BIO

May Joseph

Tanzanian-born Joseph is the Founder of the environmental collective Harmattan Theater. Joseph has dramaturged and directed Harmattan’s site specific outdoor productions, exploring the history of New York City through architecture, design and environmentalism. Islands, the Hudson River, riverscapes, ocean currents, sea walls, buried rivers, wetlands, bridges and the impact of water across global urban environments are Joseph’s areas of interest. Joseph has created large scale public performances on Governors Island, numerous piers in Manhattan including Christopher Street, as well as along Fourteenth Street in Manhattan.

Joseph trained in Directing and Playwriting at U.C. Santa Barbara’s Department of Theatre and Dance where she received a Ph.D. in Theater. Trained as a Bharata Natyam dancer, Joseph’s work draws upon the Indian environmental dance theater traditions of the Jatra, Chautu Nadagam and Indian street theater movements, Kalaripayyati, Kathakali, Kyogen and the experimental techniques of Arianne Mnouchkine and Christo. Joseph is the author of Nomadic Identities and co-editor of Performing Hybridity, City Corps, Body Work and New Hybrid Identities. She teaches theater, film and visual culture at Pratt Institute, New York.