Roshanak is an Iranian-born Canadian choreographer, director and producer with a career that spans over 20 years. She is also a Dora nominated artist and the founding Artistic Director of Jaberi Dance Theatre based in Toronto. Her practice is rooted in the principles of research, collaboration, and intersectionality. As a multi-hyphenate artist, she experiments with a wide range of mediums to express her ideas, working at the interface of performance, politics, people and places. Her ongoing artistic research focuses on refugee and migrant issues; experiences of war and displacement; gender based violence; political prisoners; memory and the relationship between architecture and performance. Described as “a force to reckon with,” she has presented her work in Canada and abroad, performed in numerous dance works, and created/co-created over 30 works in dance, visual arts, film and music. She is the recipient of the ISPA-International Society of Performing Arts Global Fellowship (2020, 2021) and the Chalmers Arts Fellowship (2019), and holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts with honours from York University. Roshanak has been a guest speaker and lecturer, and her work has been referenced in adult education courses and in critical pedagogy at the University of Toronto.
