Maryam Khalili

Date of Performance is a lecture-performance documenting theater and performance practices created inside Iranian prisons from 1954 to 2024. Through interviews with contemporary artists, prison letters, archival materials, and post-release writings, the work explores how imprisoned artists conceived, rehearsed, and staged performances under conditions of isolation and repression.

The project reflects on the absence of performers from official stages and asks whether absence itself can become a performative force. One part of the work focuses on a performer whose only connection to the outside world was through prison telephone calls, creating a fragile relationship between audience and absent performer. Further artistic research examined how volleyball gatherings could be transformed into rehearsal spaces, transforming public space into a site of collective imagination and resistance.

The project was presented in Tehran as a lecture-performance about theater practices inside Iranian prisons, including a public talk at Rooberoo Mansion, and was later presented in Berlin at Ballhaus Ost. The Berlin presentation was supported by Goethe-Institut im Exil.

Date of Performance has also been discussed in critical and academic contexts. Iranian theater scholar Azadeh Sharifi wrote an essay about the work titled Dramaturgy of Absence, which is available online through different platforms and publications.

Company: Unread Archives
Director, Writer & Researcher: Maryam Khalili
Voice Performer: Moha
Video Creation: Babak Khalili
Dramaturg & Director’s assistant: Amir Ebrahimzadeh
Translator: Kowsar Rezaie
Sound Designer: Vesal Javaheri
Graphic designer: Maryam Baradaran
International Production & Distribution: Sepehr Sharifzadeh / East-West Divan Arts & Cultural Exchange (France)