Sheema Kermani

Born in 1951 in Karachi (Pakistan)
Lives and works in Karachi (Pakistan)

Sheema Kermani is a prominent theatre practitioner, activist for women’s and peace rights, a trained classical dancer, choreographer and dance teacher. She founded Tehrik-e-Niswan (Women’s Movement) in 1979. Tehrik-e-Niswan is a Cultural Action Group working to create greater awareness about women’s rights and their status in society and promote art and culture. Besides appearing on the stage, Sheema has acted in a number of popular TV plays and serials, and has performed in many countries all over the world. She has taught at the National College of Arts, Lahore and at the Indus Valley school of Art and Architecture and Szabist, Karachi and often writes on women, culture and society.

Sheema Kermani writes of her performance for KB17: “I will be presenting a dance theatre piece which I call Where Do We Come From, Where Are We and Where Are We. This is the cycle of life--a poetic visual journey, a choreographic poem, traveling through our past: a ritual of wisdom, the ancient civilisation and heritage of culture, discipline and geometry of meaning. All is destroyed but out of this debris we survive into the present bringing our memories and enter the theatre of the real – a crazy city with chaos and violence at every corner. Man/monster - woman/ wisdom – a labyrinth and confrontation between love and hatred, a spiral of life and movement to the desire of harmony, freedom and peace!”