Ms. Niloofar Beyzaie, a playwright, theater director, researcher and translator has been selected as the Personality of the Year 2018, in the field of “Art and Culture”, for:
– Her unwavering efforts in directing and writing subjects related to refugees and people living in exile.
– Her special attention to Iranian cultural issues and reflecting them in her plays.
– Her persistent focus on women’s rights and degradation of Iranian women’s position in today’s Iran compared to the ancient Persian culture.
– Her distinct and humanistic look at the Human Rights issues in Iran especially in her plays written in German.
Niloofar Beyzaie Biography
Life
Niloofar Beyzaie was born at 15th January 1967 in Tehran. She is the daughter of the Theater and Film director Bahram Beyzaie (Bahram Beyzai) and Monir Azam Raminfar who comes from a family of artists. In 1985 she had to leave Iran for political reasons and studied German Literature, Theater, Film and Television Studies and Education at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main. After finishing her academic studies, she founded 1994 the theater group “Daritsche”. Since then she is leading this group as Director, Play writer, and light and costume designer. She also puts emphasis on the socio-political context of the theater in its contemporary issues.
Work
Central themes of her theater work are “woman”, “the suffering of individuals among the crowd” and “being a stranger either in the own or in the foreign society”. She also puts emphasis on the socio-political context of the theater in its contemporary issues. In addition to her theatrical work she writes articles about the political and social situation, particularly the situation of women in Iran. She advocates for women’s rights and for the rights of gays and lesbians in Iran and is involved in the Iranian art and cultural scene in exile for the rights of religious minorities in Iran, in particular the Bahais. In 2005, she was awarded the Persian “World Academy of Art, Literature and Media” in Budapest as the best theater director in exile in category “the Performing Arts”. In the same year her play Daughters of the Sun (Come,dance with me) was performed in Zurich by Maralam Theater under direction of Peter Braschler. The revival of her play No Man’s Land was performed in German in March 2009 in Karlsruhe within the framework of the “Cultural Perspectives of Women festival 09”. Her play “Face to Face at the Threshold of the Cold Season” is about two very important women of the Iranian history “Tahirih Qurratu’l- ayn and Forough Farokhzad” had its premiere in October 2011. She directed 2015 the Play „In the presence of the Wind” which was written by her father in the sixties.
Staging (Theater Director)
- Marjan, Mani and a few small problems, 1996
- The Last Game, 1997
- No Man’s Land, 1998–99
- A knife in the back ( A Play by Kaveh Esmaili), 1999–2000
- The blue dreams of gray women, 2000–2001
- Three Opinions on a death (based on a text by: Mina Assadi), 2001–2002
- The Blind Owl (based on a text by: Sadegh Hedayat), 2004–2005
- The blind owl (bilingual, along with Tom Peifer), 2005
- foreign as you and I (based on a text by Farhang Kassraei and Maria Piniella), 2006–2007
- The sound of Silence, 2007–2008
- The Blind Owl (revival), 2008
- No Man’s Land (revival in German language), 2009
- One file, two murders, 2009–2010
- Diaries of newspapers or How the revolution ate its grandchildren (Play reading in German language- Schauspiel Frankfurt, World Human Rights Day) 2011
- Face to Face at the Threshold of the Cold Season, 2011-2012
- In the presence of the Wind, 2015-2016
- In this place and in this time (based on the stories of Mahshid Amirshahy), 2017-2018
Plays (playwright)
- Banu in the mirror city (performed in the same year under direction of Mohsen Hosseini in Frankfurt am Main), 1994
- Marjan, Mani and a few small problems, 1995
- The last game, 1996
- No Man’s Land, 1997
- The blue dreams of the gray women, 2000
- Come dance with me (Daughters of the Sun), 2005
- The Voice of Silence, 2006
- One file, two murders, 2009
- Diaries of newspapers or How the revolution ate its grandchildren (Play reading) 2011
- Face to Face at the Threshold of the Cold Season, 2011
Awards
2005:Persian “World Academy of Art, Literature and Media”Budapest:Best Director in the Performing Arts category and 2018:Nowruz Award, Pasargad Heritage Foundation.
