Overview: Maryam Malmir’s MFA thesis performance, Andaruni (Within), was held at UC Riverside’s Arts Building for two nights. The contemporary dance, projected video art, and original music piece explored the meaning of inhabiting and being confined by the spaces assigned to women. The work was inspired by the andaruni, the private inner quarters of traditional Persian homes where women could move freely, away from the public male-oriented biruni. Malmir used a 19th-century photography archive of Iranian women during the Qajar dynasty to build her choreography through an interactive mathematical system shaped like the mazelike architecture of the andaruni.
Aryana Noroozi
For two nights UC Riverside’s Arts Building transformed into an immersive exploration of memory, space, and womanhood.
Andaruni (Within), the MFA thesis performance of dancer and choreographer Maryam Malmir, wove together contemporary dance, projected video art, and original music to examine what it means to inhabit – and be confined by – the spaces assigned to women.
The work takes its name from the andaruni, the private inner quarters of traditional Persian homes where women could move freely, away from the public, male-oriented biruni.
Drawing on a 19th-century photography archive of Iranian women during the Qajar dynasty, Malmir built her choreography through an interactive mathematical system shaped like the mazelike architecture of the andaruni itself – turning history into movement, and constraint into form.
