with playwright Betty Shamieh and artistic director of Boom Arts Tracy Francis as they share their past experiences, insight, and ideas for the future.