An investigation into the nature of investigation, with the unsolved murder of a pop icon at its center.
It’s the 1970s and Fereydoun Farrokhzad’s star is blazing bright – he’s a sex symbol and chart-topping pop singer – imagine an Iranian Tom Jones. A decade on and he’s living in political exile in Germany, though still performing to sold-out audiences in Europe. On 7 August 1992, he was found brutally murdered. The neighbors said his dogs had been barking for two nights.
Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World is a wild ride down the rabbit hole of Wikipedia and murder mystery podcasts, sorting through the tangle of information available online in a post-colonial world to reveal the limits of search engines in solving a decades-old cold case.
Artists
-
The Javaad Alipoor Company, co-produced with National Theatre of Parramatta
Presented with On the Boards, PICA and UCLA
Written by Javaad Alipoor with Chris Thorpe
Co-created by Natalie Diddams and Javaad Alipoor
Dramaturgy Chris Thorpe
Directed by Javaad Alipoor
Performed by Javaad Alipoor and Asha Reid with Raam Emami, together with on-stage musician Me-Lee Hay
Set, costume and lighting design by Benjamin Brockman
Composer, Music Director and Live Musician Me-Lee Hay
With music by Raam Emami
Sound design by Simon McCorry
Video Associate Barret Hodgson
Performed by Raam Emami, Javaad Alipoor, Asha Reid and Me-Lee Hay
Projection and video design by Limbic Cinema - TBC
Production Management The Production Family - TBC
Company Stage Manager Dylan Tate
Additional footage filmed by Tate Creations
Further Research
A nine point manifesto driving the company
“Iran’s Long Reach? How Dissident Showman Fereydoun Farrokhzad Was Murdered Far From Home”
Documentary by Radio Free Europe
Podcast by Javaad Alipoor and Tanya Vital
The Colour of Our Politics is a new podcast from Javaad Alipoor and Tanya Vital about the history of anti-racism in the UK, what’s going on today and what might happen in the future.Javaad and Tanya aren’t pretending to have all the answers – but they do know some pretty interesting people. Combining this with rigorous discussion, the duo will be joined by special expert guests to illuminate how anti-racism in the UK today has been shaped by a long history of activism and resistance.
Essay by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
Spivak's essay transformed the analysis of colonialism through an eloquent and uncompromising argument that affirmed the contemporary relevance of Marxism while using deconstructionist methods to explore the international division of labor and capitalism's "worlding" of the world. Spivak's essay hones in on the historical and ideological factors that obstruct the possibility of being heard for those who inhabit the periphery. It is a probing interrogation of what it means to have political subjectivity, to be able to access the state, and to suffer the burden of difference in a capitalist system that promises equality yet withholds it at every turn.
“The arts world sees working-class people as a problem to be solved”
Article by Javaad Alipoor
Published in The Guardian | June 5, 2018
“Publicly funded art is still dominated by a privileged elite who fail to engage the majority of the population.”
“We need to fundamentally change the makeup of who is creating and watching work”
Interview with Javaad Alipoor and Raam Emami
by University of Michigan Musical Society | November 17, 2023
“Iran Between Two Revolutions”
Book by Ervand Abrahamian
Emphasizing the interaction between political organizations and social forces, Ervand Abrahamian discusses Iranian society and politics during the period between the Constitutional Revolution of 1905-1909 and the Islamic Revolution of 1977-1979. Presented here is a study of the emergence of horizontal divisions, or socio-economic classes, in a country with strong vertical divisions based on ethnicity, religious ideology, and regional particularism.
Photos by Philip Erbacher and Chris Payne. Illustrated Design by Adam Gregory York.
This performance was curated by Rachel Cook during her tenure at On the Boards.