Nora Amin was born in Cairo in 1970. Following her studies in French and comparative literature, she worked for nine years as an assistant at the Cairo Academy of the Arts. Nora Amin is known as a writer, performer, choreographer and theatre director. Nora started her professional stage career as a professional dancer and a founding member at the modern dance company of the Cairo Opera House (1993/94). Then moved to work as an actress in lead roles at the Hanager Arts Center till 2002. As a writer she published four collections of short stories and four novels, besides an audio book of poetry. She has also translated 15 books on theatre and dance.
In 2000 she founded Lamusica Independent Theatre Group in Cairo to experiment with new forms of physical expression and to voice the unspoken issues of women and of socio-cultural repression. She directed and produced 37 theatre, dance and music productions before moving to Berlin in 2015. Her work is set between the areas of Literature, theatre/dance and feminism, and is all linked by the drive of socio-political activism where the artist takes the role of a rebel against the traditions of patriarchy, authority, sexism and racism.
Work and achievements:
Alumni of the Vilar Institute for Arts Management/The John F. Kennedy for the Performing Arts (USA, 2004), Cultural Leadership in the Performing Arts (British Council, 2009), Clore Leadership diploma (UK, 2009), S. Fischer guest professor at the general and comparative literature institute (FU, 2004-2005), guest lecturer (Acting) at the theatre department of Mount Holyoke College (USA, 2005), Founder of The National Egyptian Project for Theatre of the Oppressed and its Arab network (2011 to date), Former fellow of the International Research Centre for Interweaving Performance Cultures (FU, 2015-2016, and 2017: topic Theatre and Political Transformation), Valeska-Gert guest professor for dance studies (FU, summer semester 2018: topic Performing Trauma).
Her Publications & Literary Works include:
Translations into Arabic:
- Le Lieu Theatral, collection of essays. Academy of Arts, Cairo International Festival for Experimental Theatre, Ministry of Culture, 1993.
- Le Theatre Contemporain: Culture et Contre-Culture, de Jean Duvignaud et Jean Lagoutte, the Academy of Arts, CIFET, the Ministry of Culture, 1994.
- Yannis Kokos: Le Scenographe et le Heron, essays by George Banu, CIFET, 1994.
- Les Theates de l'Asie, collection d;essais, the Ministry of Culture, CIFET 1995.
- Lécole du Spectateur, Ann Ubersfeld, in collaboration with other translators, CIFET, the Ministry of Culture, 1996.
- L'Arc du Desir, Augusto Boal, CIFET, the Ministry of Culture,1997.
- The Human Creative Diversity: the UNESCO Report, in collaboration with other translators, the Supreme Council of Culture, the National Translation Project, the Ministry of Culture,1997.
- Le Paradoxe sur le Comedien, Denis Diderot, CIFET, the Ministry of Culture,1998.
- La Breve Histoire de l'ex-Union Sovietique, de Roger Garaudy, the Popular Culture Organism, the translation series, the Ministry of Culture,1998.
- Globalizxation: The Social Theory and the Universal Culture, in collaboration with Ahmed Mahmoud, , the Supreme Council of Culture, the National Translation Project, the Ministry of Culture,1998.
- La Musica 2eme et L'Amante Anglaise, de Marguerite Duras, CIFET, 1999.
- Le Theatre Citoyen, Jean Vilar, CIFET,the Ministry of Culture, 2000.
Fiction
- Parenthetical Phrases, a collection of short stories, the Anglo-Egyptian Bookshop, Cairo, 1995.
- Convex Roads, a collection of short stories, New Culture Publishing House, Cairo, 1996.
- An Empty Pink Shirt, a novel, Sharkiyyat, Cairo, 1997.
- Episodes of Sympathy, a collection of short stories, the Popular Culture Organism, the New Writings series, the Ministry of Culture, Cairo 1998.
- The Second Death of the Man of the Watches-, a novel, the Popular Culture Organism, the New Writings series, the Ministry of Culture, Cairo, 2000. Also in a popular edition at the General Egyptian Book Organism, Cairo 2003.
- The Third Half, a collection of short stories, Merit for publishing, Cairo, 2003.
Theatrical Scripts
- -The Text-, a script for dance and speech performances, 1998
- -The Bermuda Triangle-, 1998, and produced in New York, Manhattan, Lower East Side Tenement Museum Theatre, 2002.
- -Poison and Rage-, a one act comedy, 1999
- -All is OK-, a script for a musical, 1999
- -The Box of Our Lives-, 2000
- -The Trip to the Soul-, 2001
- -love-, as script for a dance performance, 2001
- -Message to my father-, script for a solo performance, 2001
- -Rice Cake-, script for a solo performance, 2002
- -Ambulance Car-, in Arabic and English, 2002
Screenplays
- -The Body-, an experimental documentary, the Swedish fine arts college,2003
- -Cutting through the Soul-, an experimental documentary, Egyptian TV,2002.
- -Heliopolis-, a short dance film, Egyptian TV and TV5, 2001.
Published translations of several of the above works has been into English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Swedish languages.
Non-fiction
The Egyptian Theatre and Human Rights: The Art of Claiming our Right, the first book on human rights and theatre in Egypt, the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, Cairo, 2002.
AWARDS AND PRIZES
- The best Novel for an Egyptian writer under 40 years old, Andalousia Foundation for Culture and Sciences, Alexandria: - An Empty Pink Shirt, 2000.
- The best short story in the Arab world, Alakhbar Press House, A Long Black Shirt, 1996
-The best short story in Egypt, the Popular Culture Organism, Convex Roads,1996.
- recipient of the Samuel-Fischer Literary Award, Berlin, Germany, in conjunction with a Professorship at Freie University, Berlin, 2004/2005.
- the first selected African and Middle-Eastern Fellow of the Fellowship Program at the Vilar Institute for Arts Management, at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington DC, USA.
