Sorour Darabi (IR)

Residency period: May-June 2025

sorourdarabi.flywheelsites.com

Currently based in Paris, Sorour Darabi is an Iranian choreographer and performer whose work questions notions of transformation through time, co-habitation with the environment, language, gender identity, sexuality, affection, and vulnerability. Very active in Iran, he was part of the underground association ICCD whose Untimely Festival in Tehran hosted his works before his departure for France in 2013. His latest project, the contemporary opera Mille et Une Nuits revisits the notion of “night” through Scheherazade’s perspective.

A graduate from the Master Ex.e.r.ce at ICI-CCN in Montpellier, Darabi has presented his work in several theaters and festivals in France and beyond, including Palais de Tokyo, Lafayette Anticipations and Centre Pompidou in Paris, Arsenic in Lausanne, Zürcher Theater Spektakel in Zürich, Tanzquartier and Wiener Festwochen in Vienna, and Sophiensaele and Trauma Bar und Kino in Berlin. In addition to his creations, Darabi regularly gives workshops for advanced or professional artists and dancers.

At La Becque, Sorour Darabi will develop MAJNÛN, a choreographic opera in both solo and collective forms, set to premiere in November 2026 at Arsenic – Centre d’art scénique contemporain in Lausanne. Rooted in the Arabic-Persian figure of Majnûn, an archetype of lovesick madness from medieval poetry, the project explores trance, vertigo, and poetic excess through physical and vocal experimentation. Drawing from the rich cultural heritage of the Khalij region on his father’s side—marked by historical migrations and syncretic spiritual traditions—Sorour Darabi will interweave Shi’a, Sunni, and Sufi influences, vernacular languages, and musical practices into a haunting invocation of possessed bodies, forbidden love, and spectral memory.

Sorour Darabi, La Becque, 2025, photo Aurélien Haslebacher