Aviva Arts Artist Cohort

HE/HIM

Born in Beirut, Lebanon, Noor Adabachi was barely 18 at the start of the Lebanese civil war and was forced out of his native land to ironically take refuge in the land of his colonizer. Eager to discover himself as an artist and guided by his rebellious and opportunist nature; he jumped right into the rabble-rousing dance and theater world of 70’s France. Moving to California in the 80’s, he studied Stage & costume design at CalArts and collaborated on many film & stage productions before expanding to environmental sculptural installation, design, architecture and furniture making. Noor’s stage designs for theater include foolsFURY’s Dionysus Was Such a Nice Man directed by Ben Yalom, (dis)Place[d], directed by Ben Yalom, The Unheard of World, directed by Michelle Haner, and Faulted, directed by Evren Odcikin. Noor also designed custom furniture for 3 decades, creating work for Milton Katselas, Oprah Winfrey, Catherine Bell, Guy Laliberté, founder of Cirque du Soleil, and many others. His work has been featured in architectural magazines and on E The Entertainment Channel. With his partner Deborah, he is currently co-creating “Burning Wild”, a docu-myth performance ritual about loss, adversity and renewal.

SHE/HER

Pamela Hollings was the Board Chair (2013-2021), as well as an ensemble member (2018-2022) of foolsFURY Theater and the former Artistic Managing Director of Soup Kitchen Theatre, Melbourne, Australia. She was the dramaturg for foolsFURY on (dis)Place[d] by Debórah Eliezer and Dionysus Was Such a Nice Man by Kate Tarker and has participated in development processes with foolsFURY as an actor, director and dramaturg. She is the Literary Director / Resident Dramaturg at 3Girls Theatre where she directs the Salon Series for emerging women playwrights over 40. She trained in Theatre Direction at Australia's National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) whose distinguished alums include Cate Blanchett, Judy Davis, Baz Luhrmann and many more. She has studied Nature Awareness and Relational Education through Weaving Earth and is the Managing Artistic Director and a teacher with the Yat / Bentley Centre for Performance. She has strong interests in group process, peacemaking, ritual and storytelling in all its forms.

SHE/THEY

Cynthia Ling Lee instigates postcolonial, queer, disabled, and feminist-of-color interventions in the field of experimental performance. Committed to intimate collaborative processes and foregrounding marginalized voices and aesthetics, her interdisciplinary performance work has been presented at venues such as Dance Theater Workshop (New York), East West Players (Los Angeles), Taman Ismail Marzuki (Jakarta), and Chandra-Mandapa: Spaces (Chennai). Cynthia was the recipient of a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship, an Asia-Pacific Performing Arts Exchange Fellowship, and a Hellman Fellowship. Recent publications include a chapter in The Routledge Companion to Dance Studies (2019) and co-written chapters with Sandra Chatterjee in Dance Matters Too: Markets, Memories, Identities (2018) and Queer Dance: Meanings and Makings (2017). Cynthia is an associate professor of dance in the Department of Performance, Play, and Design at UC Santa Cruz and was a long-time board member of the Network of Ensemble Theaters. www.cynthialinglee.com

THEY/THEM

Nicky Martinez is a Latine genderfluid theatre activist who was born and raised in San Francisco. They received a BA in Performing Arts and Social Justice from the University of San Francisco in 2016. They are a solo performing artist, poet, published playwright, director, dramaturge, EDI consultant, and visual artist. In their art they focus on social issues like having queer and trans identities, being Latine in America, racial inequities, mental health, and femme rights. Currently, they are a Development Coordinator at Berkeley Repertory Theater while being a part of several artistic and consultancy projects.

Follow on social media or contact here: https://linktr.ee/MxNicky

THEY/THEM

Guillermo “Yiyo” Ornelas is a theater creator, teaching artist, and arts education advocate. As a first-generation Mexican-American, they understand the impact that an arts education can have, especially to members of vulnerable communities. Most recently, they performed at Brava Theater in Richard Montoya's, Translating Selena. They have worked with Campo Santo, Fuse, and foolsFury to help develop new work. Yiyo has served as the Vice-Chair for the Arts Education Alliance of the Bay Area (AEABA) to ensure that arts education be equitable and accessible to all members of the community. Guillermo holds a B.A from UC Berkeley, double majoring in Sociology and Theater & Performance Studies, having received the Mark Goodson award for ‘Distinguished Artistic Talent.’ Prior to transferring to UC Berkeley, they led a weekly theater workshop for runaway and homeless youth in Redlands, California. They’ve worked with local communities to encourage youth and their families to foster creative modes of expression, through the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, the Teatro Project, and JumpStart. They currently work as an outreach coordinator and teaching artist with San Francisco Youth Theater.

SHE/HER

Vidhu is an Expressive Arts Facilitator trained at Northwest Creative & Expressive Arts Institute and a Social Emotional Arts Facilitator trained through UCLArts & Healing. A lifelong learner, she is passionate about using multi-modal expressive arts for creative expression and wellness.

Vidhu holds a Masters degree in Dramatic Art from UC Santa Barbara and a doctorate in Asian Theatre from UH Manoa. A graduate of the Lincoln Center Theater Directors’ Lab, Vidhu is a core member of Theatre without Borders; a founding member of World Wide Lab; the founder of RasaNova Theater; an ensemble member at Aviva Arts, and a resident artist at Brava Theater.

As a theater artist, Vidhu’s fluency in a variety of cultural and aesthetic forms, her dramaturgy, her scholarship and her advocacy for South Asian theater have made her contribution to the American theater truly unique. Cal Shakes recognized this uniqueness by honoring Vidhu with the 2020 Luminary Award in dramaturgy. Dramaturgy highlights include ReOrient 2023 with Golden Thread Productions (in progress), Burning Wild with Aviva Arts at 3GT Innovators Residency 2022 and Berkeley Rep’s 2021 Ground Floor Summer Residency Lab, Third Eye Moonwalk by Jon Bernson with Playwrights Foundation in 2021 and House of Joy by Madhuri Shekar with Cal Shakes in 2019 and Bay Area Playwrights Festival in 2018.