DON QUIXOTE THEATRE GROUP

Current Projects

“Tables project”

Second table

WE CAME TO DANCE

2024

In progress

Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Beursschouwburg

Summery

What does it mean to be a dancer when dancing is prohibited? How do you feel when forced to refrain from doing something you have dedicated your entire life to?

“Tables”

Concept and Creator: Nasim Ahmadpour

“Tables” project is a performing project, which itself includes four performances. We name each performance “A table”. We Prefer to define this set of performances as socio- performative action.
In terms of subject and theme, each performance focuses on a documentary event from contemporary theater history in Iran.
Each of these performances follows the same form and is repeated exactly every time.
Each show’s structure contains four parts and is the same in all four performances. The scene description is the same in all four performances and is a recurring motif in them all. In all four performances, four performers sit behind a long table on the stage.
Four performers read the text in all four performances. Reading the text is also a common performative contract in all these performances.
The director of the first table is Nasim Ahmadpour. In the other three tables, the title of director will be awarded to three other performers on behalf of Nasim Ahmadpour, one by another.
In all these performances, the scene is the same and only the words are different. Consider the uniform form of this set of performances as the performance contract.

The Tables Project and the Manifest Theater
The “Tables” Project defines itself in the Manifest Theater as an effort to produce and sustain a socio-performative action. Each manifesto, like the manifestos of the various Tables Project versions, needs signatures. In a manifesto, everyone signs the same text.
In the Tables Project, all directors declare their support and adherence to the manifesto and the anti-mainstream theater form by repeating a specific form in their performances and strictly adhering to the same rules as the first project (in this case, “Judgment Day” written and directed by Nasim Ahmadpour).
In this project, the second, third, and fourth directors accept Nasim Ahmadpour’s directorship and become directors on her behalf. Then they propose their subjects to her. To preserve the manifesto and the first person’s form, they avoid creativity that disrupts it. Choosing the same mezzanine and trustworthiness is the act of directing for them. In this way, their choice itself is considered a form of creativity in alignment with
the project and the intended manifesto.