Alireza Keymanesh

Artist

Alireza Keymanesh is a choreographer, somatic practitioner, actor, filmmaker, and educator based in Toronto, with over 15 years of experience in creative teaching across contemporary dance, theatre, and body–mind practices. He holds an MFA in Film from York University in Canada and a BA in Acting from Tehran University of Art. In 2013, he undertook a year-long practical dance theatre research project as a guest at ArtEZ University of the Arts in the Netherlands.

His work has been presented at various international festivals and has received awards for both filmmaking and acting. His artistic practice explores themes of identity and resistance, often questioning social and artistic norms.

Alireza has a physio-philosophical approach to dance and the human body, while imagination and memory are central to his practice. Having studied with Eva Karczag, he introduced and developed the Ideokinesis method—a creative approach to body–mind alignment—in Iran through numerous workshops and lectures, as well as by translating the book Ideokinesis by André Bernard, Wolfgang Steinmüller, and Ursula Stricker into Persian.

In 2021, Alireza left Iran in response to censorship, human rights violations, a lack of freedom of speech, radical Islamist policies, and dictatorship.