Bio for Nadja Masura, Ph.D.
Dr. Nadja Masura, (a former Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities Fellow in Theatre and Digital Technology and Whitmore Fellow) received her degree in Theatre and Performance studies from University of Maryland. She also holds a Theatre MA from University of Michigan, degrees in Multimedia (A.S. in both Authoring and Graphics) from College of Marin, and a BA in Theatre from University of Puget Sound (where she received acting, directing, creative writing and vocal training).
In addition to her dissertation which researched new media and communication technologies (specifically investigating the evolving field of Digital Theatre and the ways in which using digital media in live performance can expand our perceptions of body, place and community), she has 10 years experience creative graphics and building and maintaining web sites, and has exhibited art work in a variety of forms and forums.
Nadja is an interdisciplinary artist and coordinator, and a synthesist at heart. She is an organizer and loves to problem solve, create systems and streamline processes for efficiency. Her project-oriented nature lends itself well to both theatre, multimedia, and event/project management, as she enjoys the process of taking an idea from conception to completion and greatly values collaboration.
People are important to her, and she feels best when teaching or helping others achieve a common goal. She spent a decade of her life as a citizen diplomat volunteering with grass roots organizations on a local and international level. Keeping close to the local the artistic and literary community, she has also worked with non-profits like the Sebastopol Center for the Arts (as admin/docent coordinator/web). She served as the 2009 Director of the Sonoma County Book Festival. She is involved in Women in Theatre & Performance (maintaining the website and as a reader for the Jane Chambers playwriting competition).
Nadja was born and raised in Sonoma County California, and as such has always had a deep appreciation of nature. Many of her designs, art work, and media performances center around the concept of place.
Her scholarly and performative work has been presented both nationally and internationally at conferences including: The International Federation of Theatre, Association for Theatre in Higher Education, ASTR, The International Arts and Humanities, Siggraph, and Seybold. While working with the Art Grid community, in addition to coordinating locally and performing in four Interplays (including Hallucinations, Loose Minds in a Box), she authored and coordinated Outside In, a multi-site performance which utilized the poetry and metaphor of Emily Dickinson to parallel to the individual’s ability reach outside of one’s self through poetic imagination with the Access Grid’s ability to connect physically disparate outdoor environments. At Maryland she also coordinated Elements an interdisciplinary digital media performance created across three departments and included both faculty, staff, graduate and undergraduates (and dramaturged Compass Points an original script created and performed collaboratively online).
As a performer, Nadja has appeared in such musicals as Amadeus, Chorus Line, Grapes of Wrath, Peace Child and The Fantastics. Recently, she has been an active collaborator in original multi-site online performances like Interplay, Elements, and Outside/In with ArtGrid and the Digital Performance Group; including directing, scripting, tech./media production and performance.
She recently created media and performance for Morningstar a new musical based in Sonoma County's history. She is one of the founding members of the Virtual Performance Collective, and is currently at work on Re-Membering Harmony, collecting oral histories from community members to create site-specific event for the Occidental Center for the Arts.