AEF2026: Shiraz

This summer, Athens Epidaurus Festival's main city venue, the former industrial complex in Pireos 260,  celebrates 20 years as one of the city’s most vital cultural meeting points. Under the artistic direction of Michail Marmarinos, this year’s landmark programme unfolds across two months of theatre, dance, music, performance, and multidisciplinary works, bringing together more than 50 events by acclaimed international artists alongside some of the most exciting voices from Greece’s contemporary scene. Pireos 260 will live through the Athenian summer as a dynamic space where emerging creators, established names, and curious audiences come together to explore what contemporary performance can be today. New collaborations, technology-driven works, and immersive experiences sit alongside bold theatrical productions, live music, and cutting-edge choreography.

Amongst these cutting-edge choreography pieces is Shiraz by Armin Hokmi, making its debut appearance in Greece under the festival's "Voices of Iran" strand. In 1967, Iranian Empress Farah Pahlavi inaugurated the Shiraz Arts Festival amidst the ruins of Persepolis, a radical 20th-century cultural movement balancing the avant-garde with tradition until it was abruptly banned by the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Hokmi, born in Iran and working between Norway and Germany, navigates the archives of this forbidden festival to connect with a past he never lived. On stage, seven dancers move to a pulsating, industrial beat infused with traditional Iranian melodies, entering an ecstatic, hypnotic state. By using their footsteps as a metric for time, the performance serves as a powerful exercise in collective memory and cross-border connection.