Hooman Sharifi

The impressive Arab Room at the Stock Exchange Palace was turned into a runway by Olivier Saillard in 2017, and into a ballroom for an opera-ballet by François Chaignaud in 2018. Now it’s Hooman Sharifi’s turn to be challenged to take over one of the city’s paradigmatic locations. Sharifi is a Norwegian choreographer of Persian origin. He started his training with hip hop and street jazz, and then studied classical ballet and claimed a spot in the contemporary dance scene. “The Dead Live on in Our Dreams” is a solo piece shared with musician Arash Moradi that takes root in the identity experience of the artist and in its changes and manipulations. This work crosses dance, Persian music and storytelling. Movement is word, and the sounds played live are places that also create other places at that precise moment. Persian music and poetry are based on building standardised phrases passed on from master to student, who absorbs them and then starts improvising. Memory is inscribed in the body, as if falling, and generates new vocabulary, which creates a new vital, harmonic space with the audience with each presentation. Hooman Sharifi believes that if we want to change the future we need to analyse the past and manipulate it so that history becomes something else, from personal stories to the very history of mankind. As if it were a love battle, the Arab Room will turn into an arena, and the audience will witness that nostalgic journey between what is past and what is envisioned.


Hooman Sharifi is a Norwegian choreographer with Iranian roots. His dance career started with hip-hop in his teenage years, and he went on to study classical and modern ballet in his twenties. He graduated in choreography at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts, and is particularly interested in the artistic expression found in the intersection between dance, theatre and graphic arts. In 2000, he established his own company, Impure Company, whose creations stand out for their emphasis on civic engagement and politics. His movement language tends to be physically challenging, intense and powerful, exploring the deepest feelings behind power, political systems and violence through precise movements and other stage effects. In 2014, he became the artistic director of Carte Blanche, and remained in that role until August 2018.