Trigger Warning: The contents of this production contain topics of rape, sexual abuse, and violence and may be disturbing to some viewers. Please step away and take care if needed.

Program details:

Featuring Nadra Majeed Assaf and Heather Harrington
Format: Interview, Artist Presentation
Click here for transcription

Artistic Presentation of Our Bodies, Our Voices
Performed by Nadra Majeed Assaf and Heather Harrington
Video from July 2018

Heather Harrington
Choreographer, Educator, Researcher
Adjunct Professor at Kean University and Drew University, NJ, U.S.
Heather Harrington has an MFA in dance from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and a BA in psychology Boston University. She danced with the Doris Humphrey Repertory Company, the Martha Graham Ensemble, the Pearl Lang Dance Theater, and the Bella Lewitzky Dance Company. Her choreography has been presented by various venues nationally and internationally. She has received grants from Meet the Composer, The New York State Council on the Arts, The Bossak/Heilbron Charitable Foundation, L.J. Skaggs and Mary C. Skaggs Foundation, and the Harkness Space Grant from the 92nd Street Y. She has been a resident choreographer for The Yard’s Bessie Schonberg Choreographers and Dancers Residency, Kaastbann International Dance Center, and the Hotel Pupik series in Austria. Harrington has created a number of site- specific pieces including Giscard Games  for the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, across from the New York Stock Exchange on the stairs of Federal Hall Memorial, where dancers depicted the culture of stock traders.   At the Center of Architecture, Harrington created a  piece celebrating the collaboration between architects and performance artists, and at Wave Hill, she created a trio, Tumble Blue On Me,  on the steepest hill for the Dancing in the Streets series. In 2003, Harrington’s evening length work inspired by the character of Lady Macbeth, Imitations of Drowning, was presented by Danspace Project to a live score by Quentin Chiappetta fully utilizing the architecture of the Church with sets designed by Illya Azoroff.  The fall of 2014, she was asked to choreograph a site specific piece, Melt at the Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton, NJ for the Outlet Dance project and the in 2013, she created  a gun violence protest performance, a part of  Art=Ammo  at Washington Park in Newark, NJ. Heather Harrington is currently an adjunct professor of Modern Dance and Theory at Kean University and Drew University, and has taught modern dance at Seton Hall University.  She also taught modern dance in East Orange to first graders in a special program designed by former Ailey dancer Sharon Miller to bring dance education to grammar schools in East Orange, NJ. Harrington has taught master classes at Rutgers University, DeSales University, Columbia High School, and The Academy of Performing Arts High School in Union NJ.
heatherharrington.com

Dr. Nadra Majeed Assaf
Director, The Al-Sarab Dance Foundation
Dr. Nadra Majeed Assaf is the founder/artistic director of Al-Sarab Dance Foundation which houses Al-Sarab Dance School as well as Al-Sarab Dance Company. She is also a full-time academic at the Lebanese American University and a well-known researcher in dance in the Middle East. She received her MFA in Dance from Sarah Lawrence College, and a Doctorate of Education from Leicester University. In addition to those degrees she also has a BA in Theater and a BS in Finance. She is best known for her work in dance in the Middle East as she has lived in Lebanon for the past 30+ years. Most of her dance productions are performed in different countries (Lebanon, Bahrain, USA, Sweden, Finland, and Croatia) include: Public Conflict, Private Scars (2019), Sawtee (2019, 2017), Our Bodies, Our Voices (2017), Am I Who I Am Who Are You Who (2017) Sawtee (2017). This Is How It Happened! (2016), INFLUX (2015), STS: Space-Time-Shape (2012), I Matter: An Audience Interactive Performance (2010), The Faces of EVE (2008-2009), and Majnoun Leila (2007). In April 2011, she organized and implemented the first annual International Dance Day Festival in Lebanon which continues to exist to date. She is a member of DSA and NDEO and has been a Judge/Instructor on several TV programs concerning performing arts. Dr. Assaf is an advocate for the arts in Lebanon and the Region. She is also an avid researcher; among her publications: Audience/performer re-action: an investigation into audience/performer reciprocity via a touring site-specific performance in Lebanon (2020) Not Without My Body: The Struggle of Dancers and Choreographers in the Middle East (2015) and “I Matter”: An Interactive Exploration of Audience-Performer Connections (2012).
nadraassaf.com