CREATION 2023
Text and direction Amir Reza Koohestani
Dramaturgy Samaneh Ahmadian
Director’s assistant Dariush Faezi
Lights and scenography Éric Soyer
Video Yasi Moradi, Benjamin Krieg
Music Phillip Hohenwarter, Matthias Peyker
Costumes Negar Nobakht Foghani
Performers
Ainaz Azarhoush
Mohammad Reza Hosseinzadeh
Show in Persian language with surtitles
French and English translations and surtitles adaptations Massoumeh Lahidji
Surtitles operator Negar Nobakht Foghani
Estimated time 60 minutes
Production, administration, promotion Pierre Reis
Production Mehr Theatre Group, Paris (FR)
Coproduction Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Brussels (BE), Berliner Festspiele (DE), Athens Epidaurus Festival (GR), Festival d’Automne à Paris (FR), Théâtre de la Bastille, Paris (FR), La rose des vents – scène nationale Lille Métropole – Villeneuve d’Ascq (FR), La Vignette, scène conventionnée, Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier (FR), Théâtre populaire romand – Centre neuchâtelois des arts vivants, La Chaux-de-Fonds (CH), Triennale Milano Teatro (IT), Festival delle Colline Torinesi / Fondazione TPE (IT), Noorderzon Festival of Performing Arts & Society (NL)
Creation residencies Théâtre populaire romand – Centre neuchâtelois des arts vivants, La Chaux-de-Fonds (CH), KWP Kunstenwerkplaats and Les Tanneurs, Brussels (BE)
Project supported by the Ministry of Culture – DRAC Île-de-France
With the support of The Institut français
SYNOPSIS
Blind Runner interweaves the destinies of three people.
Once a week, a husband comes to visit his wife, a political prisoner. Spied on by cameras and bugged, their conversations become increasingly distant, leading to incomprehension and an inability to put into words the harshness of daily life.
However, at his wife’s insistence, the husband agrees to guide a young blind woman in a running race in Paris. They had to find a common rhythm and, over the course of their training sessions, get to know each other. Once the competition was over, another project emerged: to get to England by crossing the Channel Tunnel, covering 38 kilometres in a few hours, to avoid being hit by the first train in the morning.
Between the confines of the prison and the sense of freedom afforded by the race, the plot gradually takes on a hypnotic rhythm, lulled by the musicality of Persian. Out of this interplay emerges a poetic vision of the struggle, of mutual aid, of the freedom towards which we throw ourselves.
True to his stripped-down approach to the stage, Amir Reza Koohestani uses video to multiply the possibilities of the narrative, letting the spectator’s gaze move freely from the performers’ bodies to their filmed faces. In so doing, he has undoubtedly created his most striking and moving show.
TOUR DATES
. 16 – 20 May 2023 / Les Tanneurs, Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Brussels (BE)
. 15 – 16 June 2023 / Performing Exiles, Berlinerfestspiele, Berlin (DE)
. 20 – 21 June 2023 / Athens Epidaurus Festival (GR)
. 18 – 20 August 2023 / Noorderzon festival, Groningen (NL)
. 27 – 28 September 2023 / La Criée, Théâtre National de Marseille, Actoral, Marseille (FR)
. 5 – 20 October 2023 / Théâtre de la Bastille, Festival d’Automne à Paris (FR)
. 24 – 26 October 2023 / Triennale Milano Teatro (IT)
. 28 – 29 October 2023 / Teatro Astra, Festival delle Colline Torinesi (IT)
. 2 – 4 November 2023 / Théâtre populaire romand, La Chaux-de-Fonds (CH)
. 18 November 2023 / Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn (DE)
. 24 – 25 November 2023 / La Condition Publique, Roubaix, Programming as part of the nomadic season of La rose des vents, Scène nationale Lille Métropole Villeneuve d’Ascq and NEXT Arts festival (FR)
. 28 – 30 November 2023 / Théâtre la Vignette, Montpellier (FR)
. 13 – 14 June 2024 / Residenztheater, Munich (DE)
. 20 – 21 June 2024 / Teatro alle Tese, Biennale di Venezia, Venice (IT)
. 18 – 21 July 2024 / Sejong Center, Seoul (KR)