Dance Dance Revolution: Oslo
Afrang Nordlöf Malekian
UKS is proud to announce our first large-scale institutional commission of social practice in collaboration with KORO (Public Art Norway). Dance Dance Revolution: Oslo is the first Norwegian commission by Iranian-Swedish artist Afrang Nordlöf Malekian (b. 1995, Sweden). The research based participatory performance traces the network of Iranian home parties in Oslo – informal social meetings known as mehmani. These gatherings, featuring gender-fluid dance tracing back to 18th-century Qajar-era Iran, unfold a life-affirming political resistance to and critique of the Iranian regime and other imperial powers. Following the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which banned dance music, the soundtracks for mehmani were mainly produced by Iranians in exile. Throughout 2026, Nordlöf Malekian will engage with Iranian social dance, music and food practices in Oslo that shape these migratory home parties across generations. The participatory research process will culminate in collective choreographic scores through video games, interactive sculptures and screenings. Drawing on the decorative, hyper-commercial and kitschy aesthetics of mehmani, the scores reorient prohibitive nationalist traditions through speculative forms of world-making. Dance Dance Revolution: Oslo is an invitation to think through what has come to be defined as ‘political’ or ‘progressive’ through play and performance.
