Arash Khakpour
Originally from Tehran and based in Vancouver, Arash Khakpour is privileged to be a dance artist who has immigrated to the ancestral and unceded Coast Salish territory.
Arash’s practice is concerned with the reveal of the complexity of the human experience, and of having a body. He investigates how thoughts influence the body and how the bodily states and sensations influence thoughts. This leads to his ever-evolving and intense interest in experiencing what it feels like to be a body without any direct focus on intellectual thinking and concerns. How can I just be a body?
He is interested in dance as a language that researches the human condition through historical, social, political and existential interpretations.
Arash’s choreography has been presented at PuSh International Performing Arts Festival, Montreal, Arte Interculturel (Montreal), Dancing on the Edge, Art for Impact, Dance Days Festival (Victoria BC), Dance In Vancouver, rEvolver Festival and Vines Art Festival.
Arash is the co-founder of the dance-theatre company The Biting School (alongside his brother Aryo Khakpour), co-founder of Vancouver’s guerrilla performance group Pressed Paradise, and the founder and co-host of How About A Time Machine, a podcast on the history of Canadian performance. Arash is grateful to be the 2016 recipient of Dance Victoria’s Chrystal Dance Prize.
Links
Artist's website: The Biting School