Without Fear Indie Movie
Producer and Director: Roozbeh Kalbasi
Film Composer: Shooka Afshar
Video Link Release TBD
The private link will be given by request.
Women/Immigration/Fight or Flight Opera
A Mixed Media Opera by Shooka Afshar
Composer, Director, Lyricist & Soprano.
Premiered & Performed Online and in Person at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston 2021-2023
Performed at El Nido Art Space, Los Angeles 2021-2022
Shooka Afshar composed a three-act dramatic work exploring women's rights, immigration, social expectations, and empowerment through original music, theater, movement, and visual storytelling, in collaboration with the Safarani Sisters - Visual Artists.
The Seeking
Film Composer, Band Leader & Soprano: Shooka Afshar
Film Producers: Safarani Sisters
· Interdisciplinary Music Composition & Performance, 2019
Iranian American Women Foundation, Harvard Club of Boston.
Shooka composed the music for this film through leading a band of 7 with the use of graphic scoring, controlled improvisation techniques and energy diagrams.
The Manipulation Project
Mixed Media Dramatic Performance - Artist in Residency: Casa Regis, Biella Province, Italy July 2022
Nowrooz Stayed Untouched Operatic Song Cycle
Shooka Afshar Composer, Director, Choreographer & Soprano
Lyrics from Ferdowsi's Shahnaame (Epic of the Kings)
Nowrooz Stayed Untouched is a Mixed-Media Classical / Persian Song Cycle, 2019-2025
This song cycle shows how our Persian New Year's Celebration, which entails all of our beautiful culture, has fortunately, miraculously, somehow, remained pure of any of the religious or invasion influences, and that it is the most beautiful representation of the half lost Great Persian culture!
Shooka has composed a six-song production integrating original music, animation, theatrical movement, and visual storytelling, portraying the glorious days of ancient Persia and its decline into modern-day Iran, in collaboration with Xia Leilei and Xinsi Zhang (animation artists), and Joss Liao (dancer) from Rhode Island School of Design. She has portrayed in each of the songs; the corruption of our own kings to the Arabs and the Mongols invasion, to where it is now, the modern day Iran.
Premiered at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 2019
The 5th song has been performed at the Farhang Foundation, Los Angles, 2022 & 2025 Online.
1st Song: Achaemenids
This song is about the golden era of the Achaemenids Empire; the times of The Cyrus The Great.
2nd Song: Deterioration
This song portrays the deterioration of the golden times of the Achaemenid Empire, years after the death of Cyrus the Great.
3rd Song: Wars!
This song portrays the ultimate decline of the Great Persian Empire and the culture after the Arabs and the Mongol's invasion.
4th Song: The End of an Era
This song portrays the heartbreaking tragedy of the fall of the Women's Rights in Iran; From the highest position women had in the golden times of the Achaemenid's Empire, where a man was legally obliged to get the consent of women to be with them, to the lowest point in the Qajar Dynasty, where women became the property of men, undergoing several abuses!
5th Song: Ferdowsi
This song pays tribute to the greatness of Ferdowsi, the legendary Persian poet and author of the Shahnameh (The Epic of Kings), from which I chose the lyrics for this song cycle.
Without Ferdowsi, the Farsi language we speak today would have been lost forever! His Shahnameh is far more than mythology. It is a magnificent masterpiece preserving the history, wisdom, and cultural identity of ancient Persia.
What makes Ferdowsi extraordinary is his remarkable wisdom. I believe he ingeniously embedded hidden codes and messages within his poetry, revealing truths about Iran's history while protecting himself from rulers who might have ordered his execution for exposing them.
The true magic of Ferdowsi lies in the extraordinary scope of his work. Through the Shahnameh, he recounts the history of mankind in ancient Iran, reaching back into a distant past of perhaps 100,000 years, and continuing through the ages to his own lifetime. His poetry is not simply a collection of stories, but an extraordinary testament to the ancient history, knowledge, and civilization of the Iranian people.
6th Song: Nowrooz Stayed Untouched
This song shows how our Persian New Year's Celebration, which entails all of our beautiful culture, has fortunately, miraculously, somehow, remained pure of any of the religious or invasion influences. Nowrooz (Persian New Year) it is the most beautiful representation of the half lost Great Persian culture!
Childhood Song Cycle
Composer & Lyricist: Shooka Afshar
Stage Art & Dramatic Act : Safarani Sisters
IMPORTANT NOTE: All of the professional recordings of the songs in this song cycle are unfortunately deleted in a hard drive erase accident. These tracks are home recorded for rehearsal purposes.
Note on the composition: This is not a conventional composition. I have used a-vanguard and sudden key and mode changes, as a part of the non-traditional music i write intentionally, especially in the last song: Pain.
This song cycle is about my childhood in Tehran. It portrays the beauty and nostalgia of those precious years, when our grandmother would bring us treats, tea, and cookies in the courtyard, and we would gather around her, enjoying the simple pleasures of life, free from the modern distractions that surround us today.
Alongside these cherished memories, the song cycle also explores the hardships of growing up within Iran's school system during the 1990s. It reflects on the innocence we carried as children and how, as we grew older, the endless dos and don'ts imposed by adults gradually shaped our identities and the people we eventually became in adulthood.