Moving in the Shadows at the Dance Studies Center of Iran – Elaheh Hatami — CN D Magazine

An article by dance scholar Elaheh Hatami, published in CN D Magazine, examines the Dance Studies Center established by Saye Theatre Group in Tehran in early 2025.

The article traces the Center’s emergence from a shared need among artists to develop a vocabulary for understanding and discussing dance. Today, around twenty members meet twice a week for collective reading, research, translation, workshops, and experimentation. Their work includes an ongoing research project on contemporary dance and choreography in Europe and the United States over the past three decades.

Drawing on conversations with members of the Center, the article explores the conditions in which independent dance research takes place in Iran, where contemporary dance lacks much of the academic, educational, and economic infrastructure available to theatre. It also considers how this absence shapes the possibilities and precarity of independent artistic work.

A central question concerns choreography itself. Within the Center, choreography becomes a way of constructing knowledge and thinking through bodies, extending beyond the organisation of movement or the production of a performance. This approach also informs the group’s broader inquiry into artistic independence: how can an independent artistic community sustain its work and develop greater visibility without reproducing the institutional structures from which it has remained separate?

The article also reflects on the expectations placed on Iranian artists in international contexts, particularly the tendency to frame their work primarily through resistance and oppression. For Saye, independence also involves creating the conditions in which artists can think, research, and participate in wider artistic conversations on their own terms.

Author: Elaheh Hatami
Publication: CN D Magazine

Read the full article on CN D Magazine