Sasan Qajar on Zanjan International Pantomime Festival

Sasan Qajar, an active mime artist and pantomime director and the artistic director of the second international pantomime festival in Zanjan, started his activity in this field in 1997. With continuous follow-ups for ten years and with the support of the General Department of Darmatic Arts and the General Department of Culture and Islamic Guidance of Zanjan province, this artist established the pantomime house of Iran and held specialized festivales in the field of pantomime.

How do you evaluate the situation of pantomime art and artists in Iran and how effective will pantomime festival be?

 

Unfortunately, this art is not viewed well in our country. Very bad performances on television and other social spaces have caused the decline of the status of this art.

 

My criticism of theater veterans is that I don't know why they don't pay much attention to pantomime.

 

We are trying to change these views and we ask for the help of cultural managers.

The foundation and basis of theater is body art and mime. By holding the Zanjan International Pantomime Festival and establishing the Iranian Pantomime Art House, we are trying to introduce pantomime and mime artists to Iranian people. We had discussions with the General Director of Dramatic Arts to establish a branch of the Iranian Pantomime House in City Theater Complex, and if this is done, interested people will be able to learn the techniques of pantomime in a centralized manner under the supervision of well-known mime masters with consistent planning and organization.

Zanjan pantomime festival has taken its first step to introduce the festival to the world in its second edition by inviting foreign artists. How much time do you think it will take for Zanjan to be known as the pantomime center of Asia?

-I tried for ten years to hold pantomime festival and I was able to achieve this goal to some level. Fortunately, with the efforts of the General Directorate of Dramatic Arts and other officials of Zanjan province, we are reaching this. Our planning for the third festival started the day after the closing of second one , and it  requires a new empathy beyond the previous editions. Every festival has its weaknesses and shortcomings in the first step, but we must eliminate them and start from now on to invite more countries and hold international meetings for global reflection.

 

We now have three prestigious international festivals in France (the birthplace of modern pantomime), Italy (the birthplace of comedy) and England, each of which is strong in a particular category. I am not satisfied with the introduction of the Zanjan International Pantomime Festival in the fourth place in the world, I am trying to make this festival reach a level where all local and foreign artists can participate.

 

For the internationalization of the festival, we need the presence of international groups in the competition section more seriously. We will witness this happening in the third edition...

-This will happen during the fourth edition of Zanjan International Pantomime Festival. Our artists have a lot to say due to their great talent. But we must reveal that we have started training step by step from cities and provinces and  it will continue.

In the first edition  Zanjan International Pantomime festival, we invited international groups to hold workshops and perform in the non-competitive section, which was to preserve the spirit of the students and the educational approach of the festival due to the lack of experience of Iranian students.

But the Iranian pantomime House intends to train some  people who have talent but do not know the technique, and prepare them to participate in the next edition of festival and competitive sections with holding some educational workshops.