Foreign Sleep (2019) by Lilian Nejatpour. Is to be performed by Lauren Stewart and Eva Escrich González with accompanying original Score by Lilian Nejatpour and piano by Mahsa Salali.

Foreign Sleep (2019) is a revised iteration of the original Choreophobia performance by artist Lilian Nejatpour. The performance borrows its name from the theory of dancer and choreographer Anthony Shay, who examined the intervening occurrence of colonialism and Western thought on Middle Eastern dance practices. Shay articulates Western involvement in the Middle East as transforming gender and sensuality in non-Western male bodies, arguing that this interference influenced a phobia toward transgressive and fluid forms of gender display.

Nejatpour works through Shay’s concept and critique by placing her own geographical displacement into a choreography, sampling movements and sonic references from gestures associated with the now banned Iranian solo improvised dance. In collaboration with dancers Eva Escrich González and Lauren Stewart, Nejatpour works with the body as a sculpture in flux, activating forgotten archives of movement and sound whilst troubling cultural relocation and gender stereotypes. Lilian Nejatpour is as a British Iranian artist whose practice questions technological invasiveness and sentimentality.
She questions how these two very distinct modes operate alongside each other and what problems arise when they are
captured and re-situated in conversation through sculpture, sound, video and performance. Her practice often
investigates displacement and duality exploring various cultural tropes that evade reference or historical memory.
Recent shows include: Choreophobia performed at Somerset House (2018), Edinburgh Fringe Festival (2018)
Chisenhale Studios (2018), Choreophobia I at Turner Contemporary (2018) and Hope Machine at Cairotronica Festival,
Cairo, Egypt (2018). She is currently an artist in residence at Somerset House Studios, London.