Styled heading

Reimagining Royalty
The Book of Kings in the 21st Century

See more from: Free Activities Nowruz Festival

image of speaker Arsalan Akhavan and of a 17th century illustration of a story in Shanameh
Overview
Speakers

In this free talk for our Nowruz Festival, hear how contemporary artists and storytellers, Arsalan Akhavan and Nazli Tabatabai-Khatambakhsh, are reconceptualising the Iranian epic Shahnameh for contemporary audiences.

Shanameh, or the Book of Kings, is an epic poem recounting the history of ancient Persia, completed at the start of the 11th century by one of the greatest Persian poets of all time, Ferdowsi. Considered the national epic of Iran and one of the most important Persian texts, Shanameh is made up of more than 50,000 beautifully composed couplets recounting the heroes, quests and mythical creatures central to Persian culture.

First, join Hollywood producer and cultural storyteller Arsalan Akhavan on a personal journey of discovering the Persian Book of Kings and reimagining its epic stories for a new generation through digital media.

Next, multi-award-winning artist and scholar Nazli Tabatabai-Khatambakhsh will talk about her project The Book of Queens, a song cycle written about the queens found in the Book of Kings.

The talk will conclude with a Q&A with Arsalan and Nazli.

Speakers

Arsalan Akhavan

After learning of his family’s unique connection to a masterpiece edition of the Shahnameh, Arsalan’s life changed forever. He traded sunny California for rainy Britain to launch Rug Entertainment, a multimedia company dedicated to making Persian stories both accessible and engaging for English-speaking audiences. Arsalan’s roots in entertainment trace back to the 1950s, when his grandfather, Mostafa Akhavan, founded Cinema Moulin Rouge, Iran’s first major film studio bridging Hollywood, Cannes, and Tehran. Arslan’s recent projects include Healing History, an immersive art history exhibition; The Good Iranian, a one-man show performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe (dir. Sepy Baghaei); Shahnameh Quest, a storytelling podcast; and Billion Dollar Masterpiece, a documentary short about the Shahnameh of Shah Tahmasb. He previously served as Director of Scripted TV Development at Lesli Linka Glatter’s Backyard Pictures with Universal Television and worked in the TV Packaging department at Creative Artists Agency (CAA). Arsalan has also spoken on the Shahnameh at Cambridge University and the House of Lords. He holds a BFA in Drama from NYU Tisch School of the Arts.

For more information about Arsalan, please visit the Rug Entertainment website.



Nazli Tabatabai-Khatambakhsh 

Nazli Tabatabai-Khatambakhsh (she/او) is a multi-award-winning artist and scholar, currently Professor of Dramatic Writing and Associate Artist (Guildhall School of Music & Drama), Associate Director (Sanctuary Queer Arts), and Associate Artist (Oxford School of Drama). She is an Arts Council England grad fellow of the New York-based International Society for the Performing Arts, of which she is also a member of the Governance Committee. Their performance portfolio spans opera, theatre, dance, circus and includes experimental page and performance poetry; she also has a portfolio in equitable collaborative practice that includes leadership, coaching and mentoring, policy and strategy. 

For more information about Nazli, you can check out her Instagram and Twitter profiles.