A performative opera by Sorour Darabi as part of the ‘wielding fissures’ series
Out of the vast expanse of the night, an opera for the 21st century emerges, bringing new aesthetics and perspectives, and a different relationship to the world: Iranian choreographer Sorour Darabi presents his first opera in Radialsystem with “Mile et Une Nuits” - an immersive performance, which gives space to voices that were pushed aside in ancient myth.
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The German premiere of Darabi’s opera also marks the opening of the new series wielding fissures – carving cracks in the surface of the now in Radialsystem.
“Mille et Une Nuits” illuminates “One thousand and One Nights” from the perspective of the storyteller, Scheherazade. The original work, conceived by a heterosexual cis man, was often criticised for reducing the figure of Scheherazade to a storytelling instrument, banishing her body, her wishes and her subjectivity into the background to serve the author’s purposes.
In Sorour Darabi’s “Mille et Une Nuits”, the night is not just a metaphor for the creation of stories: it is a space in which Scheherazade’s true identity can finally blossom - as queer myth, far away from the demands of a cis-heteronormative world.
