atcontainingmultitudes, times fragmented
dedicated to all those who keep the fire burning.
On the 27th of December 2017, just after Shabe Yalda, the ancient and ancestral celebration of passing the winter solstice, the longest night of the year, she appeared. Tired of the darkness, she stepped into chaos, shedding light and calling for the day. She must have walked on the Enghelab (revolution) street towards her chosen spot thinking many thoughts, perhaps worried and trembling or determined and firm. Once she found the electric utility box on which she called on a whole population, she stood strong and unshakable. She had taken off her white scarf, her hair moving with the slow gentle wind and against the rhythmic noise of Tehran’s traffic. The white scarf attaching and dangling to the end of a meter long stick, holding the other end with one hand. An image, a statue, a living monument.
Vida Movahed, The Girl of Enghelab Street, carries life in the etymology of her first name. And in her last name, her lineage, the roots of the word vahdat, meaning unity. One noticeable moment, a drop in still water, rippled beyond Enghelab Street, awakening bodies and transcending borders.
The starting point of now, is not a starting point from a defined time and space, but from a rather excessive accumulation of places, words, scenes, images, stories, memories, thoughts, visions, and dreams.
A mountain of lived experiences that collapses its own past onto its presence and gathers a buzzing energy to morph it into an unknown future: a future that might be scary but nevertheless has moved through and beyond the walls of oppression. A liberated life. I am here and not here. I am simultaneously split into multiple-selves. I am containing multitudes, at times fragmented. What I am sharing with you today is fragmented.
Maybe they remain so, as my every day is fragmented into multitudes of times and spaces, some very real and some existing in an intangible universe.
Merged Carpets
Urgently moving patiently
Patiently moving urgently
Fragmented presence, fully present
Soft whiplash
Floating in deep waters and polluted skies
Stuck in a loop towards an unknown destination
Yet,
Collectively imagined.
Drop Ripple, ripple
Wave, WAVE
Something is different
Something is about to happen
Something is breaking, changing, transforming ...
“If you have ever walked in a protest, you have probably been told that it won’t change anything. That the message isn’t clear, or is unrealistic.
I think this misses an important point. Often the marching itself is the point. We march together, as a reaffirmation of community, as an act of collective solidarity. It is the creation of a new space we can all live in together, even if only temporarily. And the people on the march will carry the memory of that space with them when they leave. They will carry it together into the things they do in their ordinary lives. It will illuminate their future actions, changing those actions for the better.”
Maddy Costa and Andy Field, Performance in an Age of Precarity 2021. p.184
“Precisely because writing that is destined for the other side of the concrete wall is the practical demonstration that we will not forget those whose revolutionary desires took them to the other side of the walls, no matter for how long the walls separate them from us. It is an act against forgetting and an exercise in imagining that which is beyond the ‘Republic of Walls’.”
Niloufar Nematollahi, Foreword: Shattering the Republic of Walls, To the Other Side of the Concrete Wall, p. 4
CAPITALIST BRUTALITY
THIS IS OUR REALITY
COLONIAL MENTALITY
THIS IS OUR REALITY
CLIMATE CATASTROPHE
THIS IS OUR REALITY
POLITICAL INSANITY
Either way, I question their art and practice now. Next time, when I watch their work (if at all I would/should), I guess, I will constantly debate with myself: should I acknowledge them for all the years of their hard work or remember them for their silence? But in the next breath, I also wonder isn’t the country divided enough, and dance precarious enough as a field, to now make a list of who did speak-up, who didn’t and who was just plain ignorant?
“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In this larger picture, I also think about future of the brown dancing girl. I feel and see that the agency of the female performer is being scrutinized, threatened and reframed.
In the coming years, will the performing body - its voice, politics & aesthetics - be forced to play morally appropriate roles? Would it be pushed to become cultural mascots propagating nationalistic valour? Would the performing body strive again for homogeneity and virtuosity, negating the embodied and cultural knowledge?
Who are the future custodians of the arts?
Who, me?
Yes, you.
Couldn’t be. Then who.....
Yours faithfully, Me
Nikita Maheshwary future of the brown dancing girl, Dear You, Yours Lovingly, Me
Noticing how I experience the revolution from Iran through instagram. The silent viewer. Scroller.
But the loud mind. Blocked up vocal chords. But vibrating body. Shaking.
Ready to burst. Burst into what? Tears!
Where do my tears go? Rage! Where does my rage go?
Today we commemorate the anniversary of Mahsa Jina Amini’s uprising. It’s been a year of horrific tragedy and radical dreaming. If the point of a struggle is to build something we never dared imagined. If the point is for our society to go through a transformation despite all the violent crackdowns against it. If the point is for the fight to be more than protests in the streets but actually the assertion of a new way of life, a new state of being. If the point is for a shift in our understanding of ourselves and the world around us, then what has happened in Iran in the past year is as much a setback as it is an achievement. It is as much repression as it is defiance. It is as much despair as it is hope.
And the struggle continues. And in that continuation we gather, we get closer and closer to each other. We form unbreakable bonds. We stand up and we dance. For the only revolution I want to be a part of, is one where we can all dance.
EPILOGUE
containing multitudes, at times fragmented is a compilation of personal, political, and poetic writings on the feminist revolution under the slogan of Jin, Jiyan, Azadi – Woman, Life, Freedom. These pieces were gathered during the THIRD fellowship program at DAS Graduate School in Amsterdam University of the Arts between October 2022 to October 2024. These writings emerged from a diasporic experience of living through urgent times, as well as the necessity to create practices that are both anchoring and restful, supporting interventions and protests.
This collection weaves together overlapping worlds: my artistic practices alongside the work of other artists I encountered, as well as texts that call for solidarity through statements, poetry, journalistic reflections, and protest chants. Each piece offers a glimpse of different responses to this urgency, capturing moments that continue to resonate and echo long after their creation.
My artistic research is intimately tied to my identity as an Iranian queer woman living outside of Iran, in the diaspora. With the ongoing revolution in Iran, ignited by the chant Jin, Jiyan, Azadi – Woman, Life, Freedom, my work seeks to explore the intersections of online and awayfromkeyboard (AFK)* activism and artistic practices that center around movement and embodied writing.
Throughout this period, the lines between art, activism, and life felt blurry, intertwined, and porous. A central question became: how do we respond through both art and activism? What changes occur in our bodies along the spectrum of numbness to rage? How does rest fit into this space? What might rest look like, or how could it manifest?
In my artistic research, I delved into methods of ‘embodied writing’ – finding a fusion and a dialogue between dance practices and writing styles. Some ongoing questions driving my artistic research are: How can personal and embodied storytelling serve as a tool for activism across diverse social and political landscapes? How do artists navigate the balance between artistic expression and advocating for social change in moments of urgencies and crisis? In what ways can literature challenge dominant power structures, and how can reading promote and amplify marginalized voices? And lastly, how does the digital age impact the form of activist writing, particularly through social media activism and online publishing?
Through embodied writing, I tuned into the intricacies and complexities of existing within multiple worlds while giving voice to resistance and radical dreams.
This publication may feel final. This page might feel like the beginning, and the last page like an end. Yet, it is more like a pause; an intervention in an ongoing process that keeps evolving, shifting, and transforming. This is a loose leaf from a diary, a chapter from a larger collection, a captured moment like a photograph still from a lengthy movie. And it will change, as all things do, in the hindsight that the future holds. This publication stands as fragmented yet interconnected expression of identity, activism, and hope for collective liberation. Coincidentally, its release in October 2024 marks the second anniversary of Mahsa Jina Amini’s murder, whose name sparked and fueled the Jin, Jiyan, Azadi – Woman, Life, Freedom revolution. This is a practice of remembrance, defiance, and endurance, a way of containing multitudes, at times fragmented.
The writings in this publication sprouted from the following performances, projects, and events.
DESCRIPTIONS
THIRD is part of the Lectorate of the Academy of Theatre and Dance DAS Graduated School within the Amsterdam University of the Arts. THIRD is a peer-to-peer support structure for artistic research and practice research in the arts at an advanced level. The facilitating model is designed as a two-year trajectory for seven fellows to undertake artistic research. These fellows form a group of companions (previously named cohorts) supporting and nourishing each others’ research through regular, cyclical encounters in practices. Accompanied by two tutors, companions meet in Amsterdam and remotely four times a year for four-days quarterlies during which they experiment with ways of sharing their practice, research, ways of responding, and ways of knowing. Additionally, there is research space and time for a three-week residency in the summer. This process supports artists in undertaking long-term practice-led research and/or preparing for further developments through research fellowship programs, PhDs, or other ftting contexts.
Sholé Zard was an intervention in collaboration with the DAS Theater students in October 2022. It was a gathering that invited the audience to a mourning ceremony featuring an eating and listening session discussing Sholé Zard, an Iranian dessert, and its cultural signifcance. The ingredients of Sholé Zard symbolize various aspects of the Iranian feminist revolution: rice symbolizes togetherness and social unity nurtured by women; rose water represents cleansing and the collective strength in uprising; safron denotes rarity and impact; sugar brings joy and hope; water signifes life and renewal. Sholé Zard is associated with grieving and remembrance. While preparing this dessert, we came together to make a wish for a better and more just future.
tanzbuero Salzburg Residency dedicates itself to the task of developing artistic workshop and research formats for the dance and performance scene, and promoting exchange between artists. It enables spaces for experiment and thought mainly for contemporary choreographers and performance artists, thus creating temporary synergies between creative artists. It conceives itself as a provider of input and networking facilities in the context of dance and performance, and organises artistic research projects.
how the persian carpet moves you is a movement workshop by Bita Bell. It delves into the multifaceted signifcance of persian carpets in our daily lives and in our quest for home-making through historical, cultural, political, and artistic expressions. It explores the connection to this globalized object via movement, improvisation, and choreography. Each segment – The Garden, The Home, The Dome, and The Ceremony – invokes personal memories and a deep connection to various associations as a way to de-orientalize and decolonize our relationships with exotifed Eastern cultures, lands, and people.
Merged Carpets is the weaving together of Seba Kayan’s music and art concept Carpet Concert and Bita Bell’s solo dance Dam Noosh/DAM. They both de-orientalize their complex identities through performance & music, playfully deconstructing the relationship with and the use of carpet as a cultural signifer. In this iteration, they emotionally process social media content and work with sampling of audios from Rojava and the current revolution in Iran; giving space for a deeper embodied understanding while amplifying the feminist-led movements of Kurdish and Iranian women.
Dear You – Yours Lovingly, Me was an event with invited guest and author Nikita Maheshwary sharing practices in writing and listening. The publication Dear You – Yours Lovingly, Me is a performative object imagined and designed as an old box of letters one fnds in one’s grandma’s attic. It contains sixteen personal letters from Nikita, addressed to ‘you’ from ‘me’, written and to be read in no particular order. These letters delve in the
themes of care, guilt, limitations, motherhood, nationalism, decoloniality and questionable historiographies – looked through the lens of a brown dancing girl – the naachnewali. The publication has a special epilogue, ‘A dramaturgy of Correspondence’, where seven artists, thinkers and activists share their thoughts and refections in private correspondences with the author, i.e. in the format of letters, on themes synonymous.
a dance manifesto of hope and fury is a movement workshop by Bita Bell. It explores activating our senses for solidarity through movement, voice, and their sensibilities. It engages the body as both personal and collective archives containing multitudes. Participants create a dance manifesto of hope and fury, with “radical softness as a boundless form of resistance”. (Be Oakley, GenderFail)
· How do we stand together?
· How do we move forward together?
· How do we carry each other and let ourselves be carried?
Collective Joy in Resistance is a project based in Vienna that creates a space for joyful activism, aiming to collectively co-create innovative forms of protest through radical imagination and shared care. In 2024, as Europe faces signifcant political challenges, including climate justice and the rise of the far right, the project seeks to build alternative ways of living; where generosity, tenderness, and collective strength transform resistance. It invites activist groups and individuals and through community-building gatherings that weave dance, music, textile art, and design, they reclaim joy as an act of defance, crafting new narratives of hope, decolonization, and resilience in the face of adversity.
an act against forgetting and an exercise in imagining (Niloufar Nematollahi, To the Other Side of the Concrete Wall, p.4) was a one-day event organized by Bita Bell in collaboration with Natasja van ‘t Westende, the artistic and managing director of Dancing on the Edge, at Tugela85 Amsterdam. The day included the movement workshop a dance manifesto of hope and fury, the book presentation of Niloufar Nematollahi and Katayoon Barzegar To
the Other Side of the Concrete Wall, followed by a dialogue and panel discussion.
To the Other Side of the Concrete Wall is a collection of translated essays by feminists in Iran that attempts to imagine beyond walls of oppression by navigating the intersections of writing and the everyday becomings of a feminist revolution. The book includes writings of Elaheh Mohammadi and Niloofar Hamedi, the journalists who were arrested in September 2022 after covering the news of Jina Amini’s murder. Niloofar and Elaheh are still in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison today. This publication was created for the occasion of Jina Amini’s frst death anniversary, one year after the beginning of the Jina Uprising in 2022. To the Other Side of the Concrete Wall was seed-funded by bakbasis and published by Jina Collective (a Netherlands-based feminist, leftist, anti-capitalist, anti-sexist, and pro-LQBTQ+ activist group that was formed during the Jina Uprising.)
BIOS
Bita Bell is a dance artist and composer with a BA in music composition and an MFA in dance. Born in Iran, she studied in Hong Kong and lived in the U.S. since 2012 until she moved from New York City to Vienna in 2020. Her artistic research and practice in both dance and music is based on the body as archive, fragmented memories, collective imaginations, visceral sensations, radical softness, and playful improvisations. Her works aim to expose, question, and subvert social-political matters that disrupt the joy in daily life. She is a fellow at the THIRD Artistic Research program at DAS Graduate School in Amsterdam University of the Arts 2022-2024. Her artistic research at THIRD is exploring embodied activist writing, voicing the silent practice of writing towards creating a diferent experience in reading and listening. She has been awarded the 2023 Startstipendium for Music and Performing Arts from the Austrian Federal Ministry for Arts and Culture, the 2024 DanceWeb Scholarship for Vienna’s Impulstanz International Festival, and the Culture Moves Europe Mobility Fund.
Nikita Maheshwary is a performance practitioner with over ffteen years of experience in choreography, art education and artistic research. Her art inquiries lie at the nexus of gender, culture, and identity and through her performances, writings, exhibits and curation work, she is deeply invested in telling stories of plurality, female agency, forms of marginalisation and class divide. Since 2018, also as a research fellow at THIRD, DAS Graduate School, Amsterdam (2019 – 2022), she is engaged in her long-term practice-based research project Naachne-wali: The Dancing Girl. The artistic research, till date, has led to one lecture performance ‘Umrao&Me’ (2018), a collective reading performance ‘Me&You: In a Dialogue’ (2020) and a publication ‘Dear You, Yours Lovingly Me’ (2022). Currently, she works as an independent choreographer, teaches artistic research and dramaturgy at the Circus Department and Dance Department, Fontys Academy of Arts, Tilburg and serves as the board member of dance company The100Hands.
Katayoon Barzegar is a visual artist and researcher. Notions of body and space make up the core of Barzegar’s artistic and research practice – in-situ spatial interventions of sculpture and video. Through bodily interactions with objects and spaces, Barzegar investigates the efects of power regimes on human individuals. She holds an MA in Artistic Research from Alzahra University, Tehran, and an MA in Fine Arts from HKU, Utrecht.
Niloufar Nematollahi is a writer, translator, artist, and organiser currently based in Amsterdam. With a background in fne arts and Middle Eastern studies, international relations, and cultural analysis, she has conducted research on the literary genre of Farsi oil fction and the politics of electronic dance music in Iran. Her current research revolves around feminist conceptualizations of contemporary labour politics in Iran.
Natasja van ’t Westende is the artistic and managing director of Dancing on the Edge, a non-proft cultural organization based in Amsterdam since 2006. Focusing on West Asia and North Africa, DOTE challenges dominant
narratives and fosters international engagement to re-imagine art production and cultural experiences by organizing a biennial festival, year-round activities, and an online magazine.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to THIRD for hosting a restful space of query and ponder.
Thanks to my tutors Rajni and Emilie who held my hand along this shaky path.
Thanks to Kai, Paula, and Flavia, my group of companions at THIRD.
Many thanks to Nikita, Niloufar, and Katayoon for inspiring me to make this zine. Special thanks to Natasja for supporting me through the fnal stages of this process. Heartfelt thanks to Peter for his creativity and attention to detail in designing this zine and bringing my vision to life.
I am deeply grateful to everyone who stood by me during this journey.
thanks to all who radically dream beyond, push, and burn the walls of oppression to expose a new reality: you keep the fire burning.
Published by: Bita Bell
Editorial and Graphic Design: Peter Oroszlany
Image credits: Cover and Page 21 by Bita Bell, All drawings are made by the participants of a dance manifesto of hope and fury workshops.
Created over the course of the THIRD Artistic Research program at DAS Graduate School in Amsterdam University of the Arts, 2022–2024.
This work was produced with the fnancial assistance of the European Union. The views expressed herein can in no way be taken to refect the ofcial opinion of the European Union.
