Amir Reza Koohestani
Blind Runner
octoberoct 5 – 20
© Blind Runner, Amir Reza Koohestani © Benjamin Krieg ©
© Blind Runner, Amir Reza Koohestani © Benjamin Krieg ©
© Blind Runner, Amir Reza Koohestani © Benjamin Krieg ©
Text and direction, Amir Reza Koohestani
Performers, Ainaz Azarhoush, Mohammad Reza Hosseinzadeh
Dramaturgy, Samaneh Ahmadian
Assistant Director, Dariush Faezi
Lighting and set design, Éric Soyer
Video, Yasi Moradi, Benjamin Krieg
Music, Phillip Hohenwarter, Matthias Peyker
Costumes, Negar Nobakht Foghani
French translation and surtitles adaptation, Massoumeh Lahidji
Surtitles Operator, Negar Nobakht Foghani
Produced by Mehr Theatre Group
Production-Diffusion Bureau Format (Pierre Reis, Yuka Dupleix)
Coproduced by Kunstenfestivaldesarts (Brussels); Berliner Festspiele (Berlin); Athens Epidaurus Festival; Festival d'Automne à Paris; Théâtre de la Bastille (Paris); La rose des vents - scène nationale Lille Métropole - Villeneuve-d'Ascq; La Vignette, scène conventionnée Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier; Théâtre populaire romand - Centre neuchâtelois des arts vivants, La Chaux-de-Fonds; Triennale Milano Teatro (Milan); Festival delle Colline Torinesi - Fondazione TPE (Turin); Noorderzon Festival of Performing Arts & Society
Creative residencies Théâtre populaire romand - Centre neuchâtelois des arts vivants, La Chaux-de-Fonds; Kunstenwerkplaats Pianofabriek (Brussels)
Project supported by the Drac Île-de-France / Ministère de la Culture
With the support of the Institut français
The Théâtre de la Bastille and the Festival d'Automne à Paris are co-producers and co-presenters of this performance.
With the support of Onda office national de diffusion artistique
In partnership with France Inter
Two long-distance runners train and help each other out in an attempt to cross the Channel Tunnel, on foot, in order to reach the United Kingdom. The Iranian artist Amir Reza Koohestani brings this challenge to the stage in a reflection on freedom, solidarity and pushing oneself to the limits.
Born in 1978, in Shiraz, Amir Reza Koohestani carries the voice of contemporary Iranian theatre to the outside world. Performed in major theatres throughout Europe, his productions deal, in an unceasing manner, with the questions of frontiers and surveillance in society, via sparse, hard-hitting staging. Following on from En transit, presented in 2022 at the Festival d’Automne, the artist returns with Blind Runner, a show performed in Farsi for an actress and an actor. The piece opens with a couple as they reunite with each other, in the visiting room of a penitentiary building, in Iran. The female protagonist, a political prisoner, asks her partner to come to the aid of a female friend of hers. The latter, who is blind, is waiting in France before attempting to cross the 27km-long Channel Tunnel in order to find a new life in Great Britain. Blind Runner tells the story of their training, the daunting obstacles they must overcome, and of a freedom which is obtained, against all odds, from out of the darkness.
In the same place