Sorour Darabi Natural Drama

[Dance]

The Iranian artist Sorour Darabi reflects upon notions of transgression in performative pieces which involve body and language alike. S.he questions the idea of « nature » in relation to contemporary environmental preoccupations, historical aspects of this notion and their socio-political resonances on the body.

After presenting Farci.e in 2020 during the Festival d’Automne (as part of Échelle Humaine à Lafayette Anticipations), Sorour Darabi brings audiences a new creation in 2021. S.he sets forth reappropriation as an act which seeks to make visible hybrid myths rendered invisible by a policy of binary construction. In other words, the writings and representations that exist between man and woman, West and East, and pleasure and pain, to name but a few. Via text, dance, and visual arts experimentation, s.he conjures up a « post-dystopic » fiction which goes beyond all dualist narrative, in the aim of forging a new mythology. We are confronted with a fiction which starts off with two figures from the start of the 20the century – Zahra Khanom Taj Saltaneh, an Iranian princess from the Kadjar dynasty, and Isadora Duncan, an American dancer who established herself in Europe – as well as a reflection on what arises from eugenist and hydro-feminist thought. Via this questioning of the idea of « nature » and its impact on the body, the piece seeks to create a new being, free to wander around the interstices of « norms » and the « natural ».