Festival begins next week Dancing on the Edge. Unlike its name suggests, this festival, with performances in The Hague, Amsterdam, Utrecht and Rotterdam, is not only about dance, but also about film, theatre and politics. The 'Edge' it is about, the festival looks for in its theme: an urgent artistic dialogue with the Middle East. More needed now than ever, we can say.
One of the festival's chief guests is Nassim Soleimanpour. This Iranian playwright broke through internationally in 2011 with the play 'White Rabbit, Red Rabbit'. That play, awarded at several major festivals, was performed in the Netherlands by Jacob Derwig, among others, also on Dancing on the Edge.
What was special about that play was that writer Nassim Soleimanpour could not leave his country at the time of writing. He therefore wrote a text in which he entered into a dialogue with the audience through the stage actor unknown to him, and where the audience could email the writer in Iran using their own mobile phone during the performance. Reviews were high praise.
Meanwhile, Soleimanpour can travel freely. He currently resides in Berlin, and will come to the Netherlands next week to attend the world premiere of his new play 'Blank' to be. What Blank exactly is going to be, we don't know yet. That's why we ask him. Saturday, 31 October at noon, we will have a live interview with this innovative writer, via a brand new medium: Blab.im. Blab is a free tool that allows anyone to set up their own talk show, and moreover anyone who finds it interesting. can also join in the conversation. This can be done via Twitter, but also simply via their own webcam.
It is an experiment for us, so anything can go wrong, but we have a reputation to uphold when it comes to introducing new developments in journalism, so hence. Nice such blab. The recording can be watched back here. With a weird intervention at 23 minutes.
Keeps looking!