Born in Denver, Colorado, to an Iranian father and American mother, I spent most of my childhood in the southern part of the United States. In school, raising a hand to declare the family name, Sardashti, evoked an invisible mark of displacement. However, participating in theatre offered community. In this space, a person’s ability to create movement and play with words held more significance than the origin of a name.

Performing opens a life-long pathway of creating socially engaged projects that challenge, disrupt, and counteract systems normalizing racist, ableist, transphobic, homophobic, and other patriarchal practices. Being onstage or offstage, in nature or on the street, inside the university or not, my politics, personal life, and practice-as-research are integrated. Here, being at home is the feeling of rootedness that emerges within relationships between people. In each project, interdependent modes of thinking and inclusive forms of communicating evolve between languages, histories, and identities.

My body of work, Home Soil Projects, encompasses more than 30 projects that have fostered connections between people across perceived categories of ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, citizenship status, and ability. Over the last 18 years, I have partnered with academic, arts, and peacebuilding organizations, impacting over 500 collaborators in seven countries.

I earned an MA in Performance & Creative Research from the University of Roehampton, an MS in Conflict Management & Resolution from the University of San Diego, and a PhD from The European Graduate School in Philosophy, Art, & Social Thought.