Theatre laundering A play and question and answer session - Pay what you can £17, £15, £13
Virgule Film and Performing Arts Company presents Theatre Laundering, three theatrical portraits of Iranian-Dutch photographer Newsha Tavakolian, composer Setareh Nafisi and theatre maker Marene van Holk and the impossible choices they faced as artists, migrants and human beings. Choices that are not neat, not pure, and precious. These dilemmas form the starting point of the interactive performance Theatre Laundering, led by director Arvand Dashtaray.
After 23 years of theatre-making and cultural activism in Iran, Dashtaray has arrived in the Netherlands. In Iran, theatre was a busy, urgent space, a space that demanded interpretation, collaboration and shared risk from its audience. In the Netherlands, he encounters a different landscape and wonders whether theatre can have a societal impact or provoke political resistance.
In a new theatre text by Naghmeh Samini, the performance explores the desires and expectations of western theatre audiences. Which stories do we want to hear? Which versions of those stories are preferred? Is there still room for the unwashed reality? Must pain be translated, alleviated or filtered before it can be exported for consumption?
The performance is mostly in English with occasional Dutch and Persian sentences accompanied with subtitles.
The play will run for two hours, followed by a post-show discussion moderated by Dr Saeed Talajooy, Senior Lecturer in Persian in the School of Modern Languages.