Lab
Three days of intensive closed lab to vision possibilities for future collective collaborations between the participants.

with:
Ali Moini, Tara Fatehi Irani, Masoumeh Jalalieh, Ehsan Hemat, Hooman Sharifi, Ashkan Afsharian, Sepideh Khodarahmi

1. – 3. August 2023
not a public event

Three days of intensive closed lab to vision their future collaboration as a collective. What creative criteria and working dynamics can they envision that will enable them to continue to experiment together?

Tara Fatehi is a performance maker, performer, and writer based in London. Tara’s work engages with ambiguity, mistranslation, disjunction, and unfinishedness. It has been presented at the V&A Museum, Royal Academy of Arts, Barbican, Nottdance, Chapter, Stadtgarten Köln, and the United Nations (Geneva) among others. Current projects include Mishandled Archive (dispersing a family archive in public space through 365 dance scores and photographs; published as a book by LADA in 2020), Always Already (an 8-hour duet with Karen Christopher weaving together humans, plants, and machines; part of Edinburgh Horizon Showcase 2023) and From the Lips to the Moon (an unusual music and poetry night in London with Pouya Ehsaei). Tara is currently performing in pieces by Hooman Sharifi (Norway) and Teatr O Bando (Portugal). In 2021, Tara was the first-ever resident artist at the United Nations Archives in Geneva.

Hooman Sharifi is a Norwegian choreographer with Iranian roots. He started his dance career with hip-hop when he was a teenager. Then, he went on to study classical and modern ballet in his twenties. Sharifi graduated in choreography at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts. Moreover, he is particularly interested in the artistic expression found in the intersection between
dance, theatre, and graphic art. In 2000, Sharifi established his own company, Impure Company, dedicated to highlighting civic engagement and politics in its Art.

Masoumeh Jalalieh is a Vienna-based choreographer and dancer with a background in physical theater (mime), graphic design, and illustration.
Her approach to dance is undoubtedly interwoven with her homeland Iran’s society, culture, and ritual carpet. ‘I carry my origins with me, and thus communicate myself, my country, and its people through my artistic statements.’
As a contemporary artist, she likes to research interdisciplinary codes in images, sounds, and movement. ‘The body is a complicated collection of all elements of nature, such as time, space, speed, etc. I explore those through movement. This way, I communicate my imagination using the ultimate language human beings have at their disposal.’

Sepideh Khodarahmi
(b.1992) Roots are mathematics street dance mime Iranian drag queer acting dance contemporary circus.
Busy balancing between making and performing. Sometimes teaching. Namedropping Marina Abramovic, Unga Klara, Dinis Machado, JUCK, and Stockholm City Theatre to brag about a few workplaces.
Lately seen as a drag king in Keeping up with the Iranians by Afrang Malekian, as a choreographer in GUD SKAPADE MÄNNISKAN OCH JAG SKAPADE KUKEN by Mille Bostedt and as a dancer in Sacrifice while lost in salted earth by Hooman Sharifi. Tired of being political but can’t seem to stop?
Dealing with sticky mess food power high energy acceleration destruction construction existential humor erotic ass shaking movement.
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.

Ashkan Afsharian is a choreographer, dancer/performer, originally from Tehran, Iran. His first exposure to the performing arts was through acting and theatre studies at the University of Arak, Iran. From 2017 to 2019, he pursued an MA in Choreography at the Center for Dance (HZT) in Berlin, Germany. He has worked as a performer in various contexts in Europe, including a recent collaboration with Hooman Sharifi. Additionally, he maintains his own choreographic practice.
In 2020, he co-founded the exchange platform Tanzpol together with Johanna Kasperowitsch. In 2021, as part of Tanzpol, he received funding from the Berlin Senate for one- and two-year festivals, which enabled Tanzpol to realize a week-long festival at the Uferstudios in Berlin. Ashkan Afsharian currently lives and works in Berlin.

Ehsan Hemat is a Brussels-based performance maker, performer, and teacher. “Dance on glasses/Amir Reza Koohestani” marks the beginning of his dancing career in 2000.
He has worked with a number of various artists from different disciplines such as William Forsythe, Felix van Groeningen, Mokhallad Rasem, and is a performer in Hooman Sharifi’s “Sacrifice while Lost in salted earth”.
He taught at:
Fontys Academy(Tilburg), LCDS/The Place (London), CCDC(Cairo), ICCD(Tehran), Dance Academy of Bahia Blanca(Argentina), whisper(Belgium), and Royal Conservatory of Antwerp.
Ehsan’s debut piece “I put a spell on you” (2018) is an ambitious exploration of the effects of discipline and control on the human body. It was awarded the Best Choreography at Tehran International Fadjr Theater Festival in 2019, as well as the Grand Prix from Belgrade International Theater Festival(BITEF 2021). Last season he premiered “A in the role of B when C didn’t make it” (2023).
His current project “Everything brings us back to the body” is a research towards the creation of a self-choreographed solo.

Ali Moini was born in Shiraz, Iran. Growing up, he studied lyrical singing and musical composition, and at the age of 17, he joined the Youth Orchestra of Shiraz. In 1997, Moini started intensive studies in dramatic arts and acting and joined the Mehr Theater Group as an actor and composer. Moini graduated in dramatic acting from Soureh High Educational University of Tehran, and in 2009 he participated in the Forum Dança Lisbon’s two-year advanced program Choreographic Creation and Research on Contemporary Dance, studying with international choreographers including André Lepecki, Deborah Hay, Emmanuelle Huynh, Jeremy Nelson, João Fiadeiro, Julyen Hamilton, Lisa Nelson, Mark Tompkins, Meg Stuart, Loïc Touzé, and Vera Mantero. It was there that he created the solo piece “My Paradoxical Knives”, which he performed to great acclaim at the Montpellier Danse Festival, the Tanzquartier Vienna, and Théâtre National de Chaillot, among others. At the invitation of the Montpellier Danse Festival, Moini created the piece “It Shocks Me but Not You” in 2012. It is a part of his larger show, Talking In/To Myself, which was presented at the Festival d’Automne in Paris that same year. In 2013, his collaboration with the visual artist Fred Rodrigues was presented under the Hermès Foundation’s New Settings program at the Théâtre de la Cité Internationale in Paris. In 2013, Moini concluded his Masters’s in Performance and Choreography in the ESSAI program at CNDC (Centre National de Danse Contemporaine) in Angers, France. In 2014/2015 he performed for Hooman Sharifi’s show “Every Order eventually loses its terror”. In 2016 he created a new solo “Man Anam Ke Rostam Bovad Pahlavan” that premieres in Festival Montpellier Danse and is part of New Settings programme by Fondation d’Entreprise Hermès. In 2019, he was invited by James Carles to choreograph the solo “Psaume #3” interpreted by James Carles. He created “Gaugemacy” in 2018 which was performed at Centre George Pompidou and Charleroi dance festival. Ali Moini holds, since 2019, workshops in Iran for young multidisciplinary artists within the framework of Mentorat, an ongoing project supported by several European structures. His new piece, “±”, came to life in 2021 during the NEXT international festival. Since 2020, his company, Selon l’Heure, collaborates with Latitudes Prod., Latitudes Contemporaines’ production office. He is currently Performing for Hooman Sharifi’s piece “Sacrificing While Lost in Salted Earth” and Dinis Machado’s piece “Try-Dimensions through Trans-Realities”

Photo Credits
Photo: Yvette P. Vallarino