Sahar Speaks: Voices of Women from Afghanistan

Dancing to the Blast

16 July 2018

Camden People's Theatre

SS 2017

Following their sell-out show Sahar Speaks: Voices of Women in Afghanistan, Palindrome Productions present a new play set in the American University in Kabul on the day the Taliban stormed the campus in August 2016, killing 16 people and injuring many more.

Poignantly written by Afghan playwright Monirah Hashemi, the play tackles the violence of dreams and lives interrupted when they’ve only just taken off. “Dancing to the Blast” is an adaptation for the stage of an article written by Afghan journalist Pariwash Gouhari for the Sahar Speaks training programme: “Afghan Women Long For Their Campus Life A Year After Taliban Attack”, published in the Huffington Post in 2017.

The rehearsed reading was followed by a post-performance discussion with the playwright and journalists/creatives who have lived in Afghanistan.

Cast & Creatives

Playwright: Monirah Hashemi

Artistic Director: Lesley Ferris

Director: Rachel Valentine-Smith

Actors:

Rasheeda Ali as Yagana

Mona Khalili as Zeba

Sound Design: Ellie Isherwood

Producer: Manuela Chastelain

Programme

About the playwright:

Monirah Hashemi is a stage actor, director and playwright born to Afghan parents living in Iran as refugees. She moved back to Afghanistan in 2014, where at 21 she wrote and directed her award-winning debut play, Cry of History, the first play in Afghanistan to be produced solely by women. Due to her involvement in theatre, Monirah left Afghanistan and relocated to Sweden.

Support for this production was provided by the College of the Arts and Sciences: Arts and Humanities Grant, the Department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, and the Coca-Cola Critical Difference for Women Grants for Research on Women, Gender and Gender Equity.