Javaad Alipoor (born September 1984) is a British-Iranian theatre-maker and writer from

Bradford Bradford is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Bradford district in West Yorkshire, England. The city is in the Pennines' eastern foothills on the banks of the Bradford Beck. Bradford had a population of 349,561 at the 2011 ...

. His work explores the interactions between technology and society, inviting audiences to engage with the kinds of technologies which shape how knowledge is created, shared and contested.

Early life

Alipoor was born to an Iranian Shia Muslim father who fled the Shah regime and an English Catholic working class mother and grew up on a council estate in

. Alipoor studied Regeneration Project Management at

University of Bradford The University of Bradford is a Public university, public research university located in the city of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. A plate glass university, it received its royal charter in 1966, making it the 40th university to be creat ...

and is a member of University Court there. He then pursued a Masters; his thesis was about psychoanalysis and

Sufism Sufism ( ar, ''aṣ-ṣūfiyya''), also known as Tasawwuf ( ''at-taṣawwuf''), is a mystic body of religious practice, found mainly within Sunni Islam but also within Shia Islam, which is characterized by a focus on Islamic spirituality, r ...

Career

Alipoor has worked as a social worker and as resident associate director at

Sheffield theatres Sheffield Theatres is a theatre complex in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. It comprises three theatres: the Crucible, the Lyceum and the Tanya Moiseiwitsch Playhouse. These theatres make up the largest regional theatre complex outside the ...

and creative projects manager at Royal & Derngate theatre. His eponymous theatre company was established in 2017. Alipoor has won two

Scotsman The Scots ( sco, Scots Fowk; gd, Albannaich) are an ethnic group and nation native to Scotland. Historically, they emerged in the early Middle Ages from an amalgamation of two Celtic-speaking peoples, the Picts and Gaels, who founded t ...

Fringe First Awards (For 'Believers are But Brothers' 2017 and 'Rich Kids: A history of Shopping Malls in Tehran' 2019) and has been hosted at The

Traverse Theatre The Traverse Theatre is a theatre in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was founded in 1963 by John Calder, John Malcolm, Jim Haynes and Richard Demarco. The Traverse Theatre company commissions and develops new plays or adaptations from contemporary pla ...

during the

Edinburgh Festivals __NOTOC__ This is a list of arts and cultural festivals regularly taking place in Edinburgh, Scotland. The city has become known for its festivals since the establishment in 1947 of the Edinburgh International Festival and the Edinburgh F ...

Writing

'The Believers Are But Brothers' takes its title from a quote in the

Qur’an The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation from God. It is organized in 114 chapters (pl.: , sing.: ...

and concerns online radicalisation and how young disaffected men access

Islamic State An Islamic state is a State (polity), state that has a form of government based on sharia, Islamic law (sharia). As a term, it has been used to describe various historical Polity, polities and theories of governance in the Islamic world. As a t ...

propaganda sites and

4Chan 4chan is an anonymous English-language imageboard website. Launched by Christopher "moot" Poole in October 2003, the site hosts boards dedicated to a wide variety of topics, from anime and manga to video games, cooking, weapons, television, ...

In 'Rich Kids: A History of Shopping Malls in Tehran' Alipoor performs with Peyvand Sadeghian using

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

and

Instagram Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...

to tell stories of how Iran's young, wealthy elite live extravagant lifestyles on social media. Alipoor's play 'Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World' (not to be confused with Girard's ''

Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World ''Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World'' (french: Des choses cachées depuis la fondation du monde) is a 1978 book by the French critic René Girard; it presents a dialogue between Girard and the psychiatrists Jean-Michel Oughourlian ...

''') explores the story of Iranian singer

Fereydoun Farrokhzad Fereydoun Farrokhzad ( fa, فریدون فرخزاد; October 7, 1938 – August 3, 1992) was an Iranian showman, host, poet, actor, political activist, singer, humanitarian, and writer. He is best known for his television variety show ''The Silv ...

and together with Chris Thorpe, Me-Lee Hay and Raam Emami (

King Raam Ramin Seyed-Emami ( fa, رامین سیدامامی; born in Bushehr, Iran in 1981), better known by his stage name King Raam ( fa, کینگ رام), is an Iranian-born musician and singer and a resident of Vancouver, Canada. Currently, he resides ...

)) comments on the way the internet shapes knowledge and research and how colonial structures are reproduced and perpetuated online, particularly in the multiple language versions of Wikipedia. Alipoor encourages his audience to browse

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...

and follow links down a

wiki rabbit hole The wiki rabbit hole (or wiki black hole,) is the learning pathway which a reader travels by navigating from topic to topic while browsing Wikipedia and other wikis. The metaphor of a rabbit hole comes from Lewis Carroll's 1865 novel ''Alice's ...

Personal life

Alipoor lives in Manchester with his wife Natalie Diddams. He speaks fluent Persian. In 2018, Alipoor said he is not religious, but does take part in local Shia cultural events.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Alipoor, Javaad Living people 1984 births Alumni of the University of Bradford English dramatists and playwrights English people of Iranian descent Writers from Bradford]