Performances | Anni Movsisyan

A study of a West Asian Diasporan's use of magical practices in the early 21st century

Photo of Anni performing as Pardis, a teacher from the future who is giving a "herstory" lecture. Pardis is wearing a handmade robe with a purple floral pattern and turquoise lace trim. They are also wearing silver trousers, a golden pomegranate necklace, have painted their eyebrows into a monobrow, and are wearing purple lipstick.

There is a slide projected on the wall featuring a photograph of a talisman embroidered in the shape of a three-stringed Iranian lute called a setar (not to be confused with the Indian sitar).

Closeup photo of Anni performing as Pardis, a teacher from the future who is giving a "herstory" lecture. Pardis is wearing a handmade robe with a purple floral pattern and turquoise lace trim. They are also wearing silver trousers, a golden pomegranate necklace, purple lipstick, handmade nazar (evil-eye amulet) earrings, and have painted their eyebrows into a monobrow.

Anni is looking down at their notes while speaking into the microphone.

Click on an image to view in full and to read descriptions.

Pardis is a Herstory Teacher from an optimistic future that is borne of a radical shift in peoples' ways of thinking. Pardis will present their Herstorical research on a particular 21st century artist's practices of growth and resistance against the violent world she found herself in, in order to learn more about how their world came to be.

Images from a performance at Hackney Showrooms in October 2018, as part of

FUTURE RITUAL, a performance platform curated by Joseph Morgan Schofield and Thomas Yeomans "for radical queer artists + audiences interested in ritual, myth, magick + mysticism to come together, to resist marginalisation, to challenge decency, to protest, to process, to dream us forward". Photo documentation by Jemima Yong.

Video documentation from a performance at the Bernie Grant Arts Centre, April 2018, as part of DREAM_SHOUT, an evening of short performances inspired by Afrofuturism, curated by Seke Chimutengwende and Alexandrina Hemsley.

Performance-lecture first created in 2017 and premiered at the I/Mages of Tomorrow anti-conference at the University of Goldsmiths, June 2017.

The images below are slides from the presentation. Click to view in full and to read descriptions.

The title slide from the presentation used in the performance lecture. It reads:
"Magical practices as used by an "artist" of the West Asian Diaspora in the early 21st century

By Pardis Beheshtian"

A slide from the presentation used in the performance lecture. It shows a picture of a woman holding a West Asian lute known as a "tar". The text on the slide explains the meaning of the Armenian/ Turkish word "ashik": a travelling poet-musician. The word is derived from the Arabic word for "love".

Ritual for Renewal

Ritual for Renewal invites friends and hopeful strangers alike to join in a circle and to eat and drink from a shared pomegranate. Pomegranates are the fruit of the Tree of Life in West Asian Cultures. The pomegranate offers itself as nourishment, giving us life, and one can think of its timely arrival as an opportune moment to reflect on one's life and grow seedlings of intentions towards the Spring chapters in our books.

Images from a performance at Hackney Showrooms in October 2018, as part of

FUTURE RITUAL, a performance platform curated by Joseph Morgan Schofield and Thomas Yeomans "for radical queer artists + audiences interested in ritual, myth, magick + mysticism to come together, to resist marginalisation, to challenge decency, to protest, to process, to dream us forward".

Documentation by Jemima Yong.

Final image in gallery by Hava Carvajal.

First performed in December 2016 at Open School East (OSE) for Open Ended, OSE's Class of 2016's end- of-year event.

How White Are You?

Documentation from Degree Show performances in June 2014 @ Ambika P3, University of Westminster, London.

Through a parody of the game show genre, I explore questions around whiteness - a mostly invisible subject in the public sphere, but one which is slowly gaining attention. I wish to bring to light the ways in which the concept of "whiteness", more than merely a skin colour, has taken over the world as an ideal way of being for everyone to follow.