Danse de fumée by Aliyeh Ataei performed at "La Nuit" festival

Paris des Femmes, in collaboration with La Pépinière Théâtre, presented "La Nuit," a festival featuring nine short plays revolving around the theme of the night (Jan 11–13). On opening night, Aliyeh Ataei’s piece Danse de fumée featured alongside two other works.

In Danse de fumée, Ataei paints a poignant picture of a village on the Iran-Afghanistan border where a singer named Golshah finds love and refuge; but this fleeting sense of peace is broken when the Taliban tracks her down. Is anywhere safe for a woman in flight? This monologue interrogates the specific dangers faced by displaced women.

On April 29, Danse de fumée will be performed again at Reid Hall. Sign up for our newsletter to be notified when registration opens.

For the past 12 years, Paris des Femmes had championed the creation of short plays by women, exploring a common theme. Their programming, dedicated to promoting women in theater, strives to address the gender disparity persisting in cultural life. La Pépinière Théâtre, the venue for the 2024 “La Nuit” festival, played a crucial role in providing a platform for diverse voices. 

The nine texts were adapted for the stage by Benjamin Guillard, Salomé Lelouch, and Aurélie Saada, entering into Paris des Femmes’ a catalog of over a hundred short plays written by women. They have been edited into a book, published by L’avant-scène Theatre. Ataei’s text appears alongside those of contemporary authors Claire Chazal, Adeline Dieudonné, Joffrine Donnadieu, Eva Ionesco, Maria Larrea, Chloé Mons, Aurélie Saada et Colombe Schneck, with a preface by Axelle Jah Njiké. Find a copy here.

Born in 1982, Aliyeh Ataei is an award-winning Iranian-Afghan writer and poet with five published books. Her latest work, La frontière des oubliés, garnered significant attention in France upon its translation by Gallimard in 2023. She is the 2023–24 artist-in-residence of the Reid Hall Displaced Artist Initiatives, co-sponsored by Columbia Global Centers | Paris and the Institute for Ideas and Imagination. The Displaced Artist Initiatives are designed to support artists who have had to leave their countries of origin due to extreme circumstances (war, natural disaster, political oppression).