Adel Hakim

Adel Hakim
Born	13 October 1953 Cairo, France
Died	29 August 2017 (2017-08-30) (aged 63) Ivry-sur-Seine, France
Alma mater	HEC Paris
Occupation(s)	Actor, theatre director and playwright

Adel Hakim is a French actor, director, playwright and theater director born 13 October 1953 in Cairo and died in Ivry-sur-Seine on 29 August 2017.

He lived in Egypt then in Lebanon. He had lived in France since 1972.

Biography

Adel Hakim was born to an Egyptian-Lebanese father and an Italian mother.

He first pursued studies in mathematics, economics and philosophy at HEC Paris, Jussieu and at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences. In 1984 he obtained a doctorate in philosophy from the Sorbonne.

From 1972, he practiced university theater and took workshops with Ariane Mnouchkine and John Strasberg of the Actors Studio.

In 1984, he founded the Théâtre de la Balance with Élisabeth Chailloux. In 1992, they were appointed to the management of the Théâtre des Quartiers d'Ivry (at the time hosted by the Théâtre d'Ivry Antoine Vitez) and the Ivry theater workshop. The objective is to give substance to great texts, from the past or contemporary. The movement of bodies in space, the elements of scenography, sound, light, everything is at the service of the author's words and the ideas that come into action. The spectator's pleasure is activated at the same time as his imagination, his reflection and his critical spirit.

Adel Hakim teaches drama, among others, at the school of the National Theater of Strasbourg, at the school of the Théâtre National de Bretagne, at ENSATT, at the school of rue Blanche-Paris, at the National Theater of Bordeaux in Aquitaine, at the School of Comedy of Saint-Étienne, at Théâtre en Actes, at the Higher Institute of Dramatic Art in Tunis, at the Catholic University in Chile, at the University of Chile and in many other Chilean universities, at the Alliance française in Buenos Aires, at the Casa del Teatro and at UNAM in Mexico.

Under the title Théâtre des Quartiers du Monde, he organizes events around contemporary foreign writing: in 2005 Brûlots d'Afrique, in 2006 ¿Que tal? and L'Amérique latine, in 2008 Écritures contemporaines du Moyen-Orient, in 2009 Contre-feux, in 2010 the cycle around the Russian author Svetlana Alexievich, in 2013 the cycle around the Uruguayan author Gabriel Calderón. In 1995, with Jean-Claude Fall, then director of the Théâtre Gérard Philipe in Saint-Denis, he brought together a troupe of actors to present the complete plays of Seneca translated by Florence Dupont over a season.

Author, he wrote Exécuteur 14, Le Chant de la nuit, Corps, Cloradosco, La Toison d'or, Oum, Pasolini: politique-visions, Des roses et du jasmin.

He translates and adapts the plays he directs by Shakespeare, Aeschylus, Pirandello, Goldoni, Benjamin Galemiri.

He died in Ivry-sur-Seine, at the age of 63, as a result of ALS, before being able to go to Switzerland where he planned to benefit from assisted suicide.