Md Shamim Hasan, (PhD Researcher)

Shamim is a PhD researcher in the Music, Drama, Film, and Screen, and Heritage/ Museum Studies Research Unit at Ulster University, UK. He completed his Honours and Master's Degree in Theatre from the Department of Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. Then Shamim pursued his second Master's Degree in Drama with a focus on acting and performance from the Department of Drama at Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata, India. In addition, he is an Associate Professor in the Department of Dramatics at the University of Chittagong, Bangladesh, where he was teaching Contemporary School of Acting, Off Proscenium Theatre, Traditional Theatre of Bangladesh, Stanislavski's System, and Theatre of Grotowski before undertaking his doctoral studies.

Shamim's PhD title is ' Plurality, Presence, and Spirituality: Exploring Grotowski's Work and Ritual Performances as Tools for Intervention to Prevent Youth Involvement in Religious Extremism'. This research is funded by the Vice-Chancellor's Research Scholarship (VCRS) and is supervised by Dr. Guiliano Campo (Ulster University, UK) and Dr. Jennifer Goddard (Ulster University, UK).

His research focuses on exploring Jerzy Grotowski's legacies and the great tradition of ritual prformances in Bangladesh. Specifically, it focuses on how to build a bridge between contemporary theories of performances and Poor Theatre and ritualistic performances, so that all moderate and inclusive concepts of Poor Theatre and ritual performances can be transferred into the ongoing cultural beliefs of society. More particularly, how can pluralistic, spiritual, and humanistic principles of Grotowski's work and ritual performances be employed to prevent youth involvement in religious extremism?

He believes 'as a transformative exercise, art can inspire people to reconsider the choices they are making'. Therefore, he would like to incorporate pluralistic and humanistic notions of ritual performances and Grotowski's work into present-day theatre practies to "transform theatre from a place of entertainment" (Oberg, 2008 p.1) to " a way of sharing, connecting" and self-searching. (Gatt, 2020 p.55).

As a theatre practitioner and researcher Shamim has been working in the fields of Traditional and Ritual Performances, Theatre for Development, Theatre Education, and Actor Training for the last 15 years. He has been researching a suitable route to build a strong connection between recent theatre thoughts and ritual performances.