Eleven Reflections on September is a poetry, music, movement and digital media exploration of Arab American experience, Wars on/of Terror, and “the constant, quiet rain of death amidst beauty” that each autumn brings in a post-9/11 world. Based on a series of poems Andrea Assaf has written since 2001, "Eleven Reflections..." spans the fall of the Twin Towers, the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the global rise of anti-Arab racism and Islamophobia, and the revolutions and uprisings that have swept through the Arab world in the last decade. Aesthetically, the poems explore the disintegration of language in the face of violence, prejudice, and unspeakable horror, as they progress from lyrical to abstract and broken. The annual witnessing of autumn leaves becomes a metaphor for the fallen... As we approach the 20th anniversary of 9/11, this ever-evolving tour de force finds new relevance and urgency. As an experimental work that lives at the intersection of live performance and digital media, Eleven Reflections on September is beautiful, haunting, and truly genre-shattering.

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Filmmaker Bio:

Andrea Assaf is a performer, writer, director and cultural organizer. Andrea is the founding Artistic Director of Art2Action Inc., and a founding Co-Director of the National Institute for Directing & Ensemble Creation (a partnership with Pangea World Theater). Andrea is also a Trainer with Equity Quotient (EQ), an Artist-in-Residence/guest lecturer at the University of South Florida (USF) School of Theatre and Dance, and served as a Master Teacher for YoungArts (Writing/Performance, 2018-20). Her original theatre work, "Eleven Reflections on September," has been featured at Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) as part of CAATA’s 2016 National Asian American Theatre Festival, La MaMa ETC, The Apollo Theatre, the Kennedy Center Millennium Stage (2015), and internationally. In 2021, this work was re-created as a digital film. It will also be developed into a large-scale, multi-city, community-engaged devised series, "Eleven Reflections on the Nation," in partnership with The Carver Community Cultural Center, and with support from the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art. Andrea’s other original theatre works include "Outside the Circle" (co-created with Dora Arreola and Samuel Valdez, 2012), "Fronteras Desviadas/Deviant Borders" co-created with Mujeres en Ritual Danza-Teatro (2005), and numerous devised works with veterans, refugees, and youth communities. Directing credits include "Speed Killed My Cousin" by Linda Parris-Bailey (The Carpetbag Theater, 2014-2019), "9 Parts of Desire" by Heather Raffo (University of South Florida, 2015), "breaking letter(s)" by Suhier Hammad (New WORLD Theater, 2008), and many more. Awards include: 2021 Silk Road Film Awards Cannes, Best Experimental Feature; 2019 NEFA National Theatre Project, 2019 & 2011 NPN Creation Fund Commissions, 2017 Finalist for the Freedom Plow Award for Poetry & Activism (Split This Rock Poetry Festival), 2010 Princess Grace/Gant Gaither Theatre Award for Directing, and 2007 Hedgebrook Residency for "women authoring change." Andrea has a Master’s degree in Performance Studies and a BFA in Acting, both from NYU Tisch School of the Arts. She is a former Artistic Director of New WORLD Theater (2004-09), and Program Associate for Animating Democracy (2001-04). She currently serves on the Board of the Consortium of Asian American Theatres & Artists (CAATA), Alternate ROOTS, and is a founding Steering Committee member of the Middle Eastern/North African Theatre-Makers Alliance (MENATMA). For more information, visit: https://www.art2action.org/artists/Andrea-Assaf