Bio

I am an Iranian theatre artist and scholar with a background in Information Technology and Puppetry. I blend high-tech curriculum design with high-touch ensemble practices experience across the stage, classroom, and community settings. I began my theatre journey at sixteen in Isfahan, where I discovered how performance can hold memory, play, resistance, and healing all at once. Over many years directing for schools, youth programs, and cultural centers—often leading award-winning productions that traveled to national and international festivals—I came to understand theatre as a deeply communal and transformative practice. In 2021, I moved to the United States to continue expanding my artistic and scholarly work.

I am now a Ph.D. candidate in Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Kansas. My dissertation analyzes the role of anger in Iranian women’s performances—on stage and in street protests—through an innovative Persian lens rooted in local concepts, embodied knowledge, and lived political experience. This work grows alongside my recent and upcoming publications, including essays in Theatre Topics and Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, as well as book chapters on feminist resistance and ensemble dramaturgy in contemporary Iran.

My academic path began with a Master’s degree in Puppet Theatre from the University of Tehran. My thesis examined the semantic and philosophical dimensions of puppetry, particularly how cyborg theory and posthuman ideas can expand the boundaries of the puppet’s identity. This research developed into publications on puppetry, technology, and alternative theatre—threads that continue to inform my creative and pedagogical approaches.

As an educator, I have taught students ages four to adult for over thirty years, designing theatre curricula grounded in play, ensemble practice, and embodied learning. At KU, I have created innovative courses—including a fully gamified online Introduction to Theatre and a redesigned Acting I—and served as a curriculum designer for the department’s First-Year to Capstone Canvas pathway. My teaching blends Iranian performance traditions, psychodrama, puppetry, and contemporary acting methods, always rooted in brave space pedagogy, accessibility, and student agency.

Across all my work—as a director, dramaturg, performer, and scholar—I am guided by a belief that theatre is a site of transformation: a place where stories resist erasure, where bodies speak truth, and where communities imagine new futures together.