Whispered Dreams

“Friendship is the medicine for the isolation we often feel within supremacist societies.”  
— Kate Johnson in Radical Friendship 

Whispered Dreams is a new project by Fariborz Karimi, created in collaboration with Mona Ahmadi and Aria Baghestani, both writers and performers in Tehran. The piece explores their efforts at remote collaboration through different approaches to collaborative performance writing. They deliberately define ‘text’ broadly: it encompasses forms such as print, text messaging, letter writing, live text generation, participatory writing, and handwriting. In the performance, these creators address concepts such as collaboration, friendship, and care, as well as privacy and (self-)censorship. They alternate between documentary and dreamlike narratives. 

This performance began as a series of letters and texts exchanged between Karimi and Ahmadi, close friends and members of the same Tehran-based collective, active since 2011. Through their written exchange, they reflect on their connection, friendship, and artistic collaboration, taking each other's life experiences into account – Karimi in Amsterdam and Ahmadi in Tehran. The distance between them is itself integral to the concept of the work. It poses urgent challenges, particularly regarding the role of the audience. 

They invite you and a good friend to join them in their search for an answer. 

• Fariborz Karimi (1990, He/him) is a theatre maker, performer, and writer currently living in Amsterdam. In 2013, he received his bachelor’s degree in Directing and Acting at the University of Tehran, and in 2021 began his master's at DAS Theater, Amsterdam School of Arts - which he completed in 2023. After graduation, Fariborz received the 3Package Deal from the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts. Through his artistic practice, Fariborz explores the theatrical space between reality and dream. He questions the meanings of self-censorship in different contexts, fueled by his own experiences.  

• Mona Ahmadi (1990,She/Her) is a Tehran-based performer and writer with an extensive background in theater. She is a member of the Bohemi Theatre Collective, with whom she has collaborated for over ten years. Mona has collaborated as a performer in Amirreza Koohestani’s acclaimed productions, including Hearing, and Summerless, with over 200 performances at theater festivals across Europe, Asia, and South America.