The Cellos' Dialogue
Deniz Khateri
"The Cellos’ Dialogue” is a multidisciplinary play that explores a form to accommodate physically challenged performers. It tells the story of a woman from the Middle East who has immigrated to America and suddenly finds herself struggling with an unexpected pregnancy. Musical experimentation, puppetry, projections, poetic language and action paint an expressionistic portrait of the woman’s tortured psyche as she wrestles with her circumstance. Performers in distinct spaces exercise an assortment of artistic practices to highlight the intercontinental conflicts endemic to the piece, both timely and personal, targeting issues such as war, gender identity and conflict, and abortion.
Writer and Performer: Deniz Khateri
Composer: Bahar Royaee
Director: Yekta Khaghani
Dramaturg: Sanaz Ghajar
Set Designer: Afsoon Pajoufar
Deniz Khateri (Playwright- Performer)
Trained as a theatre artist in Iran, Deniz moved to the US in 2013 to experience a new world of art in America. As a playwright, her recent plays have been workshopped and performed at schools of the Boston area including Harvard Graduate School, University of Massachusetts and Boston University.
As an actor, she has performed extensively in Tehran and Boston with theatre companies such as ArtsEmerson, Nora and underground railway theatre, Bridge Repertory, Apollinaire, Boston Playwrights', etc.
Completely self-taught in animation, Deniz started "Diasporan", an animated web series about immigration, to tell the story of immigrants and the never- ending process of immigration. She currently lives in Brooklyn,NY.
denizkhateri.com
Bahar Royaee (Composer)
Born and raised in Iran, Bahar Royaee is a composer of concert and incidental music. Before learning and practicing the principals of music composition, Bahar Royaee, practiced electronic engineering, back in Tehran, Iran. The Boston Arts Review praised Bahar’s “haunting sound design” in her work with live the- atre. In 2017, Bahar was awarded from the Krourian Electroacoustic Competition in Iran, and won the Roger Sessions Memorial Composition Award - the top composition prize at Boston Conservatory. She is the first recipient of The Walter W. Harp Music and Society Award, and the John Bavicchi Memorial Prize, both from Berklee College of Music. In the realm of concert music, Bahar’s compositions have been performed worldwide, includ- ing Italy, Greece, Iran, and the USA. Excited to be a part of Cellos’ Dialogue, she is pursuing a Ph.D. in composition from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.
Sanaz Ghajar (Dramaturg) is an Iranian-American director, writer, curator, and DJ whose work has been described as “ambitiously subversive” and “unapologetically experimental” (Time Out NY). She is the Artistic Director of the award-winning company Built for Collapse, with whom she wrote and directed NUCLEAR LOVE AFFAIR, which played to sold out houses in NYC, Prague, Rome, and Krakow. Recently, Sanaz wrote and performed in TALK BACK for the Exponential Festival. Before that, she developed and directed DANGER SIGNALS, a unique collaboration with British playwright Nina Segal and pop musician Jen Goma. Sanaz has developed work with New York Theatre Workshop, BRIC Arts | Media, Civilians, 3LD, Ars Nova, Red House Center for Culture & Debate in Bulgaria, Prague Film & Theater Center, and others. Alumni of the Drama League Directors Project, NYTW 2050 Fellowship, Clubbed Thumb Fellowship, and Mabou Mines SUITE/Space Initiative. Coming up, Sanaz is co-curating PRELUDE 2019, a festival at the forefront of contemporary New York City theatre and performance. www.sanazghajar.com
Afsoon Pajoufar (Set Designer) is a NYC based freelance designer of set and environment for play, opera and live performance. She earned her MFA in Set Design at Boston University. Her work focuses on the proximity between audience, actors and environment.
Her design for "Cabaret" is chosen for the 2019 American Exhibit at the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space. Afsoon is originally from Tehran, Iran.