How do we grieve a world in ecological collapse? Can practicing grief lead to a deeper sense of doi’kayt, “hereness”?
Veltroyer — Yiddish for “world grief” — is a performance ritual mourning the loss of more-than-human worlds. Drawing on Jewish and Iranian grief traditions, land practices, and contemporary performance, the work asks how we might grieve the extinction of species, ecosystems, and ways of life.
Set in a dry Persian hammam whose river has died, Veltroyer brings performers together to enact an impossible ritual for worlds that no longer exist. Through animal embodiment, tabletop theater, tableau vivant, movement, text, sound, and visual storytelling, the performers move between sorrow, rage, humor, and intimacy.
The work focuses on four specific beings and ecosystems connected to the artists’ ancestral and cultural histories: the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker, the Arabian Ostrich, the Persian Cheetah, and the Zayanderud River. Their stories reveal how environmental destruction is deeply entangled with colonialism, war, exploitation, and human systems of power.
Rather than treating extinction as an abstract global crisis, Veltroyer seeks ways to make grief intimate and embodied. It asks: How does one grieve an entire species, an entire ecosystem, an entire world? And can the practice of grieving help us build new forms of solidarity with one another and with the more-than-human world?
With and by Anna Lublina, Jerry Lieblich and Raha Dehghani Vinicheh
UPCOMING RESIDENCY:
October 22-November 2, 2026: Hellerau (Dreseden) “Fragements of LIfe and Art” Residency
Residency Sharing: October 24, 2026
PAST PERFORMANCE/RESIDENCY:
September 10-October 1, 2025: Residency supported by the Crespo Foundation and the Next Steps Program. Accompanied by Darya Voskoboynik, Yasmeen Al-Qaisi, Cecil Howell, and Shaahin Peymani
Open Studio as a part of IDTanzhaus Frankfurt Rhein-Main Residency Artist Program
June 1, 2023: 5:00pm at Die Druckerei
https://www.idtanzhausfrm.de/de/projekte/residenzen/
Mit freundlicher Unterstützung im Rahmen des Residenzprogramms von HELLERAU - Europäisches Zentrum der Künste, Dresden.
Supported by the residency program of ID_Tanzhaus Frankfurt Rhein-Main, a project of ID_Frankfurt - Independent Dance and Performance e.V.
Supported as a part of Next Steps, a program by Bureau Ritter to strengthen dance professionals in Hessen. Funded by the Crespo Foundation.
