Joseph Shahadi's Page

I am...

a performance and interdisciplinary artist and scholar. That means (among other things) I make experimental theater, live art, photographs and video and I am interested in what performances do, aesthetically and politically.

I am also a director and dramaturg, specializing in developing and devising new and experimental work.

As a scholar I write about contemporary visual art and performance and the links between culture and politics, with an emphasis on the Middle East. And I teach a physical approach to acting in studio and as a private coach in New York City. See http://www.totalbodyacting.com/ for class information and details.

I have a website

http://www.josephshahadi.com

Artistic Field or Interest

Performance, Video, Photography (esp. portraiture), Installation

Profession

Artist and Professor

Artistic and professional experiences

As an actor, performance and multimedia artist, I have performed in New York (at HERE, the Culture Project, and the Ohio Theater among others), regionally at avant-garde spaces (like Philadelphia’s Painted Bride Art Center, Nexus gallery and A Space) and colleges (such as Mercy and Kenyon Colleges), and internationally (at Vienna’s Projekt Theater Studio and Kanonhallen in Oslo).

I have been a professional theater director since 1988, when I assistant directed a production of Sam Shepherd’s Seduced starring Tony Award winner Frank Wood. I have directed and/or dramaturged plays and solo works in the theater, dance and opera genres.

I artistic directed the Temporary Theater Company (which became Temporary/Industrial Arts) where I taught workshops and hosted laboratories for the development of new plays. My play American Standard was produced off-off Broadway in 1997 and received a professional reading in 2002. My play American Girls had a professional reading in 2005.

I like...

lurid, pop genres (punk, horror, comix), obsolete or unfashionable forms (variety, vaudeville, pin-ups), and strict, classical models: That tension between austere formality and vulgar American popular idioms characterizes my work.

Statement

I dislike sentiment.
I admire discipline but I also resent it.
I am devoted to pleasure.

Research interests

I am interested in exploring the connections between the body, the image and society.

How did you end up with Reloading Images?

I discovered Reloading Images by searching for Arab/American/Artists online.