Noura, by Heather Raffo, Falaki Theatre Cairo
I am a playwright, fiction writer, director and producer. My artistic work connects to my research and generally focuses on social and community issues such as trauma, equality, gender and a loss of - or change in - identity. I work with groups to explore a topic pertinent to their circumstances and in which they lack the agency to contribute potential solutions to the problems they are facing. The artistic process I guide participants through, seeks to 1) capture the power of their ideas and their knowledge about the issue they are facing, 2) frame them as the experts in the issue and give them the tools to conduct further research and 3) offer near authentic experiences to help them practice communication that will enable both the individual participants and the collective group to suggest and make real life changes that will impact them and address underlying and systematic issues within their communities.
The Puzzle Club & the Making of the Puzzle Club: empowering brain injury survivors
“Beyond educating the viewer about brain injury and the impact it has on the individual, the film holds some important life lessons for all of us. The members of the Puzzle Club share their wisdom that came from no longer being able to take life and "normal" for granted. They further explain the title of their group, it is about "finding life's little puzzle pieces to make life better." The play left me wondering if perhaps they have indeed figured it out better than the rest of us.”
Reviewed by: Denese M. Neu, HHS Planning & Consulting, Inc.
Disability Studies Quarterly
Fall 2006, Volume 26, No. 4
MSH ZANBIK is a collection of five original plays performed in hybrid Franco-Arabic. It discusses sexual harassment and assault in Egypt and the wider region and situates theatre as a way to address this often concealed problem. Written by young AUC women and men, it views the issues from multiple perspectives and rejects the common assumption that victims of harassment and assault are at fault. MSH ZANBIK was devised and created with sixty American University in Cairo students and alumni and was performed outdoors and socially distanced in 5 different locations.