Suchergebnisse

Performance is a process-oriented tool which improves our sensuous, intellectual, social, and aesthetic appreciation of life and the world we live in. A performer is a doer whose action is carried out in a space shared with a public. The visible image of a performer contradicts the stereotypical image of the passive female in Arab societies. What is more inconsistent is the presence of the female performer as an economic player in contemporary Arab societies. She does not live on the margin of society but is a professional, an evident contributor to the cultural scene, and above all has been instigating change in her community by expanding the horizons of her gender and certainly exercising power. Scheherazade's bedtime stories proved to be a stratagem to change her fate and that of her sisters.

"Women in the Performing Arts" was the subject of a round table discussion held at the Institute for Women's Studies in the Arab World in January 2007. The participants were Nidal Ashqar, a pioneer actress and director, and the first Lebanese woman to manage her own theater Masrah al-Madina; Julia Kassar, renowned Lebanese actress and acting instructor; Joelle Khoury, pianist, composer, and founder of the Jazz quintet In-Version; Yasmina Fayed, singer in the troupe Shahadeen ya Baladna and assistant producer at Future Television; Pamela Koueik, singer and university student at LAU; Dima Dabbous-Sensenig, director of the Institute for Women's Studies in the Arab World, and Mona Knio, guest editor of al-Raida. Due to space constraints, the following are excerpts from the two-hour discussion.

Haifa Wehbi is a Lebanese singer who started her career as a model. She was the first runner up for Miss Lebanon in 1995. She became known in the Arab world after the release of her first album Huwa al-Zaman (i.e. it is time). In 2006 she was on People magazine's list of the 50 most beautiful people.