Thursday, November 21th at 6:00PM

Contemporary Dance Workshop with Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre taught by Zoe Rabinowitz and Samaa Wakim

Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre (YSDT) views technique as a means of furthering our bodies as instruments for creative expression. This contemporary dance workshop starts with an anatomically mindful warm-up, and evolves through guided improvisation scores. Blending contemporary dance and theater to explore themes from YSDT repertory works, this dance workshop draws on visualization, improvisation, and play to facilitate an experiential, process-driven environment that empowers participants and meets them where they are in their practice. YSDT’s goals as educators are to provide new tools for creative expression, validate individuals through empowered choice-making, honor diverse perspectives and abilities, and center the power of storytelling in pursuit of social justice.

About the artists

Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre (YSDT) creates invigorating performance and education programs that expand access to - and promote understanding through - the arts. Founded in 2005 by Samar Haddad King in NYC, YSDT has a repertoire of 30+ original works performed across NYC, regionally, and abroad in 18 countries across four continents. Since 2011, the company has worked transnationally between NYC and Palestine, and is committed to uniting diverse artists and audiences in the creative process, rooted in the belief that art should be liberating, transformative, and accessible to all. For more information, visit: www.ysdt.org.

Zoe Rabinowitz is the Executive Director and a founding member of Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre. Originally from Vermont, Zoe graduated from the Walnut Hill School for the Arts before earning her BFA in Dance from the Ailey/Fordham BFA program, with additional studies at De Amsterdamse Hogeschool voor de Kunsten (Netherlands). Her own work for stage and film has been presented throughout the US, and abroad in Austria, Bulgaria, Germany, Mexico, and South Korea.In recognition of her work as a leader in the non-profit field, Zoe was awarded a 2020 New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) Emerging Leaders Fellowship and selected as a New York Community Trust Leadership Fellow in the same year.

Samaa Wakim is a performer, choreographer and cultural manager based in Palestine. She graduated from the acting department of Haifa University. Performance credits include: I am Yusuf and This is My Brother (Shibir Hur and Young Vic Theater, London 2009); The Beloved, (Shibir Hur and Bush Theater, London, 2012); Exit & Ble Ble Bel (Khashabi Theatre, Palestine, 2011); Badke (A.M. Qattan foundation, KVS Theater, and Les ballets C de la B, Brussels 2012- 2017); bound (Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre and Sareyyet Ramallah, Ramallah, 2014); Against a Hard Surface (Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre Hamburg 2017); Modern Curses, co-directed and choreographed by Bashar Murkus and Wakim (Khashabi Theater, Haifa 2018); Last Ward (Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre, Paris, 2018); The Cabaret (Khashabi Theatre, Haifa, 2018); The Father (Al Jawal Theater, Haifa, 2021); Losing It, co-creat ed with Samar Haddad King (Festival Theaterformen, Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre, Khashabi Theatre, Hannover, 2021). She is a production manager of Haifa Independent Film Festival 2019 & 2023 and member of Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre (since 2014) and Khashabi Theatre (since 2008).