"The boundaries between dance, artwork, installation and performance are subtly blurred...every sculptural position suggests unverifiable meaning...The quality of the darkening light is as beautiful as a painting, but the effect — the music, the spatial emptiness — is pure theater."
Roslyn Sulcas, The New York Times, November 10, 2007

Maria Hassabi is a director/choreographer/performer. Her works are filled with iconic images that put forth-then move beyond-their initial connotations. With aesthetic precision, extreme physicality and extended duration she creates live installations that push limits of live performance.

Over the past decade Maria Hassabi has created eight evening-long works: LIGHTS (2001), Dead is Dead (2004), Still Smoking (2006), GLORIA (2007), Solo (2009), SoloShow (2009), Robert and Maria (2010) and SHOW (2011) as well as eight short-form pieces. Her works have been presented at venues such as Performance Space 122, The Kitchen, Dance Theater Workshop, P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center, Danspace Project, CCS Bard Galleries at Bard College, Ballroom Marfa, in Texas, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, TBA festival, Museo Soumaya in Mexico City, Kaaitheater Brussels, deSingel Antwerp, ImPulsTanz Vienna, In-Presentable Festival Madrid, TSEH-Springdance/Dialogue Moscow, Musée Géo Charles in Grenoble, France, and European festivals in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Cyprus, Greece, Israel and Portugal. In 2009, her works were also included in Crossing the Line, the fall festival of the French Institute Alliance Francaise (FIAF) and the Visual Art Performance Biennial, Performa 09.

Born in Nicosia, Cyprus, Maria Hassabi moved to the United States in 1990 to study at California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles, where she received a BFA in Performance and Choreography. In 1994, she relocated to New York City and continued her studies in various "release" techniques and The Alexander Technique. Throughout her career she has had ongoing collaborations with renowned artists from various disciplines. She was a member of Chamecki/Lerner Dance Company from 1998-2005 and has performed with several contemporary choreographers in New York.

Maria Hassabi has been an Artist-in-Residence at Arizona State University, at LEXDance Under the Radar Residency Program, ImPulsTanz, Vienna, Austria, DANSLAB, Den Haag, Netherlands, Kaaitheater, Brussels, Belgium and has had several creative residencies at Performing Arts Forum in St. Erme, France. Her work has received funding from the National Performance Network Creation Fund, The Brown Foundation, Inc. of Houston, the Manhattan Community Arts Fund, supported by the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs and administered by the LMCC, Foundation 2021, the Jerome Foundation and the 2011 MAP Fund. She is a recipient of the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, 2009 Grants to Artists Award and is a 2011 Guggenheim Fellow.

Maria Hassabi lives and works in NYC.