Fri 1.3.2024 // 19.30
Photo: Michael, Vorbrenner Residency Showing, June 2023
Fri 1.3.2024 // 19.30
Work-in-progress showing / Bräuhausgasse 40, 1050 Vienna / pay as you wish / bar & buffet
Concept, sound, performance: Bita Bell
Light and set designer: Leo Hafele
Dramaturgy: Olivia Hild
Outside Eyes: Sunanda Mesquita, Masoumeh Jalalieh, Toranj Mashayekhi
Outside Ears: Mbatjiua Hambira
Special thanks to Claire Lefèvre, Joanna Zabielska, Peter Oroszlany, Tina Beyk Abbasi, and friends who have supported me in this process.
Previously supported by Bears in the Park Studios and Vorbrenner Residency 2023
The Sun Is Gone is a solo performance calling in the Iranian iconic singer Googoosh: her 21-year forced silence post-1979 revolution and her return to the stage in exile in 2000. She embodies the struggles and hopes of those in Iran and the diaspora, from the 70s to the Gen Zs, expanding generations and geographies. But she also represents the Iranian collective memory of a nostalgic era that seeks to project the future of female performers in Iran. In her solo, Bita Bell dances closer to Googoosh, embracing the depth of their lineage. She summons Googoosh as she holds a mirror to the past and a crystal ball to the future. Through Googoosh’s 70s music and lyrics in Farsi and translated to English, Bita’s performance moves through invisibility and visibility, private and the public, silence and voice, isolation and togetherness. Her solo, The Sun Is Gone, is both a love letter and a farewell to Googoosh.
You, who is on this journey with me
Listen
Listen to this bitter story and gruesome path
You are the only light in this dark night
You should not pass this story by
This is not an image of a fallen person
We are not watching indifferently
We are all the same pain
This is not a fleeting gaze
– Googoosh, Talagh
Fotos: Franzi Kreis
Bita Bell (IR/US/AT) 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, lived in the U.S. from 2012, and is currently based in Vienna. She recently completed an Artistic Research Fellowship at THIRD DAS Graduate School in Amsterdam, where she self-published a zine titled “containing multitudes, at times fragmented”. Bell is a recipient of the 2023 Startstipendium for Music and Performing Arts from the Austrian Federal Ministry for Arts and Culture and the 2024 danceWEB scholarship at ImPulsTanz – Vienna International Dance Festival.