Tom Bentley-Fisher

Acclaimed actor, director, teacher, playwright, and artistic director, Tom Bentley-Fisher has worked professionally throughout Canada, the United States, and England for twenty-five years. He has been the artistic director of four professional theatres and directed over one hundred productions. As well as teaching in universities and theatre schools, he conducted his own acting studio in San Francisco. Tom trained and worked as an actor in New York and London before moving on to directing and teaching. Major influences in his approach to the work include Rudolph Laban, Yat Malmgren, Sanford Meisner and Peter Brook. His evolutionary and revolutionary experiences throughout his career inspire and motivate. Presently, he is artistic director of Tant per Tant, a theatre company dedicated to the translation, exchange and production of Canadian and Catalan plays. His recent work in Catalonia includes conducting master classes at Sala Beckett and creating and directing Q-Ars Teatre’s production of Iliada, presented as part of Grec 09 Festival de Barcelona. More information can be found at www.tombentley.net

Elisabet Ràfols

Literary translator, dramaturg, and founder of the company Tant per Tant. Elisabet has dedicated the past 15 years to the development of international and intercultural communication. Through her collaboration with Canadian Governor General award winning poet Anne Szumigalski she was introduced to the methods of Tom Bentley-Fisher. Their relationship has grown to that of artistic associates in their international exchange projects. Elisabet is coorganizer of Tom Bentley-Fisher’s “Character Transformation Through Movement Workshops” and is integral in the presentation and translation of Tom’s method, ensuring that the intercultural communication flows and working towards the best understanding of the transformation process by the Catalan participants. Her most recent work in Catalonia is the dramaturgy with Tom Bentley-Fisher of Ilíada, commissioned by Q-Ars Teatre in 2009. Elisabet is Vice-president of the Literary Translators Association of Canada (LTAC). She is also producer for the upcoming Catalan Connection/Connexió canadenca, an exchange of Canadian and Catalan plays. More information can be found at www.rafols.net