TDR Comings and Goings

We are glad to welcome new editors and thank outgoing editors. Some editors are moving from one TDR post to another; some are joining us for the first time.

New Contributing Editors

Fawzia Afzal-Khan, born in Pakistan, is a performer, teacher, author, and editor who divides her time between Lahore, Pakistan—where she teaches and develops curricula—and Montclair State University, New Jersey—where she is a Professor of English. Azfal-Khan has published on feminist theory, theatre and postcolonialism, performance in Pakistan, and women and Islam. Her books are Cultural Imperialism and the Indo-English Novel (Penn State University Press, 1993) and A Critical Stage: Secular Alternative Theatre in Pakistan (Seagull Books, 2005). She is editor of Shattering the Stereotypes: Muslim Women Speak Out (Olive Branch Press, 2005) and coeditor of The Pre-Occupation of Post-Colonial Studies (with Kalpana Seshadri-Crooks; Duke University Press, 2000). Afzal-Khan, a professional singer in the North Indian Classical tradition, performs with her band Neither East Nor West in and around New York City and is a founding member of the international experimental theatre collective Compagnie Faim de Siecle. Her one-woman show, Scheherezade Goes West, was the main event for Women's History Month in 2007 at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC. Afzal-Khan is completing her memoir, Sahelian: Growing Up with Girlfriends Pakistani-Style, and beginning work on a new cultural studies project, with Sajid Iqbal, that focuses on the life and times of the world-renowned Pakistani singer, the late Madam Noor Jehan—aka The Melody Queen.

Tracy C. Davis, TDR's Provocation editor from 2005 to 2007 (T193-197), is President of ASTR, the American Society for Theatre Research. Her newest books are Stages of Emergency: Cold War Nuclear Civil Defense (Duke University Press, 2007), The Performing Century: Nineteenth-Century Theatre's History, Volume 5 of Redefining British Theatre History (with Peter Holland; Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), Considering Calamity: Methods for Performance Research (with Linda Ben-Zvi; Assaph, 2007), and The Cambridge Companion to Performance Studies (2008). Davis directs the Interdisciplinary PhD in Theatre and Drama program at Northwestern University, where she is Barber Professor of Performing Arts.

Ong Keng Sen, a Singaporean and therefore also a world citizen, is the Artistic Director of TheatreWorks, which he founded in 1992. Before studying intercultural performance at NYU's Performance Studies Department, Keng Sen earned a law degree in Singapore. He is the first Singapore artist to have received both the Young Artist Award (1992) and the Cultural Medallion Award (2003). In 1994 he initiated The Flying Circus Project, bringing together traditional and contemporary Asian artists from theatre, music, dance, video, visual arts, and ritual. In 1999, he started the Arts Networks Asia (ANA), and in 2002, he launched the Continuum Asia Project (CAP), an Asian arts exchange centered in Laos bringing local youths, elder artists, and international Asian artists. Notable Keng Sen productions in Singapore include Destinies of Flowers in the Mirror (1997) and Descendants of the Eunuch Admiral (1995), which dealt with political castration in Singapore. His "docu-performance" pieces include Broken Birds (1995), Workhorse Afloat (1997), and The Spirits Play—6 Movements in a Strange House (2000/01, retitled Dreamtime in Morishita Studios for its November and December 2001 Tokyo stagings). Beyond Singapore, Keng Sen has directed frequently around the world: his Lear opened in Tokyo (1997) and toured in Asia, Europe, and Australia in 1999; his Desdemona premiered at the Adelaide Festival (2000); and Search:Hamlet was done at Elsinore and Copenhagen (2002). Keng Sen's The Continuum: Beyond the Killing Fields, a docu-performance about Em Theay, a Cambodian classical dancer who survived the mass killings of the Khmer Rouge, was seen in New Haven, Singapore, Berlin, Vienna, and Rotterdam from 2001 to 2003. In the US, Keng Sen's work has been featured at the New York Shakespeare Festival (1995), the Spoleto Festival, Charleston (2000, 2006), the New Music Theatre Festival, Philadelphia (2001), and the Lincoln Center Festival (2002, 2006). A Fulbright Scholar, he has been artist-in-residence at the New York University Asian Pacific and American Studies Programme/Institute...