Iran Saye Theatre

Iran Saye Theatre "Iran Saye Theatre" is a vibrant, not for profit, theatrical group whose aim is to explore and promote new methods of performance and experimental theater.

BYE-GONES ،بایگانCASE FILE 02 — AN ENCOUNTER WITH LIVING THEATREThe second case file in the Bye-Gones series turned to L...
10/09/2026

BYE-GONES ،بایگان
CASE FILE 02 — AN ENCOUNTER WITH LIVING THEATRE

The second case file in the Bye-Gones series turned to Living Theatre’s 1967 production of Antigone, beginning with a simple question:
“What remains to be seen in what has survived?”

Curated by Mahsa Mokhtarpour, the case file brought the surviving materials of Antigone into a new encounter. Across both days, the programme followed the same structure: a screening of the filmed performance followed by a 20-minute video installation developed through the curator’s engagement with the materials left from the production.
One of the longest processes behind the project was the translation and preparation of Persian subtitles for Antigone. The work took place over the course of a year within Saye Theatre Group’s translation working group.
The difficulty of the text came partly from the particular route it had taken before reaching the stage. The version used by Living Theatre did not move directly from Sophocles’ original to the performance. In shaping the production, Judith Malina worked through Brecht’s text as well as earlier translations and adaptations of Antigone, leaving a layered textual history behind the performance.
The film of the performance opened one path into this history. The video installation created another.
In the installation, paintings by Lancy Pero were placed alongside bodies and gestures captured from the Antigone performance. The juxtaposition brought together two artistic experiences separated by time and medium, while allowing another connection to emerge between them: the strong presence of Antonin Artaudin both.
The archival materials therefore began to speak to one another. Images, bodies, painting, and traces of a performance were placed in the same space, allowing new relationships to emerge between them and between the past and the viewer standing before it.
The event took place over two days, with a total attendance of 70 participants.

Credits
Curator: Mahsa Mokhtarpour
Video: Kasra Kamaei, Mahsa Mokhtarpour
Installation and Lighting: Narges Sadeghian, Morteza Abdolmaleki
Research: Mahsa Mokhtarpour, Mahsa Beygverdi
Advisors: Armin Jafarian, Zahra Rad
With thanks to: Arezoo Zaheeri, Romina Rostami

Bye-Gones | بایگان
A series of events by Saye Theatre Group
September 3–4, 2026
Farvardin Art House, Tehran

BYE-GONES ،بایگانCASE FILE 01 — AN ENCOUNTER WITH REZA ABDOHThe three case files that make up Bye-Gones were conceived a...
04/09/2026

BYE-GONES ،بایگان
CASE FILE 01 — AN ENCOUNTER WITH REZA ABDOH

The three case files that make up Bye-Gones were conceived and curated by younger artists from Saye Theatre. Each one began with a major work from the history of American avant-garde theatre: Antigone by Living Theatre, The Hip-Hop Waltz of Eurydice by Reza Abdoh, and Dionysus 69 by Richard Schechner.

What mattered to us was allowing these works, several decades later, to be seen and experienced again by another generation. Perhaps Bye-Gones is, above all, about this distance:
The distance between a work and its archive, and between a work and the person who returns to it years later.

Case File 01 — An Encounter with Reza Abdoh

The first case file in the Bye-Gones series focused on Reza Abdoh and one of his works, The Hip-Hop Waltz of Eurydice (1990).
In the case of Reza Abdoh, what remains of many of his performances is a scattered collection of images, videos, sounds, texts, designs, and accounts. The question at the heart of this case file was:
Can something of a lost performance experience be brought back through these archival materials?

Case File 01 centered on The Hip-Hop Waltz of Eurydice(1990).
For the first time, the filmed version of the performance was presented with Persian subtitles, translated and timed against the original text.
Another part of the case file focused on archival footage by Adam Soch, video artist and collaborator of Reza Abdoh. Adam Soch made part of this material available to the group. On the second day, these images and videos were presented as part of an interactive multimedia installation.
The case file unfolded over two days through four encounters:

Encounter One — Telegram Bot
The case file began at the moment of registration. After signing up, participants received messages and pieces of content from the Telegram bot at irregular intervals. The experience had already begun before they arrived at the venue.

Encounter Two — Film Performance
The Persian-subtitled version of The Hip-Hop Waltz of Eurydice (1990), translated and timed from the original performance text, was screened.

Encounter Three — Conversation
Following the screening, artists working across theatre, choreography, performance, and visual arts came together to discuss performance, memory, the transmission of experience, and the possibilities of the archive.
Guest artists, in alphabetical order:
Hediyeh Ahmadi
Mohsen Khedri
Amir Rad
Sara Rasouli Nejad
Conversation moderated by:
Avesta Mahmoudvand

Encounter Four — An Experience of the Archive
On the second day, participants entered an interactive multimedia installation made up of documents, sounds, images, and other archival materials. Here, the archive became something to be experienced rather than simply viewed as a fixed collection. A selection of Adam Soch’s archival images was also presented as part of the installation.

Event Information

Bye-Gones | بایگان
Case File 01 — An Encounter with Reza Abdoh
Part of the event series by Saye Theatre Group
Curated by: Hodjat Salimi and Maryam Lashgari
August 20–21, 2026
Farvardin Art House, Tehran
6:00 PM
Attendance: 70 participants over two days

Credits
Curators and Space Design: Hodjat Salimi, Maryam Lashgari
Space Ex*****on Design: Bahar Mir-Tavousi
Production Designer: Mehrbod Omidipour
Video Installation: El Shekari
Poster Design: Ali Sabeti
Assistant and Planner: Sara Moghaddas
Telegram Bot Design and Development: Hodjat Salimi
Photographer and Videographer: Yekta Tavakoli
With thanks to:
Adam Soch
Negar Azimi
Tiffany Malakooti
Mehdi Mashhour
Hossein Salimi
Narges Sadeghian
Farvardin Art House

A New Chapter of Saye Theatre Group’s The Unburied Begins at the Stella Adler Studio of ActingJuly 28–31, 2026 | New Yor...
29/07/2026

A New Chapter of Saye Theatre Group’s The Unburied Begins at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting
July 28–31, 2026 | New York

The Unburied, Saye Theatre Group’s latest theatre project, was initiated in 2024 at the suggestion of the American actor and director Juliana Francis Kelly as a long-term collaboration between Tehran and New York. The work was presented publicly for the first time in March 2026 through the Theater of War productions platform, at the initiative of Bryan Doerries.

Following that presentation, Stella Adler Studio of Acting invited Saye Theatre Group to develop the next chapter of The Unburied through a four-day laboratory with the participation of the Studio’s acting students. During this laboratory, the project's dramaturgical, performative, and choreographic possibilities will be explored and tested.

The Unburied approaches the play as a living, evolving text—one that will continue to be performed in different cities around the world, expanding and taking on new forms with each presentation.
Created by
Sara Rasoulinejad, Juliana Francis Kelly, Shadi Ghaheri, Mehdi Mashhour, Amirhossein Sharifi, Erfan Fallah Akbari٫ Narges Sadeghian

فصل تازه‌ای از پروژه‌ی «تدفین‌نشده‌ها»ی گروه تئاتر سایه در مدرسه‌ی بازیگری استلا آدلر آغاز می‌شود.

۶ تا ۹ مرداد ۱۴۰۵ — نیویورک

«تدفین‌نشده‌ها» جدیدترین پروژه‌ی تئاتری گروه تئاتر سایه است که در سال ۲۰۲۴، به پیشنهاد جولیانا فرانسیس کلی بازیگر و کارگردان آمریکایی، به‌عنوان یک همکاری‌ بلندمدت میان تهران و نیویورک شکل گرفت. این اثر در اسفند ۱۴۰۴ به ابتکار برایان دوریس برای نخستین بار در پلتفرم Theater of War Productions به‌صورت عمومی ارائه شد.

پس از آن مدیران مدرسه‌ی بازیگری استلا آدلر از گروه تئاتر سایه دعوت کردند تا فصل بعدی «تدفین‌نشده‌ها» را در قالب یک آزمایشگاه چهارروزه با حضور هنرجویان این مدرسه برگزار کند. در این آزمایشگاه، امکان‌های تازه‌ی دراماتورژیک، اجرایی و کرئوگرافیک پروژه آزموده خواهد شد.

«تدفین‌نشده‌ها» نمایشنامه را متنی زنده و در حال تغییر می‌بیند؛ متنی که قرار است در شهرهای مختلف جهان اجرا شود و با هر اجرا گسترش پیدا کند و شکل تازه‌ای به خود بگیرد.

هنرمندان:
سارا رسولی‌نژاد، جولیانا فرانسیس کلی، شادی قاهری، مهدی مشهور، امیرحسین شریفی، عرفان فلاح‌اکبری، نرگس صادقیان

EXPANDED CHOREOGRAPHY – TEHRANJanuary 2025In January 2025, the Dance Studies Center of Iran Saye Theatre Group launched ...
29/07/2026

EXPANDED CHOREOGRAPHY – TEHRAN

January 2025

In January 2025, the Dance Studies Center of Iran Saye Theatre Group launched Expanded Choreography, a public research project in Tehran exploring choreography as a practice of perception, spatial organization, collective thinking, and the production of relationships.

The project grew out of the performance Jérôme Bel – Tehran, presented in September 2024. Rather than concluding with a conventional post-performance discussion, the Dance Studies Center invited a group of artists and researchers to continue the work through a shared investigation centered on a single question:

What does a performance leave behind as a productive apparatus in the body and the mind?

Across seven sessions, participants revisited the performance through conversation, embodied practice, observation, writing, and experimentation. Each meeting generated new material and new questions, extending the life of the performance beyond the stage and into an ongoing process of artistic research.

Expanded Choreography reflects Iran Saye Theatre Group’s commitment to research-driven practice and the development of choreography as an expanded artistic field capable of generating new ways of thinking, making, and working collectively.

Creative Team:
Morteza Bakhtiari, Mohsen Khodri, Sara Rasoulinejad, Mehdi Mashhour, Narges Sadeghian, Azadeh Mardani, Amirhossein Sharifi, Zahra Fazlollah, Farnoush Naderpour, Farsa Pourhassan, Hadi Sadeghi, Maedeh Monzavi, and the members of the Dance Studies Center of Iran Saye Theatre Group.

HEADLOCK PERFORMANCE IN TEHRANIn July 2025, Iran Saye Theatre Group proudly presented Headlock, our groundbreaking produ...
29/07/2026

HEADLOCK PERFORMANCE IN TEHRAN

In July 2025, Iran Saye Theatre Group proudly presented Headlock, our groundbreaking production staged in Tehran. Performed under the shadow of the recent Iran–Israel conflict, this performance stood as a powerful testament to the resilience of art and its ability to inspire and heal in times of crisis Written and directed by Mehdi Mashhour, Headlock explored the lives of two teenage Iranian female wrestlers, delving into themes of resilience, identity, and societal expectations. Inspired by Ruby Rae Spiegel’s play Dry Land, Headlock reimagined these themes within a distinctly Iranian context, offering a fresh and impactful theatrical experience that shone through the shadows of war.

Headlock told the story of two teenage girls navigating the challenges of pursuing wrestling—a traditionally male-dominated sport—in contemporary Iran. Through a blend of physical performance, emotional depth, and symbolic storytelling, the production examined their struggles, aspirations, and the societal pressures they faced. This bold new work pushed the boundaries of Iranian theatre by combining experimental staging with a narrative rooted in local culture and universal themes of youth and empowerment.

Drawing inspiration from Dry Land by Ruby Rae Spiegel, Headlock adapted the raw emotional intensity of the original play to reflect the unique experiences of young Iranian women. The production used wrestling as a metaphor for personal and societal struggles, creating a visceral and thought-provoking experience for audiences. It marked a significant step for Iran Saye Theatre Group in exploring new narratives and experimental forms in Iranian theatre.

Headlock was performed in Tehran in July 2025. This production remains an important milestone in the ongoing artistic journey of Iran Saye Theatre Group, with future performances and international presentations under consideration.

Created collectively by
Mehdi Mashhour, Sara Rasoulinejad, Benjamin Esbati, Farnoush Naderpour, Farsa Pourhassan, Narges Sadeghian, Parsa Yousef, Dorsa Azimi

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