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 have since
returned to Cairo, where she also lived from 2006-2016.
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 have since
returned to Cairo, where she also lived from 2006-2016.
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)
Khalil lived and worked in Cairo, Egypt between 2007 and 2016. She has since returned to the stolen territories of the Munsee and Canarsie peoples. She lives in what is now known as Brooklyn with her partner and child.
(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, New York City,
and a second Master's degree in International Performance as Research from the University of Warwick, England, followed by her PhD from the Univeristy of Arts Helsinki, where her research focused on embodied video making, somatic dance, postcoloniality and environmental justice.
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 practices). Rania’s work as an artist and maker is informed by this experiential training into the overlap of personal and political relationships with structures of oppression and liberation.
Khalil lived and worked in Cairo, Egypt between 2007 and 2016. She has since returned to the stolen territories of the Munsee and Canarsie peoples. She lives in what is now known as Brooklyn with her partner and child.
(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, New York City,
and a second Master's degree in International Performance as Research from the University of Warwick, England, followed by her PhD from the Univeristy of Arts Helsinki, where her research focused on embodied video making, somatic dance, postcoloniality and environmental justice.
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 practices). Rania’s work as an artist and maker is informed by this experiential training into the overlap of personal and political relationships with structures of oppression and liberation.