HERITAGE COMMISSION

Nazlı M. Ümit (Dr.) is an independent researcher, theatre practitioner, and a Karagöz performer from Türkiye. She has been a member of UNIMA Türkiye since 2011 and she was nominated as a member of the executive community of the national centre in 2023. She holds a bachelors in English Language and Literature and an MA in Applied Drama from the University of Exeter. She received her PhD from the Institute of Turkology at Istanbul University. She worked as a research assistant and lecturer at Istanbul Kultur University between 2011 and 2023. Her current research in puppetry covers historiography, iconography, and the repertoire. Her recent publications include: “In Search of Lost Performances: the Challenges of Reconstructing a Nineteenth‑Century Karagöz Play”, Researching Popular Entertainment, Edited by Jason Price and Kim Baston, Routledge, 2024. (forthcoming book chapter) Letaif-i Hayal, Turkish Traditional Theatre: Karagöz Puppet Plays, Martin E. Segal Theater Center, New York, 2019. (Translated and edited by Marvin Carlson and Nazlı M. Ümit) Historiography of the Turkish Theatre and European Orientalists, Libra, Istanbul, 2020.

She has worked as a teaching assistant and drama facilitator in community theatre projects aimed at adults and/or young learners from disadvantaged communities and/or with certain learning disabilities. She completed a practise and theory-based Karagöz course organised by UNIMA Istanbul in 2011. She was taught by Karagöz masters who were classified as Living Human Treasures by UNESCO and in 2022, she was nominated as a practitioner of Karagöz as Intangible Cultural Heritage by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. She founded Sirkeci Theatre, a private theatre company which reconstructs, and stages lost or scarcely known texts of Turkish traditional theatre and puppetry with the support of archival documents and performance-based approaches as well as producing digital and/or live adaptations of dramatic texts to various other forms such as storytelling, puppetry and stop-motion. She offers performances, masterclasses, consultancy and curatorship for puppet theatre projects, festivals, exhibitions and training programmes.