I Saw the Snow, I Touched the Snow

I saw the snow, I touched the snow by Impure Company/Hooman Sharifi is a performance about Iranian coffee grounds in which one can read the future, about the aroma of Lebanese bread, about being in transit in the world.

At the beginning of 1989: Hooman Sharifi, born in Teheran in 1973, arrived in Norway after a stopover in Beirut (Lebanon). His mother, who smuggled him out of Iran, would join him in Norway a few years later. From East to West, in the hope of more professional opportunities. A future.

Sharifi is every inch a nomad and his productions often deal with being "in transit", or travelling from one place to another, from one residence to another. This is apparent in his productions, even though in his first works he never explicitly talks of his personal story as emigrant. In 2005, he created a solo for himself: We failed to hold this reality in mind. Here for the first time he refers to his autobiography. His only stage prop is a tiny Persian carpet.

Since then, his work manifests a need to speak, to use language, texts. Various elements come together in I saw the snow, I touched the snow, the need to dig deeper into his own biography and into the condition of the emigrant in general, the need to articulate a story in words and the inescapable drive to move in a space filled with light and sound. The performance has two parts. In the first part, of spoken word, Sharifi focuses directly on the audience. Then – when I no longer know what to say – he starts to dance, making use of material from We failed to hold reality in mind.

Source: BIT Teatergarasjen, spring program 2010. 10.08.2010: http://www.bit-teatergarasjen.no/article/295