Prison Episodes

Prison Episodes is an interdisciplinary performance by composer and theatre artist Pouya Pour-Amin, developed from his 2019 album of the same name. Bringing together music, dance, theatre, and digital art, the work explores the physical and psychological realities of political imprisonment and the ways memory, fear, resistance, hope, and survival coexist within confinement.

Structured as a series of episodes, the performance moves through different states and experiences of imprisonment—from waiting and isolation to interrogation, memory, violence, loss, and resistance. The original Prison Episodes album forms the musical foundation of the work, while choreography, monologues, lighting, projected digital environments, and real-time motion capture expand the music into a physical and visual narrative. The performers' movements are captured and translated into digital characters, creating a shifting relationship between the bodies on stage and virtual representations of prisoners.

On stage, choreographers and performers Anne Golberg Stavn and Jens Jeffry Trinidad inhabit a restricted physical landscape through the dance sections of the performance. These are interwoven with separate theatrical passages performed by Saba Pouyeshman, whose monologues bring another narrative and human voice into the work. Digital artist Øystein Sørum creates virtual prisoners and environments that appear alongside the performers, allowing physical and digital bodies to inhabit parallel layers of the same world.

Drawing on Pour-Amin's own experience of political imprisonment in Tehran as well as the experiences of others, Prison Episodes looks beyond one individual story. Political imprisonment exists across borders, cultures, and political systems. The work asks what happens to the body and mind when freedom is taken away, and how memory, imagination, art, and human connection can become forms of resistance.

Rather than attempting to reproduce prison literally, Prison Episodes creates a fragmented landscape of confinement and remembrance. It considers art as testimony: a way of preserving experiences that systems of repression seek to silence or erase.

Prison Episodes premieres 10 and 11 October 2026 at Bærum Kulturhus as part of CODA Oslo International Dance Festival.

Music, script & direction: Pouya Pour-Amin
Choreography & performance: Anne Golberg Stavn, Jens Jeffry Trinidad
Actor: Saba Pouyeshman
Digital artist: Øystein Sørum
Lighting design: Benjamin Fjellman
Photography & graphic design: Aliona Pazdniakova
Lead producer: Safemuse
Co-production: Bærum Kulturhus / Dans Sørøst-Norge, CODA Oslo International Dance Festival, Dansens Hus
Supported by: Kulturrådet