Prof. Sharon[Prof.] Aronson Lehavi

Prof. Sharon Aronson-Lehavi is associate professor of theatre and performance studies at the Department of Theatre Arts, Faculty of the Arts, Tel Aviv University. She  served as Chair of the department (2017-2021) and as the Academic and Artistic Director of the University Theatre (2016-2020). Her research focuses on the relations between ritual, religion and theatre in the late medieval and modern periods, and she also works on feminist theatre and Israeli theatre and performance. She is the author of Performing Religion on the Secular Stage (Routledge, 2023), Street Scenes: Late Medieval Acting and Performance (Palgrave Macmillan 2011), Gender and Feminism in Modern Theatre (Open University Academic Press 2013, Hebrew), and Biblical Theatre in Israel: Identity and Otherness (IDI 2016, Hebrew). She is the editor of Wanderers and Other Israeli Plays (Seagull Books 2009), and co-editor with Atay Citron and David Zerbib of Performance Studies in Motion: International Perspectives and Practices in the Twenty-First Century (Bloomsbury 2014).

Since 2022 Sharon is Head of the research lab Act.Play.Game under the auspices of TILabs (Tel Aviv University Innovation Labs). The Act.Play.Game lab is dedicated to researching theatrical creative processes using VR technology. 

In 2012 Sharon was chosen as a member of the Israel Young Academy, established by the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, and served as a member of the Steering Committee (2014-2015).

Sharon holds a PhD in Theatre Studies from the Graduate School and University Center, City University of New York (CUNY). Her awards and grants include a Fulbright grant for doctoral studies, a Dan David post-doctoral award for research at Tel Aviv University (2005-2006), a post-doctoral grant as member in a research team funded by GIF (German Israeli Foundation 2007-2009), a membership in a research group at the Mandel Scholion Interdisciplinary Research Center in the Humanities and Jewish Studies at the Hebrew University (2015-2016), and a research grant from the Israel Science Foundation (ISF) 2017-2021 for the project "The Art of Adaptation: The Theatre of Rina Yerushalmi and the Itim Ensemble." Her work on "Video Annotation" as part of this research project was featured in the exhibition "Primary Sources: Activating the Archive" at the TAU University Gallery (2022). Since 2020 Sharon is part of [six!], a consortium of six leading programs in theatre and performance studies (Northwestern University, Chicago; University of Cologne, Germany; JNU, Delhi; Catholic University of Chile; University of Ghana, Accra; and Tel Aviv University). In 2023 Sharon won together with colleagues  from TAU and the University of Cologne, Germany, a grant from the Tel Aviv University Lowy International School for the joint project "Curating Theatre Histories."

 

Until 2016 Sharon served as a senior lecturer at the Department of Comparative Literature at Bar-Ilan University. In 2013-2014 was the Lisa and Douglas Goldman Visiting Israeli Professor of the Helen Diller Institute for Jewish Law and Israel Studies at UC Berkeley, where she taught courses at the Department of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies (TDPS). She also taught and lectured at the International Graduate Summer School of the Department of Theatre and Media Studies at the University of Mainz, Germany (2011; 2013; 2015). Sharon was the theatre curator of the interdisciplinary projects "Table Manners" (2017), "Defense Lines" (2018), and "Plan(e)t" (2019-2020) at the Tel Aviv University Art Gallery.

 

 

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Books / Author

 

Sharon Aronson-Lehavi, Street Scenes: Late Medieval Acting and Performance, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, New Middle Ages Series, 2011.

 

Reviewed in: The Medieval Review Online 13.09.41; Journal of English and Germanic Philology 112:4 (2013): 538-539; Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England 26 (2013): 267-268; Speculum 88:1 (2013): 249-251; Marginalia (2012): 30-34; Hortulus: The Online Graduate Journal of Medieval Studies 7:1 (2011);

 

Sharon Aronson-Lehavi, Gender and Feminism in Modern Theatre, Raanana: Open University Academic Press, 2013; Hebrew.

 

Sharon Aronson-Lehavi, Biblical Theatre in Israel: Identity and Otherness, The Israel Democracy Institute, 2016, Hebrew.

 

Sharon Arosnon-Lehavi, Performing Religion on the Secular Stage (Routledge Advances in Theatre and Performance Studies), London: Routledge, 2023.

 

 

Books / Editor

 

Sharon Aronson-Lehavi, Editor + Introduction, Wanderers and Other Israeli Plays, In Performance Series, Seagull Books / The University of Chicago Press, 2009.

 

Reviewed in: Israel Studies Review 27:1 (2012): 170-173.

 

Atay Citron, Sharon Aronson-Lehavi, and David Zerbib, Eds. + Introduction, Performance Studies in Motion: International Perspectives and Practices in the Twenty-First Century, London: Bloomsbury/Methuen, 2014.

 

Reviewed in: NTQ (New Theatre Quarterly) 31:1 (2015): 90-91; Platform 8:2 (2014): 88-92; theaterforschung.de 11.7.2014;

 

 

Ruthie Abeliovich, Sharon Aronson-Lehavi, and Linda Ben-Zvi, eds. A Stage of Their Own: 7 Plays by American Feminists in Hebrew Translation, Tel Aviv University: Assaph Books, 2015 (Hebrew); the book includes Sharon Aronson-Lehavi's translation into Hebrew of Deb Margolin's Critical Mass and of Maria Irene Fornes's Mud (with Shlomi Lieberman); Hebrew.

 

Sharon Aronson-Lehavi and Sefy Hendler, eds. Table Manners Catalogue, The Genia Schreiber University Art Gallery, 2019.

 

Essays

 

"Comparative Video Annotation and Visual Literacy: Performance Analysis of Rina Yerushalmi’s Theatre
Language," with Natan Skop and Yael Via Dorembus, International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media, 17:1 (2021): 86-101.

 

“Performance Texts and Recording Performance: Towards a Methodology of Multiplicity,” The Routledge Companion to Theatre and Performance Historiography. Eds. Tracy C. Davis and Peter W. Marx. New York: Routledge, 436-455 2020.

"The Performative Utterance 'I': Theatricality and Subversion of Identity in the Works of Eyal Weiser," TDR: The Drama Review 61:4 (2017): 22-39.

 

“Sexuality and Gender,” A Cultural History of Medieval Theatre, Ed. Jody Enders, London: Bloomsbury, 2017, 59-76.

 

"Dialectical Aesthetics of Change and Continuity in the 2010 Oberammergau Passion Play," Oberammergau 2010, ed. Kevin J. Wetmore Jr., New York: McFarland, 2017, 53-74.

 

"Comedy and Farce in Late Medieval Theatre," Comedy, eds. Dan Urian and Leah Gilula, Raanana: Open University Academic Press, 2017, 209-236, Hebrew.

 

"Religious Theatre and the Potentiality of Live Art," Inter-Art Journey: Exploring the Common Grounds of the Arts, ed. Nurit Yaari, Toronto: Sussex Academic Press, 2015; 163-179.

 

"Re: Location," Performance Studies in Motion: International Perspectives and Practices in the Twenty-First Century, eds. Atay Citron, Sharon Aronson-Lehavi, David Zerbib, London: Bloomsbury/Methuen, 2014; 105-118.

 

"Introduction" (with Atay Citron and David Zerbib), Performance Studies in Motion: International Perspectives and Practices in the Twenty-First Century, eds. Atay Citron, Sharon Aronson-Lehavi, David Zerbib, London: Bloomsbury/Methuen, 2014; 1-16.

 

"The Excess of Violence in Hamlet," Hamlet Handbuch: Stoffe, Aneignungen, Deutungen, ed. Peter W. Marx, Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler Verlag, 2014; 72-76.

 

"Hamlet in Israel," Hamlet Handbuch: Stoffe, Aneignungen, Deutungen, ed. Peter W. Marx, Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler Verlag, 2014; 317-320.

 

"Transformations of Religious Performativity: Sacrificial Figures in Modern Experimental Theatre," Performance and Spirituality 3:1 (2012): 57-70.

 

"Raising the Cross: Pre-Textual Theatricality and the York Crucifixion Play," The York Mystery Plays: Performance in the City. Ed. Margaret Rogerson. York: York Medieval Press, 2011; 165-179.

 

"Word and Action in Israeli Performance," with Freddie Rokem, Contesting Performance: Global Sites of Research, Eds. Jon McKenzie, Heike Roms, and C. J. Wan-ling Wee, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010; 222-235.

 

"Wholly Unholy: Religious Iconography in Israeli Art and Performance," with Nissim Gal, Performance Research 13:3 (2009): 154-162.

 

"'The End': Mythical Futures in Avant-Garde Mystery Plays," TRI – Theatre Research International 34:2 (2009): 116-123.

 

"Introduction," Wanderers and Other Israeli Plays. Ed. Sharon Aronson-Lehavi. New York: Seagull Books, 2009; xiii-xxxi (8-31).

 

Encyclopedia Entry: "Avant-Garde Drama: Israel-Palestine," in The Columbia Encyclopedia of Modern Drama. Eds. Gabrielle H. Cody and Evert Sprinchorn, New York: Columbia University Press, 2007; 94-97.  

 

Encyclopedia Entry: "Rina Yerushalmi," Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia, eds. Paula E. Hyman and Dalia Ofer (Jerusalem: Shalvi Publishing Ltd.) 2006.

 

"‘Their Whole Art is Sheer Humbug’: The Doctor’s Part in Wilson’s Art," Assaph: Studies in the Theatre 14 (1998): 79-86.

"‘Tout leur art est pure grimace’: Le personnage du médecin dans l’oevre de Wilson," Protée: théories et pratiques sémiotiques 27:1 (1999): 81-86.

 

Reviews and other essays

 

Performance Review of The Band's Visit (Broadway Musical), Theatre Journal, 71:4 (2019): 506-508. 

"'We Are Deeds You Left Undone': Peer Gynt's Sole Searching Directed by Rina Yerushalmi and An Interview with the Director," Teatron 39 (2015): 13-22 Hebrew.

 

Book Review of Gad Kaynar and Zahava Caspi, eds., Another View: Israeli Drama Revisited (Ben-Gurion University Press and Bialik Institute, 2012), Teatron 37 (2014): 116-120 Hebrew.

 

Book Review of Elaine Aston and Sue-Ellen Case, eds., Staging International Feminisms (Hampshire UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), The European Legacy: Toward New Paradigms 15:2 (2010): 242.

 

Old Wives' Tales at Bamat Meitzag. Teatron 19 (2007): 38-44 Hebrew. 

 

Book Review of Claire Sponsler, Ritual Imports: Performing Medieval Drama in America (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004), Theatre Journal 58:2: 2006: 361-62.

 

"Is the Living Theatre still Alive?" Teatron 14 (2005): 21-23 Hebrew.

 

"Rina Yerushalmi: Between Fringe and Center," Teatron 14 (2005): 30-34 Hebrew.

 

Book Review of Eli Rozik, The Roots of Theatre: Rethinking Ritual and Other Theories of Origin (Iowa: University of Iowa Press, 2002), Gestos 37 (2004): 1-5.

 

Book Review of David Wallace, ed. The Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), Theatre Journal 56:2 (2004): 333-34.

 

"'The Situation': on the Installation 'Bodies' and on Teaching Political Theatre," Teatron 12 (2004): 45-47 Hebrew.

 

Book Review of Chris Humphrey, The Politics of Carnival: Festive Misrule in Medieval England, (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001), Theatre Survey 44:1 (2003): 161-62.

 

Performance Review of Jean Paul Sartre's No Exit at the Room Theatre, Directed by Avi Gibson-Barel, Tel Aviv 2002, Theatre Journal 55:1 (2003): 153-54.

 

"Biblical Sheep with a Worldview: the Drama of Yossefa Even-Shoshan," Teatron 11 (2003): 56-59 Hebrew.

 

"Iphigenia in New Balance: Deconstruction in Rina Yerushalmi's Mythos," with Roy Levy, Teatron 10 (2003): 16-19 Hebrew.

 

"The Rebels: Women's Acting in HaMordim," Teatron 2 (1999): 70-75 Hebrew.

 

"Clues to Contemporary Israel in the Bible according to Rina Yerushalmi," Teatron 1 (1998): 68-73 Hebrew.