Hanan Kassab Hassan

Since she got her PhD in theatre from the Sorbonne in Paris (1982), Hanan Kassab-Hassan was a tenure professor and faculty member at the Damascus University in Syria, in addition to several professorships in the Higher Institute of Dramatic Arts and the Higher Institute of Translation in Damascus; and the IESAV institute in the Saint Joseph University in Beirut. She was also the Director of the Damascus Opera House (2009-2011), the General Secretary ofDamascus Arab Capital of Culture for the year 2008, and the dean of the Higher Institute of Dramatic Arts (2006-2009).   She was a member of the Strategic Committee of the “Conseil Cuturel de l’Union Pour la Méditerranée”in France (2009 to 2011); a board member of Roberto Cimetta Fund (2015-2016), an external evaluator for the cultural projects presented to the IFPC, UNESCO (2014 and 2015), and an individual consultant in the ICH Section, UNESCO (2016). Kassab-Hassan also directed theatre plays, managed workshops, and wrote many research papers and articles in the fields of theater and the arts. She translated from French into Arabic and vice versa several theatrical texts, which included works by Genet, Koltès, Beckett, and Wannous. She also co-authored a French-English-Arabic Dictionary of Terms and Concepts of Drama and Performing Arts, which is one of the main references in the field of theatre in the Arab world.   She was awarded by the French government for her contribution to the French culture; and was one of the women presented in the Dictionary of Creative Women published in France (2012) .