Fadi Skeiker
Professor, Theatre Department & Visual Arts Department, Arts and Sciences
Areas of Research:
Theatre Arts, Applied Theatre, Drama Therapy, Diasporic Studies, Middle Eastern Studies
Dr. Fadi Skeiker is an applied theater researcher and practitioner who holds the position of Professor of Theater at Fordham University. Beginning his theater training at the Higher Institute of Theatrical Arts in Damascus, Syria, Fadi went on to earn graduate degrees from Emerson College and The University of Texas at Austin. An interdisciplinary theater artist, Fadi engages in both traditional and emerging art forms located at the intersection of Theatre Arts, Applied Theater, Drama Therapy, Displacement Studies, and Middle Eastern studies.
Since 2011, Fadi has led dozens of workshops for refugees in Europe, the Americas, and the Middle East and North Africa. His workshops have focused on empowering young women in Jordan; addressing the traumas of the Mediterranean crossing and tensions between Arab refugees and their host communities in Germany; facilitated Afghan musicians in Portugal in expressing their ambition to spread cultural awareness through music. Fadi’s practical work is centered on empowering refugees in all contexts to build confidence in themselves and the potentials of their future lives. This practice forms the basis for his ongoing research and creative writing projects.
Carrying an active line of scholarship, Fadi conducts research in the workshop setting, lending an ethnographic perspective on the refugee experience in both permanent and temporary resettlement settings. He has investigated the practice of applied theater in therapeutic contexts and the general use of the dramatic arts with vulnerable populations. Other research has focused on Syrian drama and dramatists and women’s empowerment in the Middle East. In addition to academic work, Fadi is also a playwright, digital media project curator, and librettist, crafting creative pieces with representative characters from his research and practice.