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Sorour Darabi
Resident
01.08.2025 - 30.09.2025
Medici Residency
Choreography
Biography
Sorour Darabi is a transdisciplinary artist and choreographer born in Shiraz and living in Paris since 2013. A graduate of the Master Exerce at ICI-Centre chorégraphique national de Montpellier, his projects have been presented internationally, including at the Palais de Tokyo, Centre Pompidou, La Villette, Festival d’Automne à Paris, Kunstenfestivaldesarts, among others. His work is rooted in research into Persian literature and queer history in Iran, crossing these heritages with contemporary socio-political issues.
Project
At Villa Medici, Sorour Darabi will develop MAJNÛN, a choreographic opera in solo and collective versions, to be presented in 2026 at the Arsenic in Lausanne. Inspired by the figure of Majnûn, an archetype of madness in love in medieval Arab-Persian poetry, the project explores trance, vertigo and poetic excess through body and voice. Drawing on the Khalij heritage of migration and syncretic spiritual traditions, Darabi draws inspiration from Shiite, Sunni and Sufi traditions, invoking possessed bodies, forbidden loves and haunted memories.
Medici Residency
with La Ménagerie de verre
In 2024, La Ménagerie de verre and Villa Medici launched a cross-residency program aimed at welcoming one associate artist in Rome and one resident in Paris each year, with a particular focus on choreographic and performance artists. Each year, a choreographer - either an associate artist or in residence at La Ménagerie de verre - is welcomed at Villa Medici for a research and writing residency lasting a maximum of one month. La Ménagerie de verre in turn welcomes and makes its spaces available to an artist - a resident of Villa Medici - wishing to develop a performance project for a maximum period of one month.