Mohamad Tamem is a professional choreographer-dancer, musician, and theatre performer who graduated from Dance and Music at the Music Conservatory and the Iymar Dancing Group Academy in Damascus, Syria.
As a director, and choreographer, he has led multiple companies in both contemporary dance and traditional folk dances, such as the Iymar Dance Group (2007-2010), the Ram Ensemble (2008-2012) and the Sima Dance Company (2013-2014), while also being regularly booked as a freelance dancer for independent artistic projects, such as the Ashiqin Dance Group and the Ornina Company, as well as in television and film.
As a musician, he has performed regularly in concerts around the Middle East and Europe playing oud, percussion, and darbuka as well as leading several bands as a vocalist. In 2021 Tamem founded NaJazz Records, an experimental jazz project for bringing together musical intersections among three self-taught musicians with completely different backgrounds. A further music project is the group “Ramband”, a music band mixing popular and classical Arabic music. He has also worked as a sound engineer for music venues in Lebanon and as a music teacher in both the United Arab Emirates and Germany, engaging in social activism through music along the way. He led music and dance workshops for children and youths with and without disabilities for more than 10 years at the Jafra Foundation for Youth Relief and Development, as well as at the United Nations Organization for Palestine Refugees in the Middle East, all parallel to his artistic career in Damascus and Lebanon.
As an actor, Tamem was a member of the International Theatre Ensemble Grubengold at the Prinz-Regent-Theater in Bochum (2015-2018) and is currently performing for independent theatre and film projects in NRW, such as Ringlokschuppen Ruhr, Theater an der Ruhr, Sababa Production, and Collective Ma’louba, among others. In 2017, he joined Defakto Agency in Herne as a theatre educator.
Original dance pieces of his authorship have been broadcast and toured internationally at a number of festivals: the Festival of Jerash/Jordan, Meeting Point of Arab Children in Amman/Jordan, Theatre Festival Qatar, Closing Ceremony of the All-Asian Games/Qatar, Theatre Festival Fujayrah/Arab Emirates, Mawazin Festival/Morocco, Festival for Cultural Exchange/ Istanbul, Fluchtpunkt Festival/Schauspiel Frankfurt am Main and Ruhr International/ Bochum, among many others. He won the dance contest Arabs Got Talent in 2013, 1° prize in Dance & Folklore Prize for Dance Youth in 1999, and 1° prize for Rhythmic Instruments of the State Youth Organization for Syria in 1996.
In 2020, he joined the WHY NOT? KOLLEKTIV as a dancer and choreographer. The media art dance performance WHY NOT? SUPER SONIC STORYTELLING, in which he performed, was awarded the Prize 2021 as part of the Artists in Residency Ruhr Program KREATIVCAMPUS.RUHR of ecce — european centre for creative economy.
Mohamad Tamem is a professional choreographer-dancer, musician, and theatre performer who graduated from Dance and Music at the Music Conservatory and the Iymar Dancing Group Academy in Damascus, Syria.
As a director, and choreographer, he has led multiple companies in both contemporary dance and traditional folk dances, such as the Iymar Dance Group (2007-2010), the Ram Ensemble (2008-2012) and the Sima Dance Company (2013-2014), while also being regularly booked as a freelance dancer for independent artistic projects, such as the Ashiqin Dance Group and the Ornina Company, as well as in television and film.
As a musician, he has performed regularly in concerts around the Middle East and Europe playing oud, percussion, and darbuka as well as leading several bands as a vocalist. In 2021 Tamem founded NaJazz Records, an experimental jazz project for bringing together musical intersections among three self-taught musicians with completely different backgrounds. A further music project is the group “Ramband”, a music band mixing popular and classical Arabic music. He has also worked as a sound engineer for music venues in Lebanon and as a music teacher in both the United Arab Emirates and Germany, engaging in social activism through music along the way. He led music and dance workshops for children and youths with and without disabilities for more than 10 years at the Jafra Foundation for Youth Relief and Development, as well as at the United Nations Organization for Palestine Refugees in the Middle East, all parallel to his artistic career in Damascus and Lebanon.
As an actor, Tamem was a member of the International Theatre Ensemble Grubengold at the Prinz-Regent-Theater in Bochum (2015-2018) and is currently performing for independent theatre and film projects in NRW, such as Ringlokschuppen Ruhr, Theater an der Ruhr, Sababa Production, and Collective Ma’louba, among others. In 2017, he joined Defakto Agency in Herne as a theatre educator.
Original dance pieces of his authorship have been broadcast and toured internationally at a number of festivals: the Festival of Jerash/Jordan, Meeting Point of Arab Children in Amman/Jordan, Theatre Festival Qatar, Closing Ceremony of the All-Asian Games/Qatar, Theatre Festival Fujayrah/Arab Emirates, Mawazin Festival/Morocco, Festival for Cultural Exchange/ Istanbul, Fluchtpunkt Festival/Schauspiel Frankfurt am Main and Ruhr International/ Bochum, among many others. He won the dance contest Arabs Got Talent in 2013, 1° prize in Dance & Folklore Prize for Dance Youth in 1999, and 1° prize for Rhythmic Instruments of the State Youth Organization for Syria in 1996.
In 2020, he joined the WHY NOT? KOLLEKTIV as a dancer and choreographer. The media art dance performance WHY NOT? SUPER SONIC STORYTELLING, in which he performed, was awarded the Prize 2021 as part of the Artists in Residency Ruhr Program KREATIVCAMPUS.RUHR of ecce — european centre for creative economy.