program > main stage
Amir Reza Koohestani + Mehr Theatre Group
Blind Runner
In partnership with Waterwell and Nimruz
Presented by St. Ann’s Warehouse
photos: Benjamin Krieg
“Mesmerizing, stunningly performed, deeply moving.” – The Guardian
Once a week, a husband comes to visit his captive wife who has been detained as a political prisoner in Tehran. Spied on by cameras and microphones, their conversations become increasingly distant, inhibiting their ability to share their daily lives. At his wife’s insistence, the husband agrees to train and guide a young blind woman through a Parisian footrace. As they come to learn more about each other, the unlikely couple grows close and finds a common rhythm. At the race’s end, they set upon a second challenge: can they run the Channel Tunnel to England, covering 38 kilometers in a few hours and avoiding being hit by the first train of the morning? Alternating between the confines of prison and the racer’s unseen road, Blind Runner embraces a hypnotic rhythm scored by the musicality of the Persian language. Director Amir Reza Koohestani renders his signature stripped-down staging, augmented by video, letting the spectator’s gaze move freely from the performers’ bodies to their leviathan faces. A poetic vision gradually emerges of the human struggle, of mutual aid, of the marathon we run without freedom in sight.
Presented in partnership with Waterwell (Lee Sunday Evans, Artistic Director; Sarah Scafidi, Managing Director; Arian Moayed, Co-Founder).
Note: Blind Runner is presented in Persian language with English supertitles. It is appropriate for audiences ages 12 and older.
SCHEDULE
Saturday, January 4 @ 7:30pm
Sunday, January 5 @ 5pm
Tuesday, January 7 @ 7:30pm
Wednesday, January 8 @ 7:30pm
Thursday, January 9 @ 7:30pm
Friday, January 10 @ 7:30pm
Saturday, January 11 @ 2pm
Saturday, January 11 @ 7:30pm
Sunday, January 12 @ 5pm
Tuesday, January 14 @ 7:30pm
Wednesday, January 15 @ 7:30pm
Thursday, January 16 @ 7:30pm
Friday, January 17 @ 7:30pm
Saturday, January 18 @ 2pm / 7:30pm
Sunday, January 19 @ 5pm
Performances continue through January 24
Run time: 60 minutes
VENUE
St. Ann’s Warehouse
45 Water St,
Brooklyn, NY 11201
Access:
All performances are accessible to those who use wheelchairs and individuals with limited mobility. Assistive Listening Device Assistive Listening Devices are available at the Box Office on loan with a photo ID. Please contact the Box Office to let us know about your access requirements or special requests when you book: 718.254.8779 or [email protected]
CREDITS
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
English translation and surtitle adaptation: Massoumeh Lahidji
Surtitles operator: Negar Nobakht Foghani
Production, administration, promotion: Pierre Reis / Mehr Theatre Group
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Amir Reza Koohestani was born in Shiraz, Iran in 1978. At a young age, he began publishing short stories in local newspapers and working in film. After a brief experience as a performer, he devoted his time to writing his first plays – And the Day Never Came (1999) and The Murmuring Tales (2000) – for the Mehr Theatre Group. Koohestani’s third play, Dance on Glasses (2001), gained him international notoriety and the support of several European theatrical artistic directors and festivals. Further work includes the plays Recent Experiences (from the original text by Canadian writers Nadia Ross and Jacob Wren, 2003); Amid the Clouds (2005); Dry Blood & Fresh Vegetables (2007); Quartet: A Journey North (2008); Where Were You on January 8th? (2009); Ivanov (2011); and The Fourth Wall (from the original play England by Tim Crouch, 2012) which was presented one hundred times in an art gallery in Tehran. Over the past decade, Koohestani wrote and directed the plays Timeloss (2013), Hearing (2015) and Summerless (2018), forming the “Time Trilogy” as presented at the Festival TNB, in Rennes, France in November 2018. Since 2006, Koohestani has been independently working across Europe at Munchner Kammerspiele, Thalia Theater, Deutsches Theater, La Comédie de Genève, Riksteatern and Theater Freiburg, creating more than 15 new productions. He has established strong creative partnerships with the actress, playwright and director Mahin Sadri; light designer and scenographer Éric Soyer; composer Matthias Peyker and video artist Philip Hohenwarter. Koohestani also regularly collaborates with the actor and film director, Mani Haghighi, with whom he co-wrote the script to the movies Modest Reception (Netpac Award at the 2012 Berlin International Film Festival) and Substraction (July 2023). In May 2023, after a 2 year pause due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Koohestani and his company created and are touring Blind Runner, which premiered in Brussels as part of the Kunstenfestivaldesarts.
CREATION + FUNDING
Blind Runner is a production of Mehr Theatre Group and a co-production of 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, 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). It was created in residency at Théâtre populaire romand – Centre neuchâtelois des arts vivants, La Chaux-de-Fonds (CH) and KWP Kunstenwerkplaats, Brussels (BE). It was created with the support of The Institut français and The Ministry of Culture – DRAC Île-de-France.
