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Raya Tuffaha headshot 9/17/2024, 3:39:49 PM

Raya Tuffaha

Based in Seattle

She/her • Member Since 2024

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My Story

Raya is a Palestinian actor, fight director and writer based in Seattle. She’s interested in muscular stories. Her love for physical storytelling began at a ballet school in Amman, then flourished at an acting conservatory in London. After completing an undergraduate thesis in fight direction at Swarthmore College, she began training with the Society of American Fight Directors and Theatrical Intimacy Education. She now choreographs staged violence at theatres around the Seattle area. She also helped revitalize The Seattle Sockeye stage combat workshop in 2024, and continues to serve as a coordinator. Her debut poetry collection, To All the Yellow Flowers (Golden Antelope Press, 2020), was featured in Ms. Magazine’s National Poetry Month Roundup. Her chapbook, apocalypse blues, followed in 2022. Other publications include Phoebe Journal, Mizna Online, Asian American Writers’ Workshop, Succarnochee Review, and Button Poetry. Her commission with Seattle Opera, a 20-minute libretto with compositions by Carolyn Quick, premiered in June 2025. Raya is currently pursuing research on audience-performer power dynamics in staged violence. She aims to create the conditions for a volta, between words, gestures, individuals, or societies.

Sexual Orientation
iSexual orientation describes a person's enduring physical, romantic, and/or emotional attraction to another person.

Lesbian

Gender Identity
iOne’s internal, deeply held sense of gender. Some people identify completely with the gender they were assigned at birth (usually male or female), while others may identify with only a part of that gender, or not at all. Some people identify with another gender entirely. Unlike gender expression, gender identity is not visible to others.

Woman

Race/Ethnicity
iRacial identity is the qualitative meaning one ascribes to one’s racial group, whereas ethnic identity is a concept that refers to one’s sense of self as a member of an ethnic group. At their core, both constructs reflect an individual’s sense of self as a member of a group; however, racial identity integrates the impact of race and related factors, while ethnic identity is focused on ethnic and cultural factors. We celebrate our Keys’ intersectionality and understand that creating one’s racial/ethnic identity is a fluid and nonlinear process that varies for every person. Many folks will identify with more than one background while others will identify with a single group more broadly.

Palestinian

Discipline

Fight Director, Actor, Writer

Vocal Range

Mezzo/Soprano

Dance Experience

Ballet, Jazz, Tap, Contemporary, Swing, Taiko, Dabke

Unions & Affiliations

SAFD

Website

http://www.rayatuffaha.com

Resume

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