A.K.M Yusuf Hassan is widely known as 'Yusuf Hassan Arko' in the art world of Bangladesh. Besides working as a Professor in the department of Drama and Dramatics, Jahangirnagar University, he is an Actor-Director-Writer-Researcher on theatrical arts. He has been teaching at the above department for more than 28 years.
Yusuf Hassan Arko obtained his Ph.D from Okinawa Prefectural University of Arts, Japan in 2009 as a MONBUKAGAKUSHO scholar where he was awarded the "Masao Yamamoto Award" (President's award of that university) for his excellence in academics during his doctoral study. He was furtherly awarded "Japan Foundation Fellwoship" for his Post-Doctoral research in 2011-2012. As a researcher, his field of study is indigenous and traditional Bangladeshi theatrical performances. He has been publishing plenty of research articles and books on the above subject. Till date, Yusuf Hassan Arko has published six books on Drama and Theatre studies from reputed publishers of Bangladesh. His first published book is titled Obhinoyreeti: Bangla Bornonattok o Pashchatto Proshongo (Performance Styles : ‘Bangla Narrative and Western Theatre’, 2015, Bhashachitra, 1st 2015 and 2nd 2019,) and his last one is Japaner Obhiruup (‘Impression of Japan’, Shoummo Prokashoni, 2026).Besides that, he has plenty of research articles published in reputed journals of home and abroad. Recently, he is focusing on the musical aspects of Bangla traditional theatre.
Besides academics, he has been practicing theatre with a theatre group Natyakendra since 1991 where he acted, designed for numerous plays of the group. Other than those productions, he works for several groups and institutions as a free-lance director. Ekolobbo Akhyan (1997), Sheetayon (1999), Totakahini (2009), Kobi(2014), Neelakhyan (2014), Maatbring (2016), Devdas( 2017), Bratto Aami Montrohin (2018), Jera (2018), Man of La Mancha (2019), Boshikoron(2019), Geeti Chondraboti (2020), Dohondoyita (2021), Jol Poloker Gaan (2021), Punnaho (2022), Laily Mojnu (2023) Swarnoboal (2023), Neel Moyurer Joubon (2025), Chalk Circle (2026) etc. are his accalaimed productions in Bangladesh.
Yusuf Hassan Arko has plenty of Key-note papers presented in the seminar and symposiums in home and abroad. He has been lecturing on performance style, musicality and narrativity in various workshops. Yusuf Hassan Arko has a special skill on Japanese language and culture by which he has been teaching Japanese Performative Arts and language at Jahangirnagar University. He has his special focus on studying Bangladeshi indigenous performances from a perspective of Performance Studies.
RESEARCH INTEREST
Research on the Theories of Performance, Performance Studies, Music compose and Play Direction in stage and visual media.
