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Lars Jan

Biography

Swarthmore Professor Allen Kuharski says Lars Jan is a "talent to be watched, perhaps most importantly because his work remains impossible to categorize." Lars' artistic experience is certainly broad. For his senior project at Swarthmore, he co-directed Angels in America. Seeking more rigorous training in theatre, he moved to Japan, where he became an apprentice to a 7th-generation Bunraku puppeteer. Later he translated Samuel Beckett plays into traditional Japanese Noh theatre. He has also trained in choral arts, mime, and other acting techniques. His theatrical work includes directing, video installation and design, and playwriting.

Lars' open-mindedness is perhaps not surprising. He has an Afghan mother and Polish father, who met while buying chutney from an Indian grocer in the United States. Both had fled Soviet occupation of their countries. Lars discovered his own Afghan roots while meeting relatives in Pakistan for the first time as a new college graduate. Expecting to spend most of his time trekking through magnificent landscapes, he was instead "beguiled by the density of the people and the culture."

This summer, Lars will expand his perspective further. While teaching as an artist-in-residence at Kabul University in July 2005, he intends to organize a 2006 performance tour through Central Asia in collaboration with an ensemble of international artists. He believes that as an artist he has a civic duty, and he has an intense desire to reduce tensions between Western and Islamic countries through direct cultural exchange.

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