Caroline Hatem was born in Beirut in 1976, when the Lebanese civil war erupted. Her father taught philosophy, and her mother, dance. She found out quite early how to face turmoil with art and books. She learned philosophy (a Master’s in France), theatre (a BA at the University of Arizona), and dance. She teaches dance and movement for actors and has directed multiple internationally acclaimed productions, including Al Beyt, by Lebanese author Arzé Khodr, which toured all over Lebanon and in Tunisia, and Al Zifaf (an adaptation from Brecht’s “A Respectable Wedding”) which represented Germany at the European Theatre Festival in Beirut. Her recent work, TRANSIT TRIPOLI, a free adaptation of Anna Seghers’ novel Transit, premiered at the Akademie der Künste in Berlin in November 2022, then performed at the Rachid Karame International Fair in Tripoli in June 2023, and is touring presently worldwide. She co-founded the cultural association YAZAN, which brings together artists around transmitting, creating, and touring in the field of performing arts, film, and music. In times of greatest catastrophe, she believes in capacity building, creation, production, and making work opportunities. She continues to tackle great texts, adapt them to the current reality, and bring together young and less young artists to fulfill a dream of professional and personal development. Rejecting neo-colonial depictions of Arab bodies and narratives, she aims at producing works that can tour worldwide for their intrinsic qualities, their original take on universal texts, and their insight and impact in regard to their region of origin.