Sonja Kuftinec
Community-based theater; science communications; public engagement
Background & Expertise
Sonja Arsham Kuftinec is professor of Theatre Arts and Dance at the University of Minnesota, where her research, teaching and creative practice explore performance as a mode of culture-building, public engagement and social transformation. She is the author of Staging America: Cornerstone and Community-Based Theater (SIU Press, 2003), which received honorable mention for the Barnard Hewitt Award in theatre history, and Theatre, Facilitation and Nation Formation in the Balkans and Middle East (Palgrave, 2009) and 70 additional articles and reviews. Over the past three decades, she has developed collaborative theater projects with youth, artists and communities across the Balkans, Middle East and Midwest United States.
Her recent work focuses on arts-based pedagogy, ecological storytelling and theater as scientific communication. She has co-created performances including Pharmakon (2022), Rare: Stories of Dis-ease (2023), Humans are Relative/s (2024), and Odes to Ooze: Performing the Science of Ecosystems (2025), developed in collaboration with scientists, students and community partners. Kuftinec also works with rural and community-based arts organizations including Sod House Theater and Amya Theater to create participatory performance projects that bridge divides across communities, disciplines and lived experience.
Featured Project: Sonja Kuftinec
Prairie Restorations: Arts-based engagement for sustainable farming futures
Challenge
Despite incentives to maintain Minnesota’s remaining prairie, grasslands continue to be threatened due to cropland expansion. Sustainable farming practices sometimes lack buy-in from landowners who see these policies and practices as impractical and costly.
Meet the Project Team
Project Leads
