In anticipation of her work with TDM students in the spring--as both a Visiting Lecturer and as Guest Artist--Kaneza Schaal offers two Master Classes to the Harvard community this fall. The Egyptian Book of the Dead was originally intended to provide the deceased with a blueprint to the afterlife. In this first Master Class, Kaneza Schaal approaches the text as an ancient performance score: excavating the spells and incantations to create a series of burial vignettes, fragments of translation, memory and imagination. Starting with the 3000-year-old Book of the Dead, Schaal will then lead participants to texts of their own choosing, finding strategies for performance that spring from each text.

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ABOUT KANEZA SCHAAL
Kaneza Schaal is a New York City based theater artist. Her recent work JACK & showed in BAM’s 2018 Next Wave Festival, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and with its co-commissioners Walker Arts Center, REDCAT, On The Boards, Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center, and Portland Institute for Contemporary Art. Schaal received a 2019 United States Artists Fellowship, SOROS Art Migration & Public Space Fellowship, 2018 Ford Foundation Art For Justice Bearing Witness Award, 2017 MAP Fund Award, 2016 Creative Capital Award, and was an Aetna New Voices Fellow at Hartford Stage. Her last project, GO FORTH, premiered at Performance Space 122 and then showed at the Genocide Memorial Amphitheater in Kigali, Rwanda; Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans; Cairo International Contemporary Theater Festival in Egypt; and at her alma mater Wesleyan University, CT. Schaal’s piece CARTOGRAPHY premiered at The Kennedy Center and will remount at New Victory Theater, NY; Abu Dhabi Arts Center, UAE; Ubumuntu Festival, Rwanda; Playhouse Square, OH; and PhillyLiveArts, PA. Her recent commission by The Shed, MAZE, was a collaboration with Reggie Gray and FLEXN. Most recently, Schaal directed Bryce Dessner’s Triptych (Eyes of One on Another), which premiered at LA Philharmonic, The Power Center in Ann Arbor, MI, and showed at BAM Opera House and The Holland Festival. Schaal's work has also been supported by Baryshnikov Arts Center, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Nathan Cummings Foundation, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Theater Communications Group, and a Princess Grace George C. Wolfe Award. Her work with The Wooster Group, Elevator Repair Service, Richard Maxwell/New York City Players, Claude Wampler, Jim Findlay, and Dean Moss has brought her to venues including Centre Pompidou, Royal Lyceum Theater Edinburgh, The Whitney Museum, and MoMA.