Baba Joon (2023): Movement Director

“First time I spoke to someone in Swanseas, I thought they
were singing to me.”
From sitting in her Baba’s Merc after school, prayer beads dangling and Julio Iglesias playing too loud on the radio, to Iranian breads and pickles in a Cardiff flat smelling of rose water, a Swansea-born daughter longs to visit her father’s country. Will that freedom ever come?
Incorporating witty and poetic spoken word, physical movement and a soundtrack that fuses 90’s dance and traditional Iranian music, Baba Joon (Father Dear) is an evocative portrayal of one man’s experiences of arriving in Wales from Iran in the 1970s and his daughter's navigation through the joys and complexities of being from a mixed heritage family living in South Wales.
Where are we from? Where do we belong? Where’s home?

Writer/Performer: Lisa Zahra
Director: Izzy Rabey
Production/Stage Manager: Philippa Mannion
Movement Director: Gemma Prangle
Set/Costume Designer: Cara Evans
Sound Designers/Composers: Roshi Nasehi & Emma Daman Thomas
Lighting Designer: Grace Priest
Assistant Director: Nadia Nur
Community Liaison Consultant: Shadan Roghani
Assistant Stage Manager: Amy Ashwell
Producer: Jafar Iqbal

THE OTHER ROOM
Dan Jones (Artistic Director)
Samantha Alice Jones (Community Director)
Alice Baynham (Head of Audiences)

GRAND AMBITION
Richard Mylan
Michelle McTernan
Steve Balsamo
Christian Patterson

Photos: Kirsten McTernan