 This roundtable has been organized in honor of World Theater Day, today, March 27, which in Iran is celebrated as National Dramatic Arts Day. I'm Marjan Musavi from Broshan Institute for Presidential Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park, and we are so happy to have you all and welcome you. Today's roundtable is also in response to the ongoing uprising in Iran known as Woman Life Freedom Movement. It's been possible by the support of Broshan Institute for Presidential Studies, Dr. Fatemeh Keshavarz, Chair and Director, and my colleague John Molan. Also Dr. Magda Romanska and her wonderful team at theatertimes.com, the University of Maryland School of Theater Dance and Performance Studies, specifically Dr. Kathleen Marshall and Dr. Frank Hindi. And lastly, Vijay Mathew and Theo Rogers from HowlRound and our ASL interpreters from Pro Bono ASL. David is being live streamed on HowlRound and its recording will be accessible later on. Today, I'm honored to be joined by Dr. Keshavarz, the Chair and Director of Broshan Institute at Presidential Studies at the University of Maryland, who will share some remarks with us soon. I'm also honored to have this conversation with our dear panelists, Dr. Azadeh Ganje, former professor at the University of Tehran, performance artist, playwright and director, and currently a research fellow at the University of Hildesheim, Germany. Also, Nassim Soleimampur, the award-winning playwright and theater maker known globally for his highly acclaimed play, White Rabbit, Red Rabbit, and the artistic director of Berlin-based theater company Nassim Soleimampur Productions. And Kevan Sarveshde, playwright, dramaturg, translator, and lecturer based in Iran, actively involved in theater projects done between Iran and Europe. My colleague will share the full bios in the chat section for your attention. In terms of the format, we will begin with an introduction that gives us a brief historical and political background of Iranian theater and the current movement. We will then move on to discuss some questions that we have prepared in advance. At the end of the panel, we will open up for Q&A. Please wait until the end to write your question in the chat box. To begin, I would like to invite Dr. Keshavar to say a few words. Thank you, Mahjong. It's a great pleasure and honor to be here with all of you. First of all, happy theater day. It's great to know that we have such an international celebration of theater and we're participating in that. I would like to welcome our distinguished panelists. It's a pleasure to have you all on board with us. And I would like to thank Mahjong for all the efforts she put. I should actually say Dr. Musavi to be formal, but it's rather difficult with colleagues that you work with day in and day out and get inspired by. So I refer to her as Mahjong. I'm sure she will forgive me for that. I would also like to thank the Department of Theater Dance and Performance Studies for being such a partner with us as we venture into learning about and introducing Iranian theater and by extension also Middle Eastern theater. So if you're hearing me saying that Oshan Institute for Persian Studies is not here just for this one event but is actually starting to develop serious academic both at the digital level, as well as academic and performance level, as well as accepting the students into our programs in theater, you are hearing me correctly. And so that is really a pleasure. The role of cinema in Iranian culture is much better known worldwide and maybe even within the country itself. Very few non-specialists would know that theater is much older and has played a role in in nurturing just the performance and many master figures in Iranian cinema find their origins in Iranian theater. Now, there are much better scholars of theater here on this panel, so I'm not going to venture to say any more about theater and really look forward to hearing from them. Just a point to say it is a great pleasure to come around and acknowledge this and dedicate the resources and strengths of Oshan Institute to making this foundational art better known both in the United States and beyond as it is fortunately now possible. Now you all know about the recent appraisings in Iran and many of you may not know that there have been many other appraisings almost every couple of years. The people of Iran have looked for opportunities to express their desires for living in a democratic secular environment in which they're able to respect other people's religion but also be respected and acknowledged for their own personal belief or disbelief as the case may be. And the most recent has been the uprising of women like freedom, Zanzandegi, Azadi, and many people may not know what a role theater has played, not just in echoing the voices of this uprising but in educating generations who have come to put together the appraising. In other words, the learning opportunity, the educational opportunity next to artistic achievements which are always really locked together is something that hopefully will become much better known recently. So involved with efforts like this and beyond. So on that note, I'll leave you with Dr. Marjane Mousavi and the distinguished panelists and I look forward to listening to all of you and learning about Iranian theater. Thank you so much. Thank you Dr. Keshavarz. So let me go right to the introductory remarks that I have prepared. The new millennium has witnessed a significant rise in social and political activism and protests all over the world to the extent that we can call our time the age of protest and movements. In the last 15 years, Iran has been no exception in terms of having an upsurge of social and political protests. The controversial result of the 2009 presidential election led to a series of nationwide protests, known as the Green Movement, which became a major event in Iran's political history. In 2017, young women began a series of activist projects protesting compulsory hijab by unveiling in public and sharing their selfies on social media. This was followed by mass protests as a result of soaring fuel prices in 2017. More recently, since mid-September 2022, the death of Mahsa Jeena Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish girl, while in Tehran police custody for wearing an improper hijab, has triggered the largest and most sustained civil uprising since the 1979 Revolution. Borrowing the Kurdish slogan, Jeon Jeon Azadi, the movement is now known as the Woman Life Freedom Movement. Waves of protests in more than 160 cities and towns, mostly led by women, factory workers and students, called for accountability for Mahsa's death and also for all other forms of oppression. The Twitter hashtag, Mahsa Amini, broke the world record with over 284 million tweets sent. The protests also resulted in extraordinary international support and a UN Human Rights Commission voted on November 24 to investigate the regime's deadly repression, which has led to the death of 500 protesters, including thousands of arrests and four executions. Woman Life Freedom Movement is described as an intersection of movement that fights not only for women's rights, but also for a democratic secular government, freedom of expression and equality for religious, ethnic and gender minorities. As I'm talking to you, it seems that the state suppression and the protests are experiencing exhaustion, but the uprising does not seem to be ending. Many believe Iranian society is on a revolutionary course and that its political consciousness has changed forever, meaning many Iranians continue to think, imagine, talk and act for a different future. Globally speaking, what connects all of these movements and protests are perceived injustices that injustices regarding abuse of power and the flaws in contemporary political practice. Another point of connection that is globally shared by these movements is their conscious use of theatrical gestures, which offer powerful methods of nonviolent intervention. Both theater and protest despite their limits generate nonviolent processes of envisioning alternative reality with a view to the future. In this sense, they are closely connected and mutually influential. In the case of the Woman Life Freedom Movement, perhaps what distinguishes its waves of protest from the previous ones is that they're often accompanied by an area of creative and performative acts of nonviolent protest, both in the streets and in digital space. Some examples of such civil disobedience in the streets include burning compulsory veils, dancing through traffic, cutting hair in public and drawing political graffiti. In digital space, protesters create and share innovative digital art and socially engaged pop songs like Battle Yet, while also sharing posts, hashtags and playful slogans on social media. A remarkable feature shared by many of these protests is that as performative acts, they affirm the productive intersection of theater and protest. Let's now turn to the main question of today's panel. How has Iranian theater responded to the current and previous political movements? Historically, in their relentless quest for social justice, equality and freedom, and in the face of a state censorship and biased facts and narratives, theater artists in Iran never stopped performing plays in support of political movements in the name of protest. Similar to social activists, they use a wide area of creative interventions for defiance, provocation, transgression, reality-bending and prefiguration, all aiming at creating visions of reality and visions of future and multiple identities on a stage. The commitment also emphasized by Sameeha Ayu, the Egyptian theater artist in her recent message for 2023 World Theater Day. Although at times working with the kind of uncertain hope, Iranian theater artists found themselves ethically responsible to propose to the world a model of reality that reimagined how to interact and how to be. Iranian theater now has a rich repertoire of realistic confrontational theater, presenting a vivid and truthful depiction of the religious ambivalence and moral dilemma that Iranians deal with in their everyday lives. In recent years, several women playwrights worked in documentary theater to address matters of public concern and interpersonal tensions by dramatizing untold stories and hardships of Iranians' youth value crisis and the struggles of homeless women, refugees and transgender people. Iranian artists have also developed community-based forms of theatrical intervention by either taking performance to underprivileged communities, for example Afghan immigrants and women in shelters, or by involving them in their performance and conventional stages. Returning to the current woman life freedom uprising, a brilliant example of a protest performance is one that took place last November from a collective of 16 theater artists led by Sohail Aguilestani and Hamid Burazari. The collective performed a 53 second spine-chilling silent performance in a park in Tehran. All the actresses appeared unwavered and stood still and silent to the end of the performance. They then shared the video of the performance and their social media. Of course, this led to their temporary arrest. Examples of plays and performances that make structures of power and control visible and subject their values to question are numerous in Iranian theater repertoire. It might seem too soon to expect a remarkable and robust engagement from Iranian theater artists with the woman life freedom movement. But for a movement that has the word life at its center and for theater that is committed to reimagining and creating an alternative reality on its stage, having conversations like the one we have today seem very timely and hopefully productive. So today we have gathered to discuss the convergences and divergences between theater and protest in the current context of Iran. We also hope to go beyond that to discuss the role of theater as a reflection of and for reality building equality and transformation. Let me start with a rather general question addressed to all of the panelists. How would you describe theater which aims to protest and defy particularly in the context of Iran? What are its main features and conditions? Shall we start with Asade or Nassim? Hi, I say hello to everyone. It's a pleasure to be here and honor of mine. And I would like to congratulate the war theater day while I would like to remember Hossein Muhammadi, an actor who is still in falsely imprisoned in Iran. And I would really wish for a day of justice and for him to come back on the stage. And I would like to remind all of us of all the actors, actresses, theater makers, artists who have been actually suffered during all these years due to censorship and oppression and all other methods of tyranny. And so to answer your question, I would like to say I think about what actually theater makers in Iran published publicly on social media after what happened, which I would like to call Gina uprising or Gina revolution or woman life freedom movement. There was a manifest that they published and in this manifest, they mentioned three main wishes or missions for theater in Iran, which was I won't perform on a stage where women or men are forced to perform in hijab. Thereafter, my productions want to stage bodies and imposed atmospheres, bodies which can't be free on stage. I will try to stage the reality of life. The other one was in loyalty to freedom, I won't give in to censorship in any condition, any format, any time, any place, and any government or state. And I think this manifesto as they mentioned, is not a suicidal end to their artistic life, despite the despite being totally against all the rules of a state in Iran for performing. Rather, it's, they tried to make themselves free. And they tried to mention what the performing arts should be after this revolution after this uprising. So I think one answer to this question, trying to be the voice of theater makers inside from my side would be that one, but I would like to hear others, especially Kevin and Nassim idea. If you have more to say, I mean, it's woman life for them. Hello everyone. So I feel like I'm the fifth wheel here, because I'm among these ladies and K1 lives in Iran. So I try to give you my 2020 cents at any point, but I would also be curious to hear what Kevin has to say. Hello everyone. Well, it's, it's, it's a hard question to answer because historically theater and culture and what we call intellectual sector has been kind of always has this feeling of having the answers or knowing or being one step ahead of social issues or political issues. And but at the same time, in the context of official performances, official theater, things that we know or people on the street know as theater. It has been very, very regulated if you need to go and show your text you need to go and book space that needs permission from the government agency and you need to have permission to sell your tickets you need to have approval of the things you do on the stage. So this formal restrictions have always been there and at the same time there's there has always been these playful trials of artists to defy these to say things that are not really acceptable to try to move one step closer to that red line that you're you're not allowed to cross, but in the past six months, more than six months, which is unbelievable. Things have changed, as you said, and things have changed in a way that that seemed impossible before because I'm talking about myself. We, when I say we I'm talking about myself and very small sphere of people around me so I'm not generalizing it but we couldn't imagine that future that's other future in the official spaces. So we took our productions we took our work and try to find new spaces for it. But now we are thinking that we should take the space back. We are thinking that we should stand up and say that this is, as I said, this is our manifesto we are not going to perform in that way anymore. And we are not going to stop performing. So we are not hiding anything we are not leading that double life anymore. So that's that's very strange for us to think about it because it's almost mission impossible, but it's something that we don't think there's any other way. And we don't think that we can go back. So I don't know how it's going to be, but I know it's going to be a challenge and at the same time something very new. This is, this is wonderful. We are always happy, you know, talking about the mutually constitutive relationship that Iranian artists, you know, have built with the government in you know the sort of compromises that they have been making in the last four decades and the theater that they have produced wanted to be in, you know, all those regulatory frameworks and at the same time wanted as you said to push the boundaries you know to to examine actually the limits, how much these limits can be questioned but now that within this last six months, as I said, I think that not even the whole Iranian society but the Iranian theater and theater artists also have came to this understanding that we want bigger changes. We, they are seriously on a revolutionary sense both I think ethically and practically but I mean, I would say my next question would be, what are some plans and strategies if it's not too early to ask you know I'm very curious to listen to that. Now that the intention is there probably the next question would be how this is possible in practice. I don't know if anyone, any of you want to build on that or go back to the question of, you know, maybe I would like to hear Nassim because Nassim has actually done a great job of going around all this censorship going around even the borders with his a special style of theater. So Nassim I think now it's the time that you are the main will. Thank you. And I mean there are two things that comes to my head in general that I think I need to share. One is that I want to mention that not the whole history of Iranian theater in the last 40 years was compromising with the censorship. We talk about strong brave women taking off their scarves. We have this festival called Iran International Festival of University Theater. And years ago many years ago a very famous Iranian actress she's now more like a movie star. After ending the show in Mola V theater took off her scarf to celebrate, and it caused like the extremists to attack you know the festival, and it became a chaos so in the course of the Iranian history. When you look at the Iranian theater, at some points you feel like it actually has been ahead. So for us who are Iranians and we worked in this business it might be clear but it might be interesting for your audience to know that the same amount of censorship as could never be applied to theater in comparison with Iranian cinema. It allowed Iranian theater to always be a bit more avant-garde. So when we talk about the new movements in social movements in Iran. I tend to think that at some points even Iranian theater was ahead of these movements. But what Iranian artists wrote or made on stage. Secondly is that I know we're in the business of defining and that's the only way our brains work. I tend to remind myself that that I'm not really interested in doing that I'm more interested as an individual as K-1 mentioned to experience this. Not to try to go you know what is this theater I think this theater the theater that we're talking about would probably in my experience define itself. And I think that if you look at it mechanically or forcefully by some roleplay players, most probably to the point that it would turn on its head and become too big to either change the circle of power, or dissolve in it. A version of that is commercial theater, where somehow you know you have like the political theater becoming a thing where you buy a ticket to watch shows and Broadway for $200 or $300. So, if we agree these, if we accept these two little pillars that I'm trying to put down. Then I think our relationship to the topic is more organic. And to me personal is okay, it becomes more personal. How you as an individual as an artist are going to react to it to this. And then historically when you look at it in the hindsight, it would make more sense to go all these individuals because I think that is what this revolution is about is your individuality is now being suppressed by people telling you what to wear what to do what to eat what to drink. But then the common the common interest I think in the course of history would naturally shape itself. That's how I would look at it. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you for highlighting actually the experimental nature of all these know practices. I mean this is what I have learned that the prefigurative tactics or all these transgressive tactics that artists use are by nature on guaranteed and experimental. And it is, I mean, out of these experimentation that as you said, organically, the new, you know, visions and new practices emerge. Okay one or. Do you have anything to add about all these experimental nature of you know the individual works that are you know emerging here and there. I just wanted to add something. I mentioned how both Nassim and other the through their works and through their interactions with the young generations, both officially in this university is an unofficially with their friendships and collaborations and things like that. There have been participants in a very low but constant change in how theater has been experienced by the younger generation. In the past 15 years I think what we somehow called experimental or avant garde or offstage theater became a much, much bigger part of the normal repertoire, if we can call it that of students. The theater scene. And, for example, I think it was in the spring last year so five months before this uprising started that in a student festival, we saw a small piece. It was not officially dance but it was a dance performance. And it was by woman students by girl off to any to with a performer off to any to a girl and the performer, the performer, the performance and the creators were all aware of what they were doing and how it was against everything that was allowed. So they were doing it and they were, it was supposed to have two performances in one day night, and they were doing it and they were thinking, okay, we will do it and then they will come and tell us to not go do the second performance. And that happened. And us as the audience of that piece. We were not just seeing the art part of the performance we were seeing the activists in the performer, because we were really, really worried about her. We were worried about ourselves about everything that could happen. But as Nassim said that this theater scene has been some in some parts of it has been ahead of the social change. We were somehow rehearsing becoming more brave and becoming more together to see how we are going to do these things outside of the closed rooms of private spaces. We were doing it, we not I young students were doing it in the most official space you can imagine the university and official festival of the university. So I think these experimental, these marginal parts of theater are becoming more and more center, and they are becoming them, not mainstream because after things that happened 15 years ago to 10 years ago, we have a very big commercial scene in Tehran and Iran that has its own really life. But they are changing how theater is interacting with the society, I think, as a theater person. At least they are having an effect in my reaction in my relationship in my interaction with how bodies are seen in streets in social life in everyday life. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you. We talked about these all these performances, activist performances that put the life and, you know, careers at risk by university students. I know that you have been teaching to some of the most talented students at the University of Tehran and I know about the University of Tehran, maybe other universities in Iran. Would you like to speak about that experience of both, I mean, working with your students who are working ahead and trying to, you know, be defiant formally speaking and also narratively speaking. I would like to thank K-1 for mentioning that. And also you. Yes, I had the privilege to be next to the young generation, artists, activists, and yeah, elites of the society but not elites in the term of elites being supported by the state but a group of young, talented artists, activists. And I should mention that although theater was imported to Iran as a tool for the state to teach its own morality, to teach ethics as they wanted. Although this happened and although any kind of a state to our history of modern theater wanted to affect theater, wanted to actually control theater through financing and through certifying what should be on the stage, what could be on the stage. But theater always and performing arts in the broad sense always acted against this. And as Nassim mentioned, it was always ahead of that. Theater performing arts never accepted to become a tool of propaganda purely. Yes, it has been used, it has been used by the state, it has been used and it has been taught even in the university to be just a tool for for police, for the state, for love, for order, and for propaganda in the term of a totalitarian system. But the notion, the nature of performing arts doesn't accept that. And especially as Kevan mentioned, the new methods and the more avant-garde theater, more avant-garde performing arts events doesn't accept that at all. I should dare to say the very first group of students who started protesting in Iran, just the day, the same day that Masa Jina Amini was buried, where the theater students, where the performing arts students of University of Tehran and Art University, Tehran Art University, I should dare to say that what they made during their protest was a very performative act and it actually show the potential of performative acts to have a universal language to be able to speak and of course to be able to make a collective, to make a community of protesters, community of people who are acting for woman life freedom. And I think this kind of this mentality of looking at political activism as a way of performing art event or performative event was very helpful. And this is what I can see in new generation, in the young generation, they acknowledge performing art as a space to have freedom, to speak, to show what they want from the society, not what society is asking from them. To show their individuality as, as Nassim mentioned, to show a specific kind of aesthetics that they would like to bring on a state, on the stage sorry, not what the state is asking for and not even what the conventional methods of theater are asking for. I think, going beyond being Orthodox, as Kevin mentioned, which happened during past years in different festivals. Actually, I should mention that Nassim and his classmates or the group of alumnus that Nassim are from already started years ago in the University of Tehran in experimental theater festivals. This was an answer to what students felt which felt is necessary for the society, not only for the theater scene, but in the broad sense for the society. And so it's not about be having only political topics on the stage. It's about the policy of performing. As Kevin mentioned, with this particular performance, a woman dancing in an official stage, although she knows she is in danger, although she knows this is the end of, it could be the end of her career. So it is about what you choose as your policy as an artist. And I think this has been, this has been always suppressed, even in the university. But the students themselves keep this fire alive. The students themselves had this among each other, the students themselves tried to reach new sources of knowledge. And actually, they even were able to distance themselves from Eurocentric knowledge. I would like to mention that or westernize knowledge. I would like to mention that you can see what they are producing is not reproducing or remodeling or going after the models of Eurocentric political art, but they made something new. They made something which can be adjusted to their own situation and to the geography and policy that they are living inside, which I think is very important. And it's a treasure. Right, true, absolutely. So the fact that their context is specific, you always talk about how activist art can be processed and received based on the context in response to the, you know, to cultural political ongoing in the context. So that's very important. And the other thing that transpired from all of this conversation, if I want to just summarize for now, was the shift that we see. I mean, I used to think that political artists, theater artists who want to create socially engaged art and political art. They are so they are now thinking about the thinking about activating their audiences in terms of the ethics, the ethics of taking responsibility for what is going on. But now we see that the ethics is there. Yes, they want to activate their, you know, audiences, but at the same time, they also want to reclaim space, especially in the public sphere, you know, and this, you know, the combination of both exercising the ethical self, and at the same time trying to reclaim the physical spaces that have been officially policed and controlled. I think are the strong conditions that theater artists have been creating for themselves and especially student university students have been carving for themselves. Thank you for that. And before I go on to my next question, I would like to hear more about this shift that has happened, you know, both to the dramaturgy to the forum, and also to the narrative, you know, that we see in theatrical performances if any of you want to chime in. Just like quickly say something I'm not that updated. I was strangely enough I arrived in Iran. Two weeks before the process to start, supposed to stay only only a few days but then I stayed actually three months as much as I could. But still I'm not that updated. There's a thing about Iranian theater that I've always been obsessed with because maybe that's not how my brain functions. And that is metaphor, you know, when it comes to political theater, we always are metaphorically talking about a king who did something really nasty and we mean we're talking about someone else is always metaphor involved with Iranian political theater. Maybe because maybe I'm a bit slow, and maybe because now I lived in Germany over a decade. I always go for like but why don't we directly say what we wouldn't say I don't really get it. So that is one big shift that I noticed in conversations and in some of the examples that you guys already gave a woman dancing on stage is not a metaphor for anything she is dancing on stage. Or Hamid poor as a Ian and his friends being in a park taking off their scarves standing there in silence is what it is. It's not like a metaphor, which I think is a big shift I don't want to bore you. We all know the Iranian classic playwrights who are all legends and we have lots of respects for them. And this is this is a thing that has started during the actually two generations before, which is like our parents and now we have younger, very young theater makers who are doing it their own way and that was also happening in conversations. It seems to be like a center, like when we talk about University of Tehran I've studied there as they taught their cave on has been says it's like we all lived it over different decades. And at the time when I was a student, we would go for like, yes, something is not good we should do something and half an hour later we're talking about Jacques de Rida and saw art and barge, you know, as this time when I was in Iran everything was really direct, so I was just like sitting with some younger artists, and it would like directly go I'm done with my scarf, you know, and they didn't want to go deep into anything because deep inside. They have felt it they didn't need any references to make it more complicated to understand it was the agenda. The problem was very clear and you didn't need any metal force to understand it. And that was so vivid and so beautiful to experience first time for me. That's amazing how confrontational things have become, you know, and this. Yeah this directness in both the ethics divisions the aesthetics is fascinating. As a literary scholar. Please. Yes. Thank you so much for I know that I'm not supposed to be on the panel that I couldn't help us. Nassim was talking. See, that's what happened with poetry to when when you look at the decades prior to the revolution, you have all these metaphors, and then you get closer to it. It's about the reality of what is happening there. And I think it is happening again in in poetry as well people are done with metal force. Everything is out there, clearly speaking for itself. And the best we can do is to echo it, as it is so it was really exciting to hear that that's that's why I turned in thank you for giving me a chance to say that. Thank you. I would like to add something to that, not to rob the stage from Kevin or Nassim but because I speak slowly. Sorry. So what I think it's important in the term of performative definitions or terms is actually people decided to put away their semiotic bodies. If we look at woman hijab and the hijab on the stage even as a semiotic body. People also decided to put this away and go back to their phenomenal body with the terms of Eric official ishda. So I, I think, as Nassim mentioned, we don't need. For metal force. There is no need for the semiotic body anymore. There is no need for semiotics anymore. I think also the recent dilemma on the on platforms about what happened in a series made in Iran is the same. People don't need things to go undercover people don't need things to. Everything is very naked. Everything is very much staged in the public space that there is no need to hide it there's no need to push anything on it. The semiotic is actually taking back the empowerment that people got from being in the public space. And this is actually I think what also theater is asking for to go to public space in a free way to be free to to actually break out. Because this public space is the convention all the stages, and it's everywhere, everywhere could be a stage we know, I think K one truly mentioned that yes they decided to go out of this convention all the spaces, but he mentioned, now we want to get those convention on the spaces back to why not on the official stages, why not in theater halls. And yeah, maybe, maybe, this is also a big change, which is happening for everyone in the society. People don't don't don't ask for another body. They, they, they know how vulnerable they are, but they want to show it. They want to be as they are. And Kevin I want your reaction to this. And also I want to know how sustained do you think this shift will be in terms of you know both aesthetics and narrative. Well, I think what, what we are talking about right now is very important and it can be a turning point, because narratively speaking, our theater, our classical theater history has been very narrative based very text based as everyone probably, and these metaphors, and we have this rich history of poetry, which is really good with metaphors so we had this this playfulness with words that I'm telling this and you're hearing it but I can also say that I'm not saying this so you, you can't stop me from saying it but and then these playfulness in content has been somehow tolerated or somehow maybe even accepted by the states and by the artists. It was a, it was a game we played, and we tried to do it, we tried to do it very good. Each, both parts of the censorship committee tried to decode everything we said and we tried to find new codes that they couldn't decode by the audience could and these things were really endless game. Yes, our software yeah endless game, but one of the most important differences right now is that it's not about the content anymore. And even the form of the protest, it's taking up your veil, it's becoming a body, and there's another slogan that I really find amazing, which I'm, it's hard for me to translate and into English but it says towards life towards corporeality I think and towards a womanhood, and this emphasis on being a body and that there's no metaphor in the having your body and you can't put a metaphor and I'm not this and there's only censorship or there's only stopping you from doing things so there was never any there were attempts to metaphorize for example kissing on stage, but it seemed stupid and they we stopped doing it because it seemed stupid, you can metaphorically kiss someone. So we just said I kiss you. But your form is becoming your body is becoming the message itself. And that's really hard, because sustain you talked about how sustainable it is, and the body can be killed damaged imprisoned. The words couldn't. So we could go inside our safe spaces write something. I'm just going to mention Nazim's play. He couldn't travel his words good. But the genius of it was that his words became something else in the bodies of another person. So we are now in a very special place in our theater history that our bodies are going to be because it's going to take a long time I think. So it's not long maybe, but it's going to take some time. So our bodies are going to be oppressed, and our wars are not going to be enough anymore. So what can we do about this, and I don't have any answers for that. But that's the challenge. That's the, that's the theater of right now to see how our wars and our bodies can find a place for themselves in this situation. And secondly, I think that there is this movement and process and embedded in the term pitch best year in the proposition actually toward you know it's becoming is not one, you know, night process or think, and you're right. It's not about an uncertain hope, but there are also, you know, plenty of uncertainties and also productive moments and momentum that come with all these uncertainty and within these processes, which of course take time. If you don't mind, can I can I say quickly one thing. Yes, I really loved when Kayvon said it's not about content anymore. Yes, I think to me he nailed it. Like when we talk about all these motos that people shout in the streets. I'm a writer I'm obsessed with wardings and you know how you pick them. But even if you go haha, it would work. If you watch the show that Kayvon is talking about the dance piece. I don't care how good of a dancer she is. It's not about the content anymore. It's down down there in the streets, basic basic basic. Your existence denies my existence, you know that is so primitive now is like two wild animals facing each other. Each other does not matter that much, or at least not at this phase. It's very problematic, you know, so I really loved it. I think he nailed it at least for me I've been trying to find a sentence for my feeling. And I think it works for me because it is somehow not really about the content at this point. Thank you. Could we say that the vulnerability of the body that that Kayvon also pointed to the fact that what is at stake is now so much more also gives theater so much more power. Because you know that the body that's dancing on the stage could be in jail the next day. You know that you know so much is at stake. And I know it's easy for those of us sitting here comfortably saying these things, but I'm just wondering how much more theater is doing now by being reduced to the bare life that it has the body that it has that it that it's putting forth. I thought a lot, so you go ahead. No please. Can I mean I will give you I'm going to give you my own answer very quickly, which is to me contemporary theater is like a paralyzed kid. You cannot put too much on her shoulder. You need money you need government to back theater it might be like little movements every, you know, not like a crazy in a sense of them on poor sitting in his room deciding to write a play which travels without him traveling but in reality I've been in Sweden for the last three months touring with people across the country visiting 30 cities, and a lot of money was paid and people you know back to it so they happens. So in the long run my answer would be. Yeah, more heartbreaking with disagree. Since the last word should be cave ins. And I would like to say, yes, vulnerability is resistance, and showing your vulnerability, as I also mentioned is kind of a resistance. It is about asking for the right of appearance, either on stage of theater or on the stage of society. So, we should think about the potentials. We should think about the limits of that acts. There are limits. There are limited people persons, you know, it's not, it's not an unlimited source of bodies. It's not an unlimited source of lives. And it's not unlimited source of financial power. So people, I think it's very good moment to get back to discussion. Theatre, theater makers stopped producing theater for a long, long time right now six months is a lot. And there is always discussion should they get back on stage with any circumstances. They don't want to. What about their lives. What about, because it's not only your financial life, it's also about your carrier. It's about your identity. How do you reclaim your identity as a theater maker while you can't get back on the stage because you don't you have this manifesto. You don't want to kill your carrier you don't want to kill your future you don't want to kill your body. You are vulnerable you show resistance, but you need support. And where is the support coming from. Maybe, maybe we say from the audience. Okay, but then this is, but then this is also putting audience in danger. Is this what you want. I would like to get back to a very performative act, like what either like we don't know what he did it. And these days we hear a lot. Yeah, the girls of Revolution Street. I would like to mention that what we don't know what he did it was never putting her audience in danger. It was self suicidal act, but she was very cautious, she was very careful about the security of her audience. So, what can we do. It's a question I asked myself. It's a question I think, which I, it's something which could be discussed inside the theater circle inside the performing art circle in the country. And, but at, at the end, it's a very personal decision. Sin, first of all, because artistic activism is very, very personal. The other reason is, we don't have really very powerful guilt for theater makers in Iran. The, the society, the association we have is actually dependent on the government on the state. So, it is, it is very hard to actually take care of each other. I just wanted to mention. Yeah, and I just wanted to say that with all its limits. I just want to highlight that, you know, the strong engagement, both intellectual and emotional engagement that happens at that direct, you know, experience you know, how, no matter how ephemeral it is, I think this directness and inviting the audience to bear witness, you know, to what's going on, no matter how temporary and short it is, and it creates the lasting impression and this is what we actually want. I mean, theater artists, not me exact. I'm not my researcher really want to invest on, you know, that direct moments of encounter, you know, and space of course has become very critical. And now I want okay want to comment on that, both the space and also the we I remember we talked about the limitations actually, especially for artists working outside of Tehran, you know, in other cities, he would. I mean, if you add to that. I'm just going to continue what Massima and other they were saying because I agree with what they were talking about and I have to acknowledge that I'm, I'm probably not the right person, even though I'm right now in Tehran, I'm not the right person to talk about this thing because I'm the privileged one. I can work in, for example, international scene I have, I have had time to create it that carrier that is not dependent on inside Iran situation, I'm also a translator so that I can live my life by just doing translations, even if I'm banned, I can do it on another name I can do business translations like I can do that, and I'm privileged, and I have to be aware of that. There are people there are assistant directors that have not worked for the past six months and in the pandemic time for maybe most part of the past three years. And it's a long time and they are doing a lot by not doing anything. They're doing a lot by not participating in this. So, and the problem, or I don't know if it's the problem but maybe it's characteristic of theater is that it can only happen at that moment, as you said, at that, yeah, it can have a very profound effect at that moment. And that's to how many people. Let's imagine the city theater for 700 people, I go there, I stand on the stage I do something that is revolutionary. And after 30 minutes, I will be gone. And those 700 people will never can never reproduce what they experienced. It's like the pop music stats. You mentioned in your speech that can go viral theater happens at that time. And the limited amount of bodies the limited amount of people the limited amount of spaces that cannot be closed that can be imprisoned that even controlled means that it's not pessimistic it's just realistic that theater is not the main area of activity inside this for me, at least it's my idea. But it's inside the situation, maybe theater planted some very, very old seeds that are now we are seeing it in the figurative concept of this uprising, maybe theater students learn things that they are now putting to use. Having this idea or this expectation of theater to become part of the anti state machine that is producing works, while this production needs bodies needs real presence is I think a little bit unfair. It's unfair from the outside, it's unfair from the inside to because in the first few months of the uprising. We had some, we had some talks with students with young people with people older, and they were, they were angry we were angry at ourselves that music is doing this video artists are doing that. Why are we not participating in this. What is theater good for, if we can't do anything right now. And I, I don't believe right now I don't believe that's the right question to ask, maybe theater has ideas about other places that can have have effect, not just theater in itself, because that is the place that can be really controlled. Good or bad theater can be the traditional sense of theater can be completely controlled. Even Hamid Purozari and so he did something that is not considered theatrical in any of the old school terms. Absolutely. Yeah, well, for actually it was one of my questions that for a theater in meshed in you know systems of control financial problems, the crippling economic sanctions that the whole Iranian economy is experiencing the adversaries of post COVID you know, having high expectations of the theater to be that is as I said in that is so much in meshed in all these systems of control and limitation. Maybe it's too much. But we see that all these powerful performative acts are going on you know, in various spaces, and the magic of lightness, you know, and, and the rehearsal actually that rehearsal that you were talking about came on about you know the exercising the, the agential power the a trying to create car spaces and practice you know the ethical responsibility is something that has been going on even before the Roman life freedom movement. I think also that has been defying all these you know conventional spaces in her forum performances, you know, in Tehran various spaces in Tehran and Pura Pura say also has been doing that. With that, I think we pretty much recovered the key points that we wanted to discuss. Is there anything you want to add before we move on to the q amp a any final comments. I just want to quickly say a thing if that's okay is is that the frustration the feeling that cave on is talking about has also been with me. I was there you know and I was acting cowardly as a foreigner who had to go back to this home you know and all the things. I've been trying for a few months. I'm sure cave on there are millions of answers to this question that okay what are we good for in theater as many as good artists could live on this planet there's. I'm just going to give you my, my answer to myself maybe it helps you feel like a bit better. I think there's things that you look when you look at the historical events. Some of it is being covered by BBC, you know they cover some stuff and then scholars come in they write about all the things and the numbers scientists, we have all these things. And if you deduct all of that from the core event. Something is there when we talk about cobit. No one in BBC talks about these two guys who were supposed to go on a date, and now they had to wear a mask and they couldn't hold hands you know and they couldn't kiss or whatsoever. So, this is where theater comes in to me, this is where you are there you lived it, you are living it, you've observed it you absorbed it, and it would naturally be in your system. So, two months later two years later 20 years later, it will come out and you write something and maybe even you don't even think it's any related to what you've experienced. Even scholars, scientists, everyone come in BBC comes in again, and they look at what you did, and they tell you oh actually he's talking about those few months in Iran and you're like, Oh my god yeah that's what I'm doing, you know. So, you just have to wait it's just like planting trees, trying to survive in such a wind, and then the fruit will be out there. That's my, my understanding of it. Thank you. Thank you so much. Any other that you wanted to say yes please. I just want to say there's a big question for the theater associations performing art associations out of Iran. There is a big question for them, how can us. There are people in diaspora, and also people who are in power in the stage of theater in the world can help theater makers performance artists in Iran. And talking about help is not about pity it's not about only giving financial assistance which is actually important, but it's also about how you can show this stage of power to the world, how you can keep them going. As Nassim mentioned, yeah you have to keep this fire inside alive, there would be a day, this is a seed that you plant, and maybe we or people who are even more privileged than us as people in diaspora can actually help nourish this tree. This is a big question, I think there should be panels and discussions about that, asking activists, performance art activists in Iran and theater makers in Iran, what do they need, what can be helpful. In the term of education as Dr. Keshav as mentioned and also Kevin mentioned, we can be of help. In the case of education, it is easy to make things hybrid and help. What about productions, what about the reality of the liveness of theater. I think this is a big question, which should be discussed and could be discussed. Absolutely. The role of diaspora could be very meaningful in support of the artists working inside Iran. Yes, Dr. Keshav you wanted to add something. So this last point is very relevant to places like Roshan Institute. And so I want to use the opportunity to learn as much as I possibly can. So one thing that could go wrong is to put certain artists in Iran on spot, talk with them and then make them targets of all kinds of false accusations and all kinds of dangers. So we have to be very, very careful in the way we respect the space that they have over there. And so what can be done has to come from inside to us, because it is only people who live there who know exactly what they're facing. And the other thing is diaspora has a lot of potential and I would very, very seriously highlight the significance of the aspects of it that are academically committed. Otherwise, before you know it, you are in all kinds of territories of political give and take and commitments and things that could again cause issues and misrepresent and so on and so forth. And I'm sure you know exactly what I'm talking about. So, you know, what I can think about is that the hope that there will be wisdom coming out of people who live in the country and people like some of you who are outside but very connected with inside so that we could actually know what could be useful rather than harmful and what we do. Thank you. Thank you. So that's, let's move on to Q&A. And I invite the attendees to please write your question in the chat box. We also have Q&A box. Whatever that works for you, my colleague John and I will be monitoring the Q&A. And while the questions come in, I would like to, let me see, to also mention to actually ask K-1 about your experience of moving between Iran and Europe mostly, how we can actually create opportunities for, you know, supporting artists based in Iran. We have been, Nasim and I talked about giving some, you know, online workshops, you know, or even mentoring, you know, artists in their playwriting process and helping them to stage their work. If you could speak a little bit about that before I move on to the first question we received. It's a really slippery question because help can mean many different things. I think collaboration or maybe asking what is needed or seeing what is missing here in Iran is very important. One thing that I'm quite certain about is that in the past decades, no organization, no community, no institute has been allowed to become established, become something really productive. So, this kind of collective, this kind of gathering people together and giving them what other to talk about, an association that can help, that can connect people together, that can be something supportive is missing inside Iran. And I don't think that it can be replaced by anything outside of Iran, but there can be temporary alternatives. For example, unfortunately, the academic structure of Iran is, I'm going to say that it's rotten, and I'm sorry to be direct, but it's rotten. So, if you stay there, you become rotten. And I've been there, as it has been there. And so it can only be revolutionized, but we can't ask people to stop. We can't ask people who are coming from distant cities of Iran just to come to a university. Maybe they are only allowed to come to Tehran because they are going to an official university. Let's wait. Let's wait many years and lose your young years and stop your career so that we can revolutionize something. So, we have to give them alternatives. So, we have to maybe give them opportunities to have that kind of education, a kind of access to material. One of the things that can happen is access, which is very stupid right now because my internet access could be cut right now. So, how can that be access be provided? It's something that needs to be discussed. It's something that needs to be taught about, but it's not hell because I'm just talking about inside Iran and my centralized presence and how my access network is really broad. And I can go see that talk with another person and some people in distant cities who have no access. So, it's my responsibility also to provide that access. Without that access, they have been phenomenal. They have been much, much more productive than I can ever be without the accesses that I have had. But it's also my responsibility to somehow give back or return some of the things that I have taken from all the off-center places. And so this off-center and center relationship can be inside Iran and also can be between Iran and Europe and Iran and other parts of the world. Absolutely. Thank you. I would say that we need to share knowledge. And it's about sharing. It's not about teaching. We need to educate each other if there is a need for education. We need to give knowledge to each other if there is a need for knowledge. This is part of this organ which is needed. This is a body. We should make a body. And this body should start acting to give support. And this is just one organ of this body, but it is necessary. Thank you. Let's move on to the interest of time to the question. Given the fact that theater is a narrative form of art, do you think we could slash should consider our structural definitions of theater in this political time of Iran? So in a sense it's a question about our understanding of theater. The question is that all the drama quote unquote is already taking place in the streets and by the people, perhaps we couldn't or shouldn't be trying to tell a story in the conventional sense, which is defined in theater. Perhaps our previous definition of theater isn't enough anymore. What do you have to address? Questions slash comments. Can I say something? Yes, please. I tend to think the whole world is about stories. And those who come up with better stories and narrate them more confidently rule others. The good lawyer, a surgeon, all the politicians, a handyman who finds out what's wrong with your pipe is all about the story that they put together and sadly accepted from a playwright. It's about a better story. It's not about a more true story. And that is not just about theater. So if you have this type of brain, then you can put the story inside the story, you know, so you can think how you're going to find out how to write a story is just like what the handyman does. Some go but my story is I change the form and I do that and I do this and I do this and if you are good and you sell it confidently, you would rule over some people. And if you are like but I don't care about the form for me it's about you know the content this and that and that and that this is where I honestly think it is very that's beauty of art is to be very personal. And as soon as that's why I think any good artist when scholars go for like but we put you here, they become the word that came on use slippery. They're like no I don't want to be this maybe I do a dance piece now. So I don't think it is it is right. If I want to put it down in one sentence for us to sit here and talk about the definition of theater. And barely talking about you know the definition of the next paragraph, and my next play, I cannot do that and I'm not interested in doing that. So it's very personal, but then yes in the course of history, smart scholars like yourself, and other colleagues here on the panel they would put things together. It's just like some people want to make some people gather trophies and talk about them. That's okay. I don't mind. Any other response to that. Yeah, I'm going to kiss your words face. I actually would like to respond to what I said, it is about sharing it is not about teaching and mentoring. It is I mean I, I understand the term. The way my John used it which is sometimes bringing in the medium that we work with more effectively being language and so forth, in that sense we could be providing some structures and, and ways of dealing with this with things that could be helpful to our colleagues and friends in Iran but I want to absolutely emphasize that that it is about sharing and the amount that we take out of that by learning by understanding I mean I'm going to go out of this panel, thinking about so many things personally, not just theater, but telling the stories the way to tell stories by content the significance of content about a million different things so you do enrich our lives academically intellectually personally in many many ways and if we become. Director of Russian Institute I'm speaking in that capacity, if we happen to take a step that facilitates things, all the better and we are absolutely delighted about it but the way we think about it is sharing and learning from each other. And I'm truly excited to know that there is a community that could help us facilitate that kind of thing I just want to say that before the time runs out thank you so much. Thank you. I just want to answer over shortly. I think art, one part of us art is about self expression. And if our anyone as an artist feels like that that the conventional theater or Orthodox theater stage is not enough. It's not true for this person. And he she or they should go seek for the aesthetic and politics which works for this artist. This is one thing. And I think we see it a lot on the street because what we see right now as we mentioned in the beginning of this this very beneficial discussion for myself was. We talked about presentation. We talked about through this. It is not contradictory with the story. It is no contradictions between presentation and stage. I would like to say there is not a super value for presentation in compare with representation in the term of theatrical terms. I would like to say what we are used to know as Orthodox theater is what the state always defined for us. The state always defined a very special structure on the stage. The state always defined very limited aesthetics for the stage. Maybe right now artists can actually change that. So maybe the Orthodox theater that we know is not enough. Maybe there are some artists some theater makers who can actually make it different. But what we see on this in the streets is mostly performative events. Whatever we see in the street is not performance art. We see many performative events. We see many many artistic expressions. We see many things like that in the state in this in the scenery of the society. But as an artist, if Ava is an artist and she decides to make a performative event in the street and frame it inside a performing event for performance art, then it is changed to performance art. But not whatever we see is performance art. So it is actually at the end, depending dependent on the artist themselves. Artistic and conditionality actually plays a key role here. And thanks for differentiating that. In a sense, I think many artists, many of us really want to move away from the binaries that, you know, have limited our minds and definitions. I hope that we address to some point about, you know, how we need to move away and aesthetically Iranian artists have been trying to move away from all these binaries from the state promoted, you know, narratives and conventions set free their aesthetics. We have more, more one more question. The creative college of students they're moving beyond metaphor is exciting, as is transforming beyond the given semiotics, the reclaiming of spaces for the theater to be shared at a scale. Can you please talk more about the ways that you would like to collaborate with an equally complex diaspora equitably and what stories and dramaturgies could be made possible. I have a question about collaboration. I'm not sure I understand the question, but right, but about the collaboration between the diasporas three. I need to just say what I have in my mind is that it's really difficult to find a similar language sometimes because not because of anything that's missing from one part or the other. I was, as I said, in the beginning I was in Europe for one month, just one month. And when I came back, I was like, I was like coming back from a 20 year trip, and I was like, what's happening in Iran. And I couldn't understand that. And maybe it also has something to do with the first question, which is the concept of time and narrative. The relationship together and how we are telling stories about things that have happened and maybe performance art is something that is always happening at the same time and theater narrative kind of it was retelling stories representing things. And now we are in a state that is always happening inside the moment. So these, these different timelines that we are experiencing these different timelines that is happening to us to one person who is living here I'm living here I'm experiencing and I'm, I'm feeling a continuity, but then I go out for one month, and I come back, and I feel disconnected. I have to ask my friends, what's happening in the streets, what are people feeling, I'm not asking them what's happening that I can find out in telegram channels that I can find out in Instagram. But the feelings that I could find by taking a taxi into Iran, I miss. So this collaboration between the Oscar and inside Iran. It's a very big question for me artistically because theater is about feeling art is about feeling, and maybe we are feeling different things. So maybe, just on top of my head, we should talk about this disconnection this is different feelings we have, because it's really for me to judge what's, for example, other days thinking right now or for us to judge what I'm thinking right now or I'm going through. And it's easy for me to be here and say, I'm in the middle of everything, and I'm in the right. And what right do you have to talk about people in the streets in Iran. I give myself the privileged status of being oppressed and of being in danger, but it's completely unfair to many people who are outside, and the other ways also true. So I think discussions are really necessary. I think accepting that we are talking from different perspectives it's really necessary. Absolutely. Thank you so much. And so I do hope that having such roundtables, virtual roundtables help us share what we were talking about earlier about sharing our knowledge and experience and also strengthening you know the connection that you were talking about being more and more you know informed and updated about the feelings receiving the updates and information, it should be going on and on you know it's not the one I hope that we continue the conversation. And let me see. And thank you for highlighting that. Can I just add one quick comment to, but take one said I think you just put your finger on it. And so I have been really bothered by the fact that we hear these events put up and Jim, the motto is, let us be the voice of the people of Iran and it just so hurtful because to begin with it assumes that they don't have a voice. And instead of trying to amplify that voice, taking it upon ourselves to be their voices that is very presumptuous. And then secondly, all the interpretation that gets added to that so I want to echo what my John just said. I think one of the answers are gatherings like this, where we actually have people sitting around a table who come from different parts of the world and inside Iran and outside Iran and just hearing from as many people as we can hear. I think I'll promise to leave you with the last few minutes that you have and no more comments but I just, I just really have to say that because it's been hurtful to hear that motto time and again from different places. Thank you so our time is up. We received a rather long comment. I would like to comment on what I think it's a very valuable thing she's talking about lack of sources lack of knowledge about Iranian theater and also about play plays Iranian theater plays we see Nassim, how successful he is with his plays and Kevin how he is a well-known dramaturg here how he is making his way through. So there is the potential, of course, and I think there as I mentioned there are, you know, rows of things there are series of actions that could take and I think what Marzia Shafi and also mentioned is very valuable. The question is toward the Turkish of us but I just wanted to mention. It's about how we can facilitate the translation of plays and also how we can contribute to the production created in diaspora. And yeah, and Marzia is asking how I can be realistic for those organizations or institutes to support. I looked at it may if I may just answer very briefly. This is about a specialty. I'm very aware of the fact that at best I could be a very enthusiastic receiver of great theater that the judgments are left to my specialized colleague, as well as the experts that like others that that are here. We will be here to do as best as we can to support those ideas that come through that channel of a specialized of knowledgeable people like those here. Definitely Russian Institute will, you know what I can say is that this will be a focus of our attention to the best of our ability. That's like, I think the best that that I can say. And with that, let's end the conversation but for now, and let's hope that we continue this conversation. I really thank you all the panelists all the help john Milan for his wonderful help. And the participants through how around live streaming. Please stay in touch with us. John just sends them the Russian email address on chat box. And again, thank you for sharing your thoughts. We hope that we continue the conversation and stay in touch with us. I have a great day or night. Bye. Thank you. Thanks for the time. Thank you.