Hamed is sharing two projects during this residency. First, This is not a chair, a creation he previously created and performed. In addition, he is working on the new performance So Far So Near.

This is not a chair: The idea for this work came from René Magritte’s saying, “An object is not as attached to its name that you can’t find another name for it that fits better”. Hamed thus asked himself the question: what is the relationship between my body and the objects around me? What makes this relationship? Even though an object appears through the language we give it, its use and form etc…. it is not just one thing. Therefore, Hamed looks for other ways in which the object can exist.

So Far So Near: With this project, Hamed explores the relationship between clothes, memories and the body. How and where can you locate memory in the body? Can memories be ‘saved’ in garments?

Residency organised with the support fund initiated by ICI-Centre chorégraphique national Montpellier Occitanie / Direction Christian Rizzo with the support of DRAC Occitanie. The master exerce (Parcours Études Chorégraphiques : Recherche Et Représentation) is conducted in collaboration with the Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier.

Hamed Rad

Hamed Rad was born in 1990 in Tehran and graduated in Information and Communication Technology (ICT). He trained at Samandarian Theatre Academy and after that studied theatre directing at Tehran University of Art. He embarked on the performing arts and dance in 2017. First as a performer in various Iranian theatrical and movement productions and then in 2019, he created his first performance, Farsa, which is based on the relation between body and object. This work has become the starting point of his journey about that relation, and he explored and developed this research in the Master Choreography in Montpellier. In each of his performances, he works to broaden the concept of choreography through connecting the relation between objects and body with other domains such as visual art, technology, language, and theory.