ABOUT
Rania Lee Khalil makes performances and moving image for live audiences. Her artworks reflect on the beauty and disappearance of indigenous plant, animal and human (culture)s. Her embodied art practice reflects on anticolonial ecology, third world feminism, revolution and healing, through lo fi and analog technologies.
Originally trained in dance, somatic movement and Butoh, Rania brings a sense of quiet and movement to her and moving images. She is the daughter of Egyptian immigrants to the US who
returned to Cairo, where she also lived from 2007-2016.
Rania’s original works have been seen in places including The Judson Church, La Mama Galleria, Martin Segal Theater, Utopia Station and The Ontological-Hysteric Theater in New York; Aomori Art Museum Japan, Al Ma’mal Contemporary Art Foundation Palestine, Zawya Cinema Egypt, Kiasma Museum for Contemporary Art Finland and the 56th Venice Biennale.
Rania holds a practice based Doctorate in Dance and Video from the University of Arts Helsinki, Finland.
Originally trained in dance, somatic movement and Butoh, Rania brings a sense of quiet and movement to her and moving images. She is the daughter of Egyptian immigrants to the US who
returned to Cairo, where she also lived from 2007-2016.
Rania’s original works have been seen in places including The Judson Church, La Mama Galleria, Martin Segal Theater, Utopia Station and The Ontological-Hysteric Theater in New York; Aomori Art Museum Japan, Al Ma’mal Contemporary Art Foundation Palestine, Zawya Cinema Egypt, Kiasma Museum for Contemporary Art Finland and the 56th Venice Biennale.
Rania holds a practice based Doctorate in Dance and Video from the University of Arts Helsinki, Finland.
Awards include Kone Foundation (Finland), CIMO foundation (Finland), Erasmus Mundus (Europe), Fund for Women Artists (US), Zebra Poetry Film Festival (Germany), Bay and Paul Foundation (US), Merce Gilmore Foundation (US), Gibney Dance Moving Toward Justice Fellowship (US), New York Foundation for the Arts (US) and Women in Theatre and Media Award (US)
Rania lives and works within the stolen territories of the Munsee and Canarsie peoples, colonially known as Brooklyn, NY. She is the mother of one daughter.
Education: Rania attended Simon's Rock Early College of Bard and completed her B.A. at Hampshire College. She has two Master's degrees; the first in community organizing and family therapy from Hunter College School of Social Work in New York City,
and a second Masters in International Performance as Research from the University of Warwick, England. Her doctoral practice based research focused, materially on her embodied relationship with video making and somatic dance. Her intellectual research during the making of her Third World Ecology Trilogy focused on postcoloniality, the systemic dismantling of African revolutions in the 1960’s and 70’s and themes of environmental justice in Egypt and Palestine today.
In addition to her degrees, she completed postgraduate training in the Diversity Fellowship program at Ackerman Institute for the Family (to train queer and BIPOC therapists once excluded from mainstream clinical practices). Rania’s creative praxis is deeply informed by this experiential training into the overlap of the “personal” with political structures of oppression and liberation.
Rania lives and works within the stolen territories of the Munsee and Canarsie peoples, colonially known as Brooklyn, NY. She is the mother of one daughter.
Education: Rania attended Simon's Rock Early College of Bard and completed her B.A. at Hampshire College. She has two Master's degrees; the first in community organizing and family therapy from Hunter College School of Social Work in New York City,
and a second Masters in International Performance as Research from the University of Warwick, England. Her doctoral practice based research focused, materially on her embodied relationship with video making and somatic dance. Her intellectual research during the making of her Third World Ecology Trilogy focused on postcoloniality, the systemic dismantling of African revolutions in the 1960’s and 70’s and themes of environmental justice in Egypt and Palestine today.
In addition to her degrees, she completed postgraduate training in the Diversity Fellowship program at Ackerman Institute for the Family (to train queer and BIPOC therapists once excluded from mainstream clinical practices). Rania’s creative praxis is deeply informed by this experiential training into the overlap of the “personal” with political structures of oppression and liberation.
Fall 2025!
enter here
February 9, 2024
Doctoral Defense / Long Awaited Release from Theatre Academy/ University of Arts Helsinki
with Opponent Dr. Barby Asante
Joyfully concluding my relationship as a doctoral candidate within the Academic Arts Industrial Complex and its Murderous Paradigms
January 2024: “Rania Lee Khalil Questions the Eurccentrism built into artistic research and ecological thinking”
Interview with University of Arts Helsinki Finland
October 19-22, 2023
Videographic Entanglements
University of Huddersfield, England
August 29, 2023
Supermoon: I have passed my doctoral examination
June- August, 2023
ReWilding at BAX
February 10th, 2023 5pm
premiere of ReWild by Rania Lee Khalil
Brooklyn Arts Exchange
January, 2023
Adios New School!
December 7th, 2022, 7 pm
Performance at Brooklyn Arts Exchange
with Violetta Tellez
November 16th - December 10th 2022
Part Time Faculty STRIKE at the New School!
“…For the petit bourgeois intellectual and scholars to challenge the seductions of neoliberalism and transform their consciousness and beings they must commit “suicide as a class” - a process that speaks to the need to struggle with and for aggrieved, oppressed and exploited communities. It challenges the petit bourgeois intellectual and scholar to disinvest from their social position, produce radical scholarship whose research, arguments and conclusions have a preferential option for the poor, and be informed by the sounds and visions emerging from the trenches of racial capitalism.”
Steven Osuna, Futures of Black Radicalism
June 21st, 2022
Creatives Rebuild New York Artist Employment award!
So honored to be among the first awardees of this important program
to rebuild New York State through collaboration with artists and communities!
Due to unforseen circumstances, I will not be moving forward with
my employment, yet sending much love to all of the amazing
people invovled in this innovative program!
April 19th, 2022
BAX Parent Artist Space Grant!
Deeply honored to be a recepient of this wonderful
and supportive residency for parent artists. Thrilled to
be working with the BAX team and so excited to get
back into the dance studio!
February 8, 2022, online 10 am - 11:30 am
Discussion of discrimination and Middle Eastern representation in media and the arts
Panelist, Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy
Middle East and North Africa (MENA)
Honored to join TIMEP for this important discussion
see here for previous panels 1 and 2
October 21, 2022
Artist’s Talk
McCarl Coverlet Gallery
St. Vincent’s College
September, 2022
We are begining RIZEC again
Friday, 27 August 2021 12 klo (Finnish time)
Moderator:
CARPA Conference on Elastic Writing in Artistic Research
Theatre Academy Helsinki, Finland
in this session entitled Dis(guised) Writing
I will moderate the discussion between
Rolf Hughes / Rachel Armstrong, Annette Arlander and Harri Lasko
and their respective presentations on writing with the more than human.
August 2021
Honored to be part of the inaugural cohort of environmentally focused
artists of ViVA, “ a new national nonprofit and curatorial platform
with a focus on connecting internationally-recognized artists
and projects emphasizing women, BIPOC, LGBTQ+,
and social justice to students, educators, and communities across all
disciplines and ages.”
May 2021
So pleased my video essay,
“Sinai: Tourism, Colonialism and Sea”
is now published within the Journal for Embodied Research
May 2021
I’ve just handed in my doctoral dissertation! Feeling so relieved even though I know
there are any more rivers to cross ...
April 28, 2021
Please join us this Ramadan for the 4th annual,
IFTAR FOR THE PEOPLE,
held virtually through the People’s Forum.
“This event was born from the need to create community
spaces that challenges police-centric notions of safety.
We believe that WE keep each other safe and that the police,
ICE, military, borders, and other forms of state violence do not.”
An absoultely wonderful line up of activists and artists,
Videos by yours truly!
March 2021
Grants: Thank you to Gibney Dance, the Bay and Paul Foundation, and the Mertz Gilmore Foundation
for your generous support of my work and our community in 2021
Jan 2021
A piece I wrote about The Pan African Asian Women’s Organization, Cairo to Conakry, 1960 – 1965
called “Embodiment in a Slide Projector Performance, or Hold a Photograph and Dance “
in now in Eco-Somatics issue of the
Journal of The Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts
(if accessing the journal is difficult financially, write me for a copy of my article)
Dec 2020
writing and writing and writing and writing
reflections on our planet, colonialism, interspecies life,
different futures
Oct 2020
my video “Sinai, a story i tell my daughter” is presently on view
in the online exhibition “More Than an Immune Problem”
at the China Central Academy of Fine Arts.
Oct 2020
We are pleased to announce the fall schedule of our Interrelational Ecology Salon
Sept 2020
The Third World Ecology Trilogy
Arab American Association of New York,
Brooklyn, New York
August 2020
Please see our new site for the Interrelational Ecology Salon now live
March- December 2020
Moving Towards Justice Fellow
Gibney Dance, New York City
Thurs. May 21 (evening TBD) cancelled
There is a Portal
CUNY Grad Center, James Gallery
Sat May 16 (afternoon TBD) cancelled
There is a Portal
Arab American Family Support Center, Brooklyn
April 22-25, 2020
Ecosomatics Fellowship cancelled
University of Michigan at Ann Arbor
Sun. March 29, 6pm cancelled
There is a Portal
Queens Writers Resist
Terraza 77 Jackson Heights
Saturday, 3 March, 2020
Interrelational Ecology Salon with Elizabeth Yeampierre of UPROSE
Parsons, The New School
Bark Room (M 104)
2 West 13th St.
March- December 2020 reconfiguring
Moving Towards Justice Fellowship
Gibney Dance, New York City
Saturday, Feb 1st, 2020 4-6 pm
Intersectional Ecology Salon
Parsons, The New School
Bark Room (M 104)
2 West 13th St.
Friday, Feb 14th, 2020
There is a Portal
Columbia University
Kayhan participates in a closed reading for her Migrant Personhood and Right’s Group
Monday December 9th, 2019 12-2 pm
There is a Portal
Queens College, President’s Hall
Saturday, December 7th, 2019 4-6 pm
Intersectional Ecology Salon
Parsons, The New School
Sept 22, 2019 7 pm
The Third World Ecology Trilogy at MATATU : Oakland, CA
so honored to be part of this amazing lineup and concept-festival
7 June, 2019, 18 - 20:30 (premiere)
The Third World Ecology Trilogy at PUBLICS Helsinki, Finland.
18 May, 2019 1 pm, by invitation
preview of The Third World Ecology Trilogy
at Carroll Gardens Public Library, Brooklyn
20 April, 2019 3-6 pm
L Nour Editions presents
Store Front for Art and Architecture: DMZ 30 years later
book signing of Imagining Eurasia by Kyong Park.
4 February - 13 March, 2019
L Nour Editions presents
“Our Land" exhibition Amelie A. Wallace Gallery SUNY Old Westbury University, NY
curated by Anthony Hamboussi
Participating Artists: Manal Abu-Shaheen, Moath Alofi, Youssef Chahine, Fouad ElKoury,
Rana ElNemr, Anthony Hamboussi, Rhea Karam, Rania Lee Khalil, Yazan Khalili, Aisha Mershani, Camille Zakharia
29 November 2018, 6:30pm There is a Portal
CUNY Graduate Center - James Gallery Performance is Sold Out!
365 Fifth Avenue, First Floor, NYC
written and performed by Kayhan Irani, directed by Rania Lee Khalil
admission free and open to the public
9 November 2018, 7:30 PM
There is a Portal
Christ Church Neighborhood House
20 N. American StreetPhiladelphia PA
Presented by: Intercultural Journeys.
13 & 14 October 2018, 5 pm.
There is a Portal directed by Rania Lee Khali
The Culture Project
Women Center Stage! Directors Weekend
There is a Portal (excerpt),
performance at Teatro Sea, 107 Suffolk Street in the Lower East Side
28 September, 4:30 pmArab American and Arab Artists in conversation
Opening by Yussef El Guindi
Conversation with Sahar Assaf, Leila Buck, Rania Lee Khalil, Heather Raffo, and Betty Shamieh
part of “TOWARDS AN ARAB DRAMATURGY”
September 27th & 28th, 2018
Graduate Center CUNY, New York City.Free admission.
25 July, 7 pm
Beyond Outrage
Performance is Sold Out!
There is a Portal by Kayhan Irani (excerpt)
directed by RLK
The Greene Space, New York City. $10
25 April, 12:30 pm
screening of Palestinian Wildlife Series
Kiasma Theatre
Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art Helsinki, Finland
admission free and open to the public
23 April, 12 pm
reading of There is a Portal by Kayhan Irani
directed by Rania Lee Khalil
Queens College Museum of Art
admission free and open to the public
3 March 2018, 4:30 pm
screening of Palestinian Wildlife Series with live voiceover
Film Festival on Theatre and Performance
Martin Segal Theatre, New York NY
365 5th Ave, New York, NY btwn 34th and 35th St. Admission Free
30 October 2017
We are pleased to announce the first call for submissions at L Nour Editions, a non-profit publisher of photo books, artists books and pamphlets by artists, photographers and writers from Africa, the Middle East and their diaspora.
Deadline 1 February, 2018.
Rania is on maternity leave until spring 2018. Stay tuned!
3-8 August 2016 Group Exhibition: "Everything that Gathers Blows Away"
Camera Club of New York 126 Baxter St. (btwn Canal and Hester)
Curated by Abigail Simon
Opening Reception: August 3, 6-9 pm (live performances 7 p)
12 May 2016 new article release:
"Palestinian Wildlife Series: embodiment in images, critical abstraction"
published in The Journal for Artistic Research
21, 22 April 2016'Decolonizing the Academy' Conference
University of Edinburgh, Scotlandperformance lecture and panel discussion
22 April, 10:30 am Center for Carbon Innovation, Main Campus
Sat. 6 February, 2016 Cairo, Egypt
Zaywa Cinema
screening "Palestinian Wildlife Series" 6:30 pm
2015 EVENTS
26 August
Aomori Contemporary Art Museum, Aomori Japan 16.00
Palestinian Wildlife Series, video lecture performance
16 and 19 June 2015, Venice, Italy
Venice Biennale Artistic Research Pavilion
16.6.15, 14-15.00 19.6.15, 16:30-17:30 Giorni Monestary
Palestinian Wildlife Series video lecture performance
21-22 May 2015, Zurich, Switzerland“ PhD at Art Schools – Reality and Necessity” Conference
Artistic Research "Best Practices" invited speaker
2 April 2015, Brussels, Belgium Artist Talk(s) with Samah Hijawi
Academie Les Beux Arts
scenes from Palestinian Wildlife Series
16 January 2015, Cairo Egypt "Gold Light Across"
video screening in OverView Video Festival
location: Zawya Cinema. 3 pm
2014 EVENTS
2 December 2014, Helsinki, Finland.Moderator: lecture by Rustom Bharucha, "The Aftermath: Reflections on Terror and Performance" location: University of Helsinki, Unioninkatu 38 F, lecture hall F 211 (wheelchair access Unioninkatu 38 E 1). 14.00h. – 16.00h.
13 November 2014, Glasgow Scotland Presentation: <i>Palestinian Wildlife Series</i> Eila Share Biennial Conference location: Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, Strathclyde room. 12.00h - 14.00h
11 October 2014, Beirut Lebanon
Artist's Talk and video presentation
location: American University of Beirut
West Hall Auditorium B 17:00-18:00h
19 Sept- 6 October San Francisco, U.S. "Gold Light Across"
screening as part of OverView Video Festival.
Soma Arts Cultural Centre.
be in touch !
ranialeekhalil [at] gmail [dot] com