Maya Zbib is a theatre director, performer, writer and co-founder and co-artistic director of Zoukak Theatre Company and Zouzak Studio in Beirut. Her work is process-oriented and is created in collective research cycles with Zoukak, raising questions that aim to challenge the status quo in Lebanon; addressing gender and sexuality, religion and power, history, violence… Her performances, including The Music Box, Silk Thread and The Love Project, have been presented in international festivals and venues in the Middle East, Europe, the United States, South America, North and Central East Africa and South Asia. Zbib is a recipient of the Chevening/KRSF (2007), Cultural Leadership International (2010), an ISPA Fellow (2010), a protégé of Peter Sellars’ World Theatre day – Rolex Mentor and Protegé Arts Initiative (2011), and has been honoured at Cairo’s 27th international Festival for Experimental Theatre (2020).

Zoukak received the Ibsen Scholarship Award (2012), the Anna lindh Foundation’s Euromed Dialoge Award for social resilience and creativity (2014), the honorary citizenship of the city of Palermo (2017), the Praemium Imperiale Grant for Young Arists – Japan Arts Association (2017), the Chirac Foundation Award of Culture for Peace (2017) and the Ellen Stewart International Award (2018).