Film Bidoun UbuWeb

Reza Abdoh (1963-1995) Sleeping with the Devil (1990) The Hip-Hop Waltz of Eurydice (1990) Bogeyman (1991) Daddy's Girl (1991) The Weeping Song (1991) The Law of Remains (1992) Tight Right White (1993) Reza Abdoh was an Iranian-born director and playwright known for his large-scale, experimental theatrical productions that utilized multimedia elements and violent sexual imagery. Artaud's "Theater of Cruelty" is often evoked in writing about his work. Abdoh was born in Teheran in 1963. At the age of 12, he moved to England. At 17 to Los Angeles where he directed numerous plays, including Three Plays by Howard Brenton (1983), Shakespeare’s King Lear (1985), The Farmyard by Franz Xavier Kroetz (1985), The Sound of a Voice and As the Crow Flies by David Henry Hwang (1985). By 1986 he began to create his own works such as A Medea: Requiem for a Boy with a White Toy and Rusty Sat on a Hill One Dawn and Watched the Moon Go Down, both produced in Los Angeles. It was also at this time he created the first in a body of videos: My Face and Oh Thello Sit Still. In 1990 Abdoh founded Dar a Luz, a tribelike theater group based in New York and Los Angeles. Between 1990 and 1994, the company devised four original productions : "The Hip-Hop Waltz of Eurydice" (1990), "Bogeyman" (1991), "The Law of Remains" (1992) and "Quotations From a Ruined City" (1993). Reza Abdoh died of AIDS on May 11, 1995 in New York City at the age of 32. In 1996, he was posthumously awarded a “Bessie” Choreographer and Creator Award for Sustained Achievement. RELATED RESOURCES: This UbuWeb resource is presented in partnership with Bidoun Magazine Bidoun Website