When I began working professionally, I quickly understood theatre is never just art. It is political whether we want it or not. In Iran every rehearsal, every performance, every word passed through visible and invisible borders. You learn very fast what you are allowed to say and what must remain silent. Directing, for me, began as a need to create spaces where women could be seen as subjects, not objects, where complexity and vulnerability were possible.

Leaving Iran did not make theatre easier; it made it different. In Germany I discovered theatre as a social practice. I studied documentary theatre during my master’s degree and later completed my PhD focusing on autobiographical theatre and how performance shapes personal identity. At the same time, I worked with migrants, young people, and communities in transition. I saw how theatre can give people language for experiences they could not otherwise express. Theatre stopped being only about my voice; it became also about listening and making space for others.

Now, living in Canada, I carry all these layers at once. My artistic roots are Iranian. My academic formation happened in Germany. My current practice unfolds in Canada, within yet another theatre culture. I work in three languages. Farsi, my mother tongue, is where I feel fully at home. German and English are working languages, always with an accent, always slightly in-between. I no longer try to erase that. This in-betweenness has become part of my artistic identity. Diaspora is not just a topic for me, it is my everyday reality, and it shapes the way I think, speak, and create. I am drawn to autobiographical and documentary theatre because personal stories are never only personal. They carry history, migration, silence, politics, and the traces of the places we come from. In telling these stories, I am not trying to explain my identity; I am trying to live it openly, with all its layers.

My work moves constantly between artist, pedagogue, and researcher. I create performances, but I also build spaces where people can tell their own stories and reflect on their experiences. Thinking, making, teaching, and researching all feed each other.

Aesthetically, I am not interested in spectacle. Most of my work happens in simple or nearly empty spaces where audience and performer face each other directly. Eye contact matters. Presence matters. The human body telling a story without decoration matters. Theatre feels strongest to me when nothing protects us from that encounter.

I choose my projects carefully. Even as an actor, I don’t take roles I don’t believe in. Storytelling carries responsibility.

I believe theatre can move people deeply. But more than that, it can create recognition, the moment someone feels seen, or suddenly sees someone else differently. For me, that is where theatre becomes necessary.

And that is why I continue.