Yara Bou Nassar
- Actress
Yara Bou Nassar is a Lebanese stage and film actress, stage director, and writer. She graduated from the Lebanese university of fine arts. She later attended many acting workshops in varied techniques, from improvisation and character work to mime and dance with people like Nathalie Garraud, Kassem Bayatli, Kazumi Fishigami, Claude Hani among others. Among the longest workshops she attended are a "method" workshop in "The Lee Strasberg Institute" in New York, and a mime workshop based on Etienne Decroux's techniques in Escuela de Mimo in Barcelona. She finds interest in discovering different schools and methods of work in order to form her own particular voice.
Yara Recently starred in feature film "Listen" by Phillipe Aractangi which will be out in Cinemas In October 2016. she has also acted in short films such as "Surrogate Sins" written and directed by Farah Shaer, "Al Dar" written and directed by Wassim Tanios, "Jad and Assil" directed by Bane Fakih in which she got nominated for best actress in leading role in New York International Film Festival, " Mercredi" by Talal Khoury and "Beit Byout" by Joseph Khallouf.
She has been active in the theater scene since 2005. As an actress, Yara participates in a variety of projects that widely differ in genres and proposals. However when working on her own performances she finds it crucial to approach themes that organically originate from her personal dilemmas and obsessions which often involve matters of understanding her identity with respect to her history and surrounding as well as exploring imagined realities through individual and collective memories. Most importantly, she is interested in exposing and deconstructing social stereotypes through her work and constantly re evaluating her role as a woman and as an artist in her community. She often uses documentary material as an inspiration for her creations.
She is Collaborating with performer/choreographer Annalena Froehlich and musician Paed Conca to create a new performance titled " Everything Is Just Fine ". The theme of this new creation explores the limits of anxiety in a crisis, how the human body receive violence and translate anxiety in daily behavior.
Her latest performance is titled "The Wedding" which was commissioned by Nabil Canaan for the opening of the VIVA DADA exposition at Station Gallery in Beirut. The work is inspired by the women of th Dada movement and highlights the parallelism between what inspired that movement in the early 20s in Europe and our current socio-political situation in Lebanon and the region. The performance tackles the social violence inflicted on us by imposed gender roles and ridicules the current power structures of our societies.
In April 2016, she conducted an intensive three week acting workshop in Abu Dhabi with five local women from different historical backgrounds and devised at the end of the workshop a documentary performance about their mother's childhoods and departures from their original homeland arriving to the UAE.
In May 2015 she collaborated with actress Ruth Schwegler and musician Paed Conca to create a short performance titled "Dream Team". The performance is a result of a series of interviews she did with women in Beirut from different environments about the dreams they have lost due to the circumstances of their lives. The performance's debute was on May 23rd at the "DAS SECHSTE KLEINE FESTIVAL DER ANDEREN ART" in Bern.
In 2014, was her first collaboration with Conca to create "Collecting Home: Stories of Cities with Missing Walls". The performance is quite autobiographical and confesses through an imagined reality her own reflections on her relationship with her city Beirut. The performance premiered in Bern in October 2014, and was performed again in Beirut in February 2015 in Monot Theater, then in Summer 2015 in the site specific festival "Us, the Neighbors, & the Moon".
In 2013, she co-wrote, co-directed and acted with Syrian writer and actor Elie Youssef in a play titled "I have a Goldfish". The play tackles the issue of one's homeland, identity, and belonging via the scope of the human memory. "I Have a Goldfish" was their second collaboration after co-directing and acting in 2011 "Adam in an Unfruitful Paradise", a short play written by veteran theater maker Raymond Jbara. The play takes a look at death through the eyes of the diseased and his reflections on his life choices.
As actress, she participated in plays and with directors such as "Azeer Salem & dr. Faust" by Shakeeb Khoury, "Mechy Online" by Khouloud Naser, "Hemmem Oumoume"(Public Bathroom) by Aida Sabra, " Shesh Besh by Elie Youssef, Fouad Yammine,Marilyse Aad, "Le Premier Jour" by Wissam Arbache, "Rituals of Signs and Transformations" written by Saadallah Wannous and directed by Sahar Assaf, etc...
Yara is also involved in psycho social work and teaching. She is a Clown Doctor since 2010 with "Smile Foundation" NGO, working in different hospitals in Beirut, while doing an ongoing training with her mentor clown doctor Rodrigo Morganti from Theodora Foundation in Italy.
Yara Recently starred in feature film "Listen" by Phillipe Aractangi which will be out in Cinemas In October 2016. she has also acted in short films such as "Surrogate Sins" written and directed by Farah Shaer, "Al Dar" written and directed by Wassim Tanios, "Jad and Assil" directed by Bane Fakih in which she got nominated for best actress in leading role in New York International Film Festival, " Mercredi" by Talal Khoury and "Beit Byout" by Joseph Khallouf.
She has been active in the theater scene since 2005. As an actress, Yara participates in a variety of projects that widely differ in genres and proposals. However when working on her own performances she finds it crucial to approach themes that organically originate from her personal dilemmas and obsessions which often involve matters of understanding her identity with respect to her history and surrounding as well as exploring imagined realities through individual and collective memories. Most importantly, she is interested in exposing and deconstructing social stereotypes through her work and constantly re evaluating her role as a woman and as an artist in her community. She often uses documentary material as an inspiration for her creations.
She is Collaborating with performer/choreographer Annalena Froehlich and musician Paed Conca to create a new performance titled " Everything Is Just Fine ". The theme of this new creation explores the limits of anxiety in a crisis, how the human body receive violence and translate anxiety in daily behavior.
Her latest performance is titled "The Wedding" which was commissioned by Nabil Canaan for the opening of the VIVA DADA exposition at Station Gallery in Beirut. The work is inspired by the women of th Dada movement and highlights the parallelism between what inspired that movement in the early 20s in Europe and our current socio-political situation in Lebanon and the region. The performance tackles the social violence inflicted on us by imposed gender roles and ridicules the current power structures of our societies.
In April 2016, she conducted an intensive three week acting workshop in Abu Dhabi with five local women from different historical backgrounds and devised at the end of the workshop a documentary performance about their mother's childhoods and departures from their original homeland arriving to the UAE.
In May 2015 she collaborated with actress Ruth Schwegler and musician Paed Conca to create a short performance titled "Dream Team". The performance is a result of a series of interviews she did with women in Beirut from different environments about the dreams they have lost due to the circumstances of their lives. The performance's debute was on May 23rd at the "DAS SECHSTE KLEINE FESTIVAL DER ANDEREN ART" in Bern.
In 2014, was her first collaboration with Conca to create "Collecting Home: Stories of Cities with Missing Walls". The performance is quite autobiographical and confesses through an imagined reality her own reflections on her relationship with her city Beirut. The performance premiered in Bern in October 2014, and was performed again in Beirut in February 2015 in Monot Theater, then in Summer 2015 in the site specific festival "Us, the Neighbors, & the Moon".
In 2013, she co-wrote, co-directed and acted with Syrian writer and actor Elie Youssef in a play titled "I have a Goldfish". The play tackles the issue of one's homeland, identity, and belonging via the scope of the human memory. "I Have a Goldfish" was their second collaboration after co-directing and acting in 2011 "Adam in an Unfruitful Paradise", a short play written by veteran theater maker Raymond Jbara. The play takes a look at death through the eyes of the diseased and his reflections on his life choices.
As actress, she participated in plays and with directors such as "Azeer Salem & dr. Faust" by Shakeeb Khoury, "Mechy Online" by Khouloud Naser, "Hemmem Oumoume"(Public Bathroom) by Aida Sabra, " Shesh Besh by Elie Youssef, Fouad Yammine,Marilyse Aad, "Le Premier Jour" by Wissam Arbache, "Rituals of Signs and Transformations" written by Saadallah Wannous and directed by Sahar Assaf, etc...
Yara is also involved in psycho social work and teaching. She is a Clown Doctor since 2010 with "Smile Foundation" NGO, working in different hospitals in Beirut, while doing an ongoing training with her mentor clown doctor Rodrigo Morganti from Theodora Foundation in Italy.
