Events › rice & beans theatre presents: Draw Me a Home

Join us for a workshop presentation of a new multilingual work by elika mojtabaei.

Her new work, Draw Me a Home, is a poetic retelling of memories of a war, surrealist stories of lives lived elsewhere, and a peeling away of the dust blanketing a shared history. Based on interviews with people who experienced the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988) as children, the piece explores themes of displacement, survival, and the echoes of a fractured homeland. Through fragmented narratives swaying between English and Farsi, Draw Me a Home evokes the resilience of a people caught between the violence of history and the tenderness of personal remembrance with moments of joy buried just beneath the rubble—an invitation to witness, imagine, and feel the weight of a past that is both distant and ever-present.

This event is part of rice & beans theatre’s DBLSPK Program, which supports the development and celebration of new, multilingual work. Learn more here.

DBLSPK is funded by the Department of Canadian Heritage, Canada Council for the Arts, BC Arts Council, Province of BC and the City of Vancouver.

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elika mojtabaei الیکا مجتبایی is an Iranian-born writer, costume designer, translator, and dramaturg based on the stolen traditional territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. She is artistic associate with The Biting School; and co-founder of the No Small Feat Collective.

Her recent credits include “a film about a uterus” (co-created with Aryo Khakpour); Long Time So Long (Jin-me Yoon); Parifam (vAct / Medusa); Empty-Handed (The Biting School); Nunca há Nada | There Is Never Nothing (Luciana Freire D'Anunciação); Zahak, the Serpent King (The Biting School). elika’s creative process begins with extensive research. In her work, she examines the inequities imposed through language and apparel, informed by her experience as a first-generation immigrant femme. She is interested in surrealist gestures and the poetry of the unsaid. She approaches her multidisciplinary practice and all her interactions through an intersectional feminist lens. Upcoming project: TechniCowlour—a multidisciplinary multisensory installation and performance (vAct; Centre A January 2025).