Nadra Assaf has been teaching English and Dance at LAU since 1991. Her recent theater/dance productions include: Space-Time-Shape (2012), I Matter: An Audience Interactive Performance (2010), The Faces of EVE (2008-2009), and Majnoun Leila (2007), Life Goes On(2003) and The Quest (2004), Adaptation: Alice Revisits Wonderland(2005)

She is the Artistic Director and founder of Al-Sarab Alternative Dance School, founding member of IDO Lebanon, and a member of DBM, CORD and SDHS. She is also a Judge/Instructor on several TV programs concerning performing arts.

In April 2011 she organized and implemented the first annual World Dance Day Festival in Lebanon which was hosted and sponsored by the Lebanese American University.

In 2012 the festival changed its name to the International Dance Day Festival in Lebanon and became a member of the international festival body. The festival continues to be a yearly event at LAU.

She has presented conference papers: The Identity of Dance: A Modern Form of Communication. (2002 – A Pedagogy of Language in the Arab World); Dance: A Discourse Mode (2007- Re-thinking practice and theory International symposium on Dance Research at the Centre national de la danse, Pantin, France); Unfolding Modern Dance: Exploring the Measures of Communication in a Non-Verbal Medium (ASTR/CORD Conference 2010,What the Body Knows: Reflections on Performance Practice as Research).

She is a published author of poetry as well as papers in conference proceedings. Some of her publications include: BOOK: The Meanings of a Modern Dance: An Investigation into the Communicative Properties of a Non-Verbal Medium (2009); chapter in a BOOK: Dancing Without My Body: Cultural Integration in the Middle East (2012); ARTICLE: “I Matter”: An Interactive Exploration of Audience-Performer Connections (2012).

She has one son: Majd Al-Alam (1992).

Her research interests include: dance as a communicative medium, women in dance, poetry and dance; and discourse analysis as applied to non-verbal mediums. 

Academic degrees

• Ph.D. in Education, Leicester University.
• M.F.A. in Dance (with honors), Sarah Lawrence College
• B.S. in Finance, Louisiana State University, USA
• B.A. in Theater from Centenary College, Louisiana