A series of events organised by Doris Kolesch and Kai Padberg, Research Area 2: "Travelling Matters".

This event will be streamed live.

To participate in the discussion, please register with Judith König (j.koenig2@fu-berlin.de) by 16 May 2021.

The seventh event of our series is an online talk with Narges Hashempour, Nima Dehghani and Azadeh Ganjeh.
Moderation: Doris Kolesch

Narges Hashempour is a scholar, actress, director, and dramaturge. She finished her PhD in theatre studies at Freie Universität Berlin (2009-2012). After completing her PhD, she was a fellow at the International Research Center "Interweaving Performance Cultures" at Freie Universität Berlin between 2014 and 2016. She has been involved in various international theatre projects and festivals since 1991 and received several prizes including the 2019 special Jury prize as the best director from the 37th FADJR international Theater Festival Tehran, 2001 the Gordana Kosanović Prize for Outstanding Acting awarded by the Theater a. d. Ruhr in Mühlheim, and numerous academic and artistic grants and fellowships.

Nima Dehghani is a multidisciplinary artist, writer, and director born in Tehran, Iran. Nima received his BA in Architecture from IUST (2012) and MFA from Carnegie Mellon University with an emphasis on digital media and performance art (2016). Nima’s research focuses on the integration of immersive digital technologies into performance design and practice and his practices are focused on the integration of Video, VR-AR, Net Art, and performing arts. He is currently based in San Francisco; teaches and works predominantly in the medium of theater and digital media. Nima is the founder and director of Re-Connect Online Performance Festival which was launched in March 2020 in response to the pandemic and social distancing. Re-Connect is an intercultural and multidisciplinary platform that tries to connect digital performance artists and researchers globally.

Dr. Azadeh Ganjeh is a playwright, performance artists and theatre director. She is also an assistant professor in faculty of the School of Performing Arts and Music at the University of Tehran. Her special interest in theatre for development, activism, public sphere and social theatre lead to achieving national and international prizes for her site-specific and immersive theater productions. Her research interest is focused on cultural mobility theory, theatre for development and democracy, activism in art and digital theatre. For “Always passes by you…”, an interactive work about civil rights, she received the award for best director. In 2015 Ganjeh took part in the Watch & Talk programme of the Belluard Bollwerk Festival. She received a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Bern in 2017. She moved back to Iran and is now an assistant professor at the School of Performing Arts and Music at the University of Tehran. She has taught workshops on environmental theatre, interactive theatre, performance art and theories and theatre-therapy for immigrant children. Her immersive play “Blinded” was premiered at Territori – Festival di teatro in spazi urbani in Bellinzona in 2017.

It was the middle of March 2020 when Germany went into lockdown. Back then, there had already been a curfew in Wuhan, China, for several weeks. In many other countries in Europe and worldwide, public life was abruptly shut down. The consequences for the cultural sector have been dire everywhere. All over the world, theatres have had to shut down unexpectedly and most remain closed. Schedules have been cancelled. Professional existences are endangered. At the same time, public and cultural life has shifted to the digital sphere. Many theatres and artists are using this way to stay in touch with their audiences and are exploring digital spaces more than ever before. But what forms of community-building are even remotely possible for theatre and the performing arts? What is the character of the relation between local institutions and these transnational spaces, which might open up and expand while national borders remain closed? What does it mean for artistic practice if humans assemble as a virtual audience while being physically alone in their respective homes? In what ways will the pandemic change theatre? What will digital assemblies mean for theatres after the pandemic?

In the series of events entitled "Temporal Communities and Digitality – Theatre During the Pandemic", theatre directors, theatre artists and scholars from around the world will report on the practical effects on theatre operations and their work. They will examine the various strategies with which stage and theatre creators have reacted to this situation, online and offline. Together with researchers from the Cluster of Excellence "Temporal Communities: Doing Literature in a Global Perspective", they will discuss how the global crisis of the theatre has created new temporal communities and to what extent these are created under the conditions of digitality.

This event is part of our series "Temporal Communities and Digitality - Theatre During the Pandemic".