Co-Founder Biographies
Nour Kawaja
Nour is a Muslim-Palestinian-Jordanian-Canadian-performer-comedian-writer. Born accidentally in Saudi Arabia, she grew up between the West and the East, trying to find a home to replace the one she had lost in Palestine. Nour studied to become a lawyer, hoping to fight for human rights at the UN but soon became disillusioned and found comedy a better way to fight. She trained in the Le Coq method and began her career in physical theatre and clowning. After graduating, she toured with her own one-woman show in England, Canada, Austria, Germany and The Czech Republic. She went on to achieved a postgraduate pedagogy programme in London in devised and physical theatre and by the age of 21, after touring europe and North America, she became a physical theatre and comedy instructor. She taught comedy and clowning in universities, colleges and drama academies and facilitated community workshops in poverty stricken areas in England, Canada and The USA. Delving into her passion for telling stories she began directing comedy , political theatre, satire and physical theatre. Nour later returned to university where she obtained a masters in directing from London, England and Moscow Russia. It was during her Masters, Nour developed her own healing methodology in her thesis, focusing on ‘healing scars through clowning’. In 2006, she met Ofer and whilst failing to collaborate on the project they were paired on together, they ended up forming Conflict Relief – a brainchild born from the conflict of their first encounter. Since then, Nour has continuously written for stage and television and acted as a comedy consultant and head writer for TV, including Comedy Central Arabia and MBC. She has also been performing as a solo stand-up comic and worked on films as a assistant director and casting director.
Ofer Yatziv
Ofer always looked at the world from the outside. He started dancing when he was 11 and as the only boy dancer in a small town, he grew up paving his own way regardless of people’s expectations. The son of an army general and grandson to holocaust survivors, his family’s right-wing views were forged in the Middle Eastern wars of the 60’s 70’s and 80‘s. A high school trip to visit the concentration camps of Poland made a huge impression on the 16 year-old boy who came back understanding that the tragedy must never be repeated and that Jews should be the leading force fighting for justice and freedom. As a soldier he served in Lebanon and Palestine experiencing the conflict firsthand. In order to go back to dancing Ofer became an officer and served as a Strategic Planner of Personnel in the Israeli Defense Force Chief of Staff, taking a close look at the cynical and cruel theatre of war. After his release from the Army, Ofer graduated from the ‘Bat-Dor‘ studio in Tel-Aviv and pursued his career as a dancer, dance teacher and choreographer on both stage and screen. He was employed as Head of Dance and Movement in Zahla Cultural Center in Tel-Aviv (2000-2002). Ofer is a two-time winner of the Tel-Aviv city prize for youth dance groups. In 2002 he moved to London for a BA–Acting course at the Courtyard Theatre Training Company. After graduation Ofer had a short spell as a jobbing actor jumping from audition to audition realising, again, that as an Israeli actor in London he was an outsider. In 2006 he met Nour and found a twin outsider soul. Together they embarked on the journey that is Conflict Relief. Finding his own stage with Conflict Relief Ofer turned to directing, producing and teaching theatre with the rest of his time. Since 2009 Ofer has focused all his energy, political passion and artistic aspiration in Conflict Relief and hopes Conflict Relief will inspire people to look at life from the outside.
Jana Zenadeen
Jana was born in the US but raised in the sunny humid desert lands of Saudi Arabia. Of Lebanese descent, Jana’s family attempted to live in Lebanon numerous times, but would return to the safety of Jeddah over and over again. Whether due to the Lebanese Civil war or the Israeli invasion of 1982, living in Lebanon was never realised. Growing up as a Lebanese outside of Lebanon had its challenges, particularly with respect to identity, and Jana found her refuge and passion in theatre. On stage she overcame her shyness and learned how to speak and she grew a passion that would evolve into a life-long mission: to connect and understand human nature through theatre. After an undergraduate degree in Political Science and Economics at the George Washington University in Washington, DC, Jana enrolled herself in the Studio Theatre Acting conservatory (in DC) and decided her path: an actress. Jana moved to NYC in 2002 and became involved with the Arab-American Comedy Festival and began acting and writing, exploring the Arab-American identity in a post-9/11 world through comedy. Whilst in NY, Jana took on many politically charged roles and began to understand the role of theatre from an enhanced perspective. Forces of love relocated Jana to London in 2006 with her husband Imad and she pursued her passion for political activism and theatre in her Masters in Applied Theatre and Drama Education at The Central School of Speech and Drama. It was during her studies that she met Ofer and Nour, had an immediate connection and realised a shared interest: to explore the conflict in the Middle East from a human and comedic perspective. And so Conflict Relief was born. Forces of nature would relocate Jana once again, this time to Jordan where she continues to pursue her role as a performer, theatre practitioner and now mother. Working with Iraqi and Palestinian refugees has brought her closer to appreciating the role of theatre in our lives: to connect, to communicate, and most of all, to imagine a better life.
Rebecca Gross
Rebecca grew up on the South coast of England, she is British and Jewish. Her family are 3rd generation members of Bournemouth Reform Synagogue and at Sunday school she wrote and acted in her own versions of Talmud stories which always featured a guest appearance by Elvis. After taking elocution lessons from the age of 6, she was awarded the highly regarded Poetry Society Silver medal for spoken poetry. Israel and the ME region captured her heart and imagination and she was taught to respect the Jewish homeland and be patriotic about it. After her Bat Mitzvah, Rebecca’s Grandparents took her on a tour of Israel, a formative experience. She felt proud to be Jewish and pleased to have a homeland, but there was always the worry of wars and instability which seemed unfair and confusing – wasn’t it the land of milk and honey? Who would want to fight with milk and honey - and why? On completion of a degree in Acting at Central School of Speech and Drama, she joined the big wide world of London, and by fluke or some would say it was ‘beshecht’ (’meant to be’ in Yiddish), she met the fledgling Conflict Relief team for an improvisation evening in 2006, did something funny with a cushion and she was in. Rebecca continues to act on stage and screen and produces, writes directs and performs with Conflict Relief. Her love for the Jewish homeland remains, her dream now is for it not to be at the expense of any other peoples pain.
Adam Dahrouge
Adam is half Egyptian, half European and born in London. Never quite feeling at home, he travelled to visit his family across the world, taking his influences from the places he visited. Journeying to discover his origins he began to see a home in humanity. And so he grew to call himself a world child. Here his real journey began, to figure out why humanity was fighting itself, why his home was in conflict. He entered theatre at the age of 13 after realising that journalism wasn’t all it cracked up to be and hoped to fight his cause with the arts instead. Training for five years across different schools he graduated at the British Recording Industry Trade School (BRITS) and went on to work in stage and TV, appearing in roles for Channel 4, BBC and Sony Pictures. In order to find a platform for his voice, he moved to university to study Writing for Media Arts where he practiced writing for screen, radio and print. Whilst still studying at university, Adam met Conflict Relief and suddenly found a group of people with a similar voice. A month later he was on tour with them in Edinburgh, Scotland. After graduating, Adam joined Conflict Relief full-time and began developing his comedy with them, exploring topics of conflict and Middle Eastern life. He now writes comedy for a number of media both in the West and the Middle East, still pursues a little journalism and continues to search for an answer to humanity’s struggle.
Company Member Biographies
Margaret E. Hall – Stage Manager / Company Manager
Margaret, a proud member of Conflict Relief, is an International Director and (U.S. AEA) Stage Manager. Work includes The Lost Theatre Festival, The Sam French Playwrights Festival, and The Strawberry One Act Festival, among others. With her company HallWay Productions she recently created a 24 Hour Theatre Series which has had two successful rounds, ‘24 Hours: Underground’ and ‘A 24 Hour: Pub’. Her skills and training have taken her to Bali, Scotland, Austria, Russia, England, Romania, and to several U.S. States. Margaret holds a BA in Theatre Arts from SUNY New Paltz, and an MFA in Theatre Directing from East 15 School of Acting, University of Essex in London.
Tamara Barnett – Production Co-ordinator
Tamara is a British Sephardic Jew (but with a dual French passport and half Israeli mum) who, after doing some acting, burlesque and stand-up comedy, then moved to the more ’serious’ side of theatre, producing and directing her own play, Canting & Canapés, at the Burton Taylor studio theatre. While living in Almaty she helped behind the scenes at Artishok – the first independent professional theatrical group in Kazakhstan -and set up a Kazakh drama group of her own. Once back in London she worked at Catch21 Productions and was Producer for the second series of the political TV show The House. Tamara is thrilled to now be working with Conflict Relief to help them to inspire, entertain and amuse people.
Current Collaborators:
James Nidal Agha
Tara Jafar
Hemi Yehora
Past Collaborators:
Adam Elabdaly
Zein Ja’far
Amber Onat Gregory
Sonja Bruhlmann
Zolio Lobera
Jamie Cohen
Yasmeen Khan
Inayat Hussein Kanji
Yariv Perlmuter
