This is not a dance

In Iran, dancing has been officially prohibited since the start of the Islamitic Revolution. All dance companies have been forced to cease their activities. Many dancers and choreographers have fled abroad. Those who still live there have to be very resourceful. How are they keeping their art form alive? Theatre maker Nastaran Razawi Khorasani presents the performance This is not a dance a dance performance that deals with censorship. What can be shown, what must remain hidden? As the music and lights build towards a frenzy, Nastaran attempts to keep her dancing body in check.

In This is not a dance, Nastaran brings the voices of choreographers and dancers living in Iran to the stage. How are they dealing with the ban on dance? How do they practice their profession, what dangers do they face, what freedoms are they fighting for? This is not a dance is a tribute to the body that wants to move. A tribute to art that simply must be made, in whatever way, shape or form.

Language
This performance is spoken in Farsi. There are Dutch, English and Farsi surtitles. Some of the interviews cannot be heard, but can only be read with surtitles (Dutch, English and Farsi).

Attention
This is not a dance uses stroboscopic light effects.

Nominations & awards
This is not a dance is one of the four nominees for the VSCD Mime/Performance Prize 2024. The winner will be announced during the Gala of the Nederlands Theater on September 15, 2024.

From the VSCD jury report:
“With This is not a dance Nastaran Razawi Khorasani is building on her exciting documentary-performative oeuvre, in which she links a journalistic approach to a physical visual language. For this performance she starts from an interesting subject: the ban on dance in Iran. Perhaps unimaginable to many, but through well-measured interviews, Razawi Khorasani manages to make the far-reaching implications of this tangible. It is amazing how she brings the two worlds together in this performance. Her own body acts as a projection screen for their words, with her physical expression and presence on the floor overwhelming. The impressive light and music design by Minna Tiikkainen and Joost Maaskant suggests that movement (and therefore possibly dance) is everywhere: in the effective scenography of Peter van Til, in the non-dancing, dancing body of Razawi Khorasani, and as we are expertly whipped up to a thrilling climax, also within ourselves. This is not a dance is a tribute to the body that wants to move. A tribute to the art that must be made. This form of resistance is very commendable and makes a deep impression.”