Dr. Shahman Shahriar (Shahman Moishan)
Associate Professor
Dr. Shahman Moishan was appointed as a Lecturer in the Department of Theatre and Performance Studies at Dhaka University in 2012. Prior to that, he was head of the Department (in charge) and Lecturer at Department of Theatre and Performance Studies in Jatiya Kabi Kazi Nazrul Islam University, Trishal, Mymensingha, Bangladesh from January 2011 to February 2012. He also worked as an Editorial Assistant and Feature Writer at a Dhaka-based English magazine on South Asian art and literature, and as an Associate Editor and Researcher from 2008-2009 in section of Performing Arts under the National Cultural Survey Project of Bangladesh Asiatic Society.
He obtained his BA and MA degree with 1st class and 1st position from the then Department of Theatre and Music. He has received his Bangabandhu Overseas Scholarship from Dhaka University and is currently studying for PhD at the Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham, UK. A significant number of his research articles have been published in Bengali and English in reputed research journals and books of Bangladesh. Notable research journals are: Bangladesh Asiatic Society, Shilpakala Academy Half-Yearly Bangla Patrika, and Bangla Academy Patrika. In addition, more than 100 research articles and critical essays on art, drama, cultural studies, anthropology, politics, rituals, performing arts, art theory, history, etc have been published in various important national and international dailies and fortnightly, half-yearly and yearly journals and Dhaka based international journals. At the invitation of the Bangladesh Children Academy and with the funding of the Government of the People's Republic of Bangladesh, he worked as a lead researcher on a research project entitled The Scenario of Cultural Life of the Children in Bangladesh: Exploring Cultural Engagement and Determining the way of Orientation. Mrs. Wahida Mollick and Shahman Moishan jointly written a notable research book named Poshak Porikalpanar Nandan-Bikkhan (Aesthetic Philosophy of Costume Design). The notable artistic books he has written and published are: Asheshkritya (Unending Rite), Phona and Surak (Serpent Hood and Perforation) and Kalchoutisha (Rhythm of Time).
He has taught mainly Elizabethan Drama, Modern Euro-American Drama, Realism, Naturalism and Symbolism, Expressionism, Epic Theatre, Structural Realism, Performance Theory, Fundamentals of Play Writing. He supervises various research activities on acting practicum, theatre direction and theatre production, cultural studies of MA students. He also regularly supervises the theatre production, directed by BA final year students, and Dhaka University Central Theatre Festival.
He has translated several foreign plays very successfully. Namely, Harold Pinter’s Betrayal, The Room, Request Stop, Travel in the Works, Bertolt Brecht’s The Measures Taken, Frank Wedekind’s Spring Awakening, and Sarah Kane’s Mantras 4.48 (Psychosis 4.48).
He also worked as the Dramaturge of the theatre productions; The Measures Taken, Hamlet, Phaedra and Oporera produced by the department of Theatre and Performance Studies at Dhaka University. Through this process of his work, the idea of dramaturge was first introduced in the theatre of Bangladesh. He worked with Alastair Campbell, an applied drama teacher at Queen Mary University in the UK, at the Tower Hamlets based ‘Season of Bengali Drama Festival 2015’.
He has presented seminar papers at various important institutions and festivals at national and international level. Notable among them are: Pinter Festival-2006 organized by Bangladesh British Council, Seminar-2011 organized by Bangladesh Institute of Theatre Art (BITA), Seminar-2016 organized by School of South Asian Studies in Yunnan Minzu University of Kunming, China. Presentation of Seminar Paper on the Closing Day of Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy 9-day Seminar-2016, 9th Asia Pacific Bureau Theatre Festival organized by the National School of Drama (NSD), Delhi, India.
In addition to academic teaching and research, he has directed a significant number of theatre productions. His directed theatre productions are - Asheshkritya, Hamlet Machine Co. Ltd., Basanta Jagaran and Prakriti Chitra O Amaler Charalnama are notable.
His acted theatre productions include Care Taker, Look Back in Anger, The Lower Depths, Sang Vang Chang, Mṛcchakatika, Homecoming, An Unborn Cosmos, Secret and Sacred Selves.
He has enriched the theatre arts in Bangladesh, besides directing and producing plays, by writing a significant number of unique plays. Notable among them are: Dakshina Sundari, Bideho, Phona, Asheshkritya, Surak, Kalchautisha, Nari Nasimon, Bhasar Adipap, Panjore Chandraban etc.
He conducted workshop on ‘Ethnographic Sensibility for Acting’ at 9th Asia Pacific Bureau Theatre Festival- organized by National School of Drama (NSD) in India, and at 35th ITI World Congress in Segovia, Spain. He also attended at the Nowruz Festival, a week-long actual and ritual workshop conducted by Dr. Jury Alchitz, organized by Kamal Galiasgar Tatar Theatre in Tatarstan, Russia, and also attended at 35th ITI World Congress Workshop in Segovia, Spain which was conducted by Derek Goldman, Professor at Georgetown University, USA. He also stayed with Indian, Japanese and Korean playwrights and artists at the month-long Theatre Residency held at Theatre Mindule in Seoul, South Korea in 2014. He spoke at Bhasta Utsav, an International Forum at the University of Birmingham, Westmeier Postgraduate Program 2020 in the United Kingdom. Besides, he has conducted theatre workshops in various institutions of Bangladesh such as Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, Bangladesh National Institute of Mass-Communication (NIMC), and in other important theatre groups.
In 2015, he received the Charles Wallace Visiting Fellowship Award from the Charles Wallace Trust and the British Council, and participated in TfD (Theatre for Development) workshop with Ali Campbell, a drama teacher at Queen Mary University in the United Kingdom.
He participated in theatre activities at the national level as well as in workshops, discussions, seminars and festivals on theatre at international level. Notable countries he has visited so far are: India, South Korea, Dubai and Sharjah (UAE), Tatarstan and Moscow (Russia), UK, China, Spain, Switzerland, Portugal, Italy.
In the field of theatre, art, culture and literature of Bangladesh, this talented academician, researcher, poet and artist as a whole has been contributing, by traveling in various branches of art, to the education and theatre practice at national and international level.
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