Ouriel Zohar

Ouriel Zohar in 2009

Ouriel Zohar (born in 1952), is an Israeli and French theater director, playwright and translator from French to Hebrew. He created the Technion theater in 1986 and has been visiting Professor at the University of Paris VIII and HEC Paris since 1995.

Biography

Zohar started directing in Paris in 1978. He completed a doctorate on the theme of the collective and universal Kibbutz Theatre, presented it at the University of Paris VIII, where he was Assistant Professor from 1980 to 1985. He has published 150 articles^[1] in the field of theater and academic journals in English, French and Hebrew. His university writings are also about Peter Brook, Constantin Stanislavski, Jerzy Grotowski, Augusto Boal, Martin Buber and Aaron David Gordon, who profoundly influenced theater. Until now he has staged 71 plays in Israel, Europe, Canada and Africa. He has written and edited some thirty original plays in Hebrew. He has staged classic plays by Molière, Shakespeare, Marivaux, Henrik Ibsen and George Bernard Shaw etc.

His Technion Theater takes part in festivals in Europe, Canada and Israel. He teaches stage aesthetics, playwriting and actor performance in Paris and Israel. He has been a playwright of the Habima Theatre in 1989–1990 and the Haifa Municipal Theatre in 1995–1997. He has conducted Judeo–Arab collaborative projects by means of art and is among the founders of the El Midan Arab Theatre in Haifa in 1994. Between 1993 and 1999 he was vice-president of the International Association of University Theatre (IUTA), based in the University of Liège, Belgium, and Honorary Member^[2] in 2005; From 1995 he is a visiting Professor at HEC, and from 1997 at the University of Paris VIII. In 1993, he staged Season of Migration to the North the novel by Sudanese writer Tayeb Salih, with the participation of Mohammed Bakri, a Palestinian-Israeli actor who has received the award for best actor at the Acco Festival of Alternative Israeli Theatre in Acre. With his actor, Bakri, he staged the "Bakri Monologue" in French, Arabic and Hebrew and appeared with Bakri on stage in Paris, at the Boris Vian Hall Theatre of Paris-Villette, on the national stage of Cergy-Pontoise, Lille, at the Peace Festival in Brussels and in other countries. From 2002 he played the leading role of Prospero in The Tempest in the theater of Béatrice Brout,^[3] and the Earl of Northumberland in Richard II, by Shakespeare, and interpreted texts of Victor Hugo and other writers in France.

In 2006 he founded his own theatre company, 'Compagnie Ouriel Zohar'^[4] in Paris, with An Enemy of the People by Henrik Ibsen, first performed in Paris, then in Frejus and Besançon, in Liege, Belgium, in Minsk, Belarus, in Valleyfield Canada and Porto Heli, Greece. In 2010 he staged "Seraphita", his adaptation of an 1834 novel by Honoré de Balzac, performed in Paris at the "Theatre de l'Ile Saint-Louis",^[5] Brussels, Greece, Republic of Congo, in 2012 performed at the Maison de Balzac in Paris, and also in Switzerland, Israel, Istanbul^[6] and "Theatre Darius Milhaud" in Paris.

His staging in Hebrew of Henrik Ibsen's "An Enemy of the People" was accorded the best actor award at the Festival of Benevento, Italy in 2009. From 2007, after being appointed international judge of international competitions in Europe University Theatre, Paris, Minsk, Moscow, etc., he presented master classes for staging and acting in festivals in Europe. Among his most famous students, Scandar Copti, director and screenwriter of Ajami won 5 Ophir awards 2009, including the best film award in Israel and was nominated for an Oscar of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in Los Angeles in 2009.

Zohar has published 6 books in Hebrew and a book in French with his wife Martine Zohar: "My life in Israel in the light of the pines"^[7] published by Persée editors, France, 2009.

In 2013 was elected as parliament member of The Israeli Palestinian Confederation (IPC)^[8]

Notes and references