Artist Bios

elika mojtabaei
Lead Artist 

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). www.elikamoj.com

Aryo Khakpour
Director

Aryo Khakpour is an interdisciplinary performer, director and dramaturg. Born and raised in Tehran, Aryo has been involved in multiple theatre, dance, and film productions in Vancouver, Canada, on the unceded stolen traditional territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations since 2006. He co-founded The Biting School in 2013 and was company-in-residence at the PuSh Festival and The Dance Centre from 2018-2019. In his practice he explores dynamics of power, implications of ideologies, repetition of mythologies, and cultural adaptation. An intersectional feminist, Aryo interrogates the patriarchy and its harmful effects on people. His practice is heavily physical and surrealistic; it moves from theatre to performance art to dance to film and back to theatre. Aryo is the recipient of the 2024 Theatre Replacement Accelerator Lab Fellowship, which focuses on international touring within the context of experimental theatre and interdisciplinary performance, and building relations with the international arts network.

Ellis Cheadle
Dramaturge

ellis cheadle is a theatre-maker living and working on the stolen territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh nations. She is drawn to slow, collaborative creation processes, and is increasingly dedicated to generating malleable theatrical set-lists that can responsively adapt to requirements of scale, duration, location, and collaborator skill-sets/curiosities.  She values playfulness, and strives to make theatre that invites the audience into a shared game of finding links between seemingly incongruous images, texts, themes, and materials. Recent works have been presented at Here For Now Vol.4, Exquisite Pressure, Hold On Let Go, Schaubude Berlin, and PuSh Performing Arts Festival. She is currently participating in Playwright Theatre Centre's Block D cohort working on her dramaturgical skills.

Panthea Vatandoost
Performer 

Panthea Vatandoost is an Iranian actor, director, and creator. She is the founder and Managing Artistic Director of Medusa Theatre Society, a non-profit dedicated to works that engage with the immigrant and refugee community, with a focus on MENAT voices.

Recent credits include writing and performing ‘قرار / Date Night’ (Rumble Theatre’s Lupercalia), creating, writing, and directing ‘A Cultural Celebration - MENAT Style!’ (Medusa Theatre Society, Presented by Rumble Theatre), directing ‘Dooja Ghar [The Other House] - A Mirza Sahiban Story’ (South Asian Arts’ Monsoon Festival), a leading role in Echoes From Far Away Cities (Blackout Arts Society), and directing ‘Parifam’ (Medusa Theatre Society & Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre, Presented at The Cultch).

Tanaz Roudgar
Performer 

Tanaz is a queer Iranian actor, writer, filmmaker with professional training from Vancouver Film School, SFU and other amazing mentors. Her creations manifest as movement art, poetry, screenwriting, and playwriting. She is based in Vancouver BC, stolen lands of Coast salish peoples. She is commited to build a relationship with and honor and uplift the voices of the lands and coast salish peoples as a direct response to colonialism. Her work is centered around somatic awareness, activism, and play. She is committed to bringing her diverse experience as a queer BIPOC immigrant to the process, dismantling systems of oppression like a warrior goddess.

About rice & beans theatre

rice & beans theatre is a Vancouver-based theatre company founded in 2010 by Pedro Chamale and Derek Chan. We provide a platform for the creation, development and production of boundary-pushing theatre by artists of colour or otherwise marginalized theatre-makers, as well as support to fellow artists by providing dramaturgy, direction, and mentorship. We are dedicated to facilitating original Canadian work that is accessible, honest, uncompromising and personal. In addition to Vancouver, we have also produced original work for audiences in Toronto, Richmond, Nanaimo and Victoria. In 2018, rice & beans was nominated for a Dora Award for its production of 食盡天下/A Taste of Empire with Cahoots Theatre in Toronto. In 2019, its production of Chicken Girl was nominated for 3 Jessies in Vancouver and in 2022, its production of Yellow Objects won a Jessie Innovation Award.

The rice & beans team

Interim Artistic Director: Anjela Magpantay

Artistic Director: Pedro Chamale

General Manager: Heather Barr

Communications Manager: Karla Comanda

Want to support more great theatre like this? Go to www.riceandbeanstheatre.com/donate to donate today. 

We acknowledge that our work takes place on the unceded and traditional territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.