KEEPING UP WITH THE IRANIANS - AFRANG NORDLÖF MALEKIAN

KEEPING UP WITH THE IRANIANS

Afrang Nordlöf Malekian

01.06.2024 | 9 p.m. | Kantine, Sophiensaele

Sprache: EN | Price 15€ / 10€ reduced | Length: 90 Min

Shortly after the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the new leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, banned music in Iran. Consequently, many artists relocated to Los Angeles to find new ways of making a living and pursuing their artistry in exile. This often happened through recordings of the musical genre dāmbuli dimbol since it was what people would dance to at mehmooni, social gatherings in people’s homes. Keeping Up With the Iranians emerges from this music history by reconstructing a mehmooni starring world-famous singers Setareh and Poupak, number one charting pianist Fereshteh, and renowned choreographer Dancing Dina, visiting all the way from Los Angeles, California. To the rhythm of dāmbuli dimbol songs, they invite the audience to an unforgettable evening of dance, music, cake, and joy.

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Concept: Afrang Nordlöf Malekian
Performance & Co-Creation: Mia Herman, Sepideh Khodarahmi, Afrang Nordlöf Malekian, Jafar The Superstar
Guest Star: Parisa Madani

Scenography: Afrang Nordlöf Malekian

Graphic designers: Agga Stage, Johnny Chang

Poster photographer: Jean-Baptiste Béranger

Many thanks to: Nour Helou, Poya Livälven, Malin LQ, Samuel Girma

Afrang Nordlöf Malekian is an artist with a master’s in Arts from the Dutch Art Institute in Arnhem. In his practice, he works with history’s unnoticed creators and puts history into use as a form of documentation and aspiration that calls for improbable and impossible futurities. It examines how narratives and hierarchies disappear, return, and transform in the most unexpected ways. Afrang Nordlöf Malekian is represented in institutions such as Moderna Museet, the Public Art Agency Sweden, and the Arab Image Foundation Library. He has exhibited at venues such as the 10th Berlin Biennale, Moderna Museet, West Den Haag and Tensta konsthall.

Mia Herman is a cross-disciplinary creator whose areas of activity include visual arts, performance, film and production. She contributed to Gothenburg’s 400th anniversary by illustrating the district of Askim-Frölunda-Högsbo and creating a postage stamp for Postnord. Additionally, she has worked as a producer for the feature film The Eye of the Beholder and for the Clandestino Festival, a nomadic stage that showcases artists from around the world who do not fit into the western commercial mainstream. Mia has also been a background dancer for Italo Bitches, who have performed at the Gothenburg Film Festival. In her daily work as operations manager and artistic director at Kulturhuset Oceanen she works to create space and opportunities for future artists and to contribute to diversity and inclusion.

Sepideh Khodarahmi’s roots are acting, dance, contemporary circus, drag, mathematics, street-dance, mime, iranian drag, queer. Busy balancing between making and performing. Sometimes teaching. Dealing with cake-sitting, drag, sticky mess, power, intimacy, high energy, acceleration, destruction Construction, existential humor, erotic, ass shaking, movement. In their work, sensuality is a recurring element and method. Name-Dropping: Marina Abramovic, Unga Klara, Hooman Sharifi, JUCK and Swedish Royal Dramatic Theatre to brag about a few workplaces. Graduated from Academy of Music and Arts in Gothenburg, Department of Mathematics at Stockholm University, Broadway Dance Center, Mime School at Amsterdam Academy of Theatre and Dance.

Parisa Madani (age unknown) are german-iranian women of trans* experience with sharp green eyes, working with live arts and communities. As a choreographer and multimedia performance artist, she centers care for QTIBIPOC* in immersive resting exercises called Pariyestan. These collective nap-sessions serve as spaces of worship, where rest is valued as a form of resistance. Resisting white supremacy cultures that are deeply rooted, like a virus infecting non-white traditions of grieving, mourning and relaxing.

Jafar The Superstar Jafar The Superstar is an interdisciplinary performer, producer and drag artist, who works with subversive comedy and queer subcultures through multimedia such as text, video, games, music, dance and theater. With a bachelor’s degree in Gender Studies from Stockholm University, their artistic and cultural practice is based on how decolonial theories can emerge through kitsch and camp.

📷 Credits: Malin LQ