Bertie Ferdman
Brooklyn, NY
BERTIE FERDMAN was born and raised in Puerto Rico to Argentinean parents. She holds a B.A from Yale University, M.A. from NYU, and PhD from The Graduate Center, where her dissertation "Contemporary Site Specific Theatre: Performance, the City, and Spatial Politics," received a MAGNET Fellowship. Her research specialties are in contemporary performance, site based theatre practices, urban dramaturgies, and spatial politics of performance. She is interested in live art practices that engage spectators in challenging preconceived notions of what theatre is and can be, as well as performance that intervenes in urban space.
She has held numerous fellowships to support her research, among them: The Mellon School of Performance Research at Harvard University (2011); The Center for Place, Culture, and Politics at The Graduate Center (2009); as well as a Chateaubriand Fellow (2003). In 2006, and subsequently in 2009, Bertie initiated and co-curated, along with Frank Hentschker and Gulgun Kayim, two Site-Specific Theatrical Performance Symposia at the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. For over six years, she was Artistic co-Director of Ex.Pgirl, a physical theatre company with whom she created Ablution, Waving Hello, 10 Plates, and Paris Syndrome, commissioned by HERE Arts Center.
Before coming to BMCC, Bertie taught courses in theatre at City College, College of Staten Island, and Manhattanville College. Her articles and reviews have appeared in PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, Theatre Journal, Theater Survey, Performance Research, and Theater. She is co-editor (with Tom Sellar) of a forthcoming edition of Theater on performance curating scheduled for publication in May 2014.
