Schedule

Day 1. Wednesday, 28 October 2026

08:30-09:40 Registration Institute of Ismaili Studies

If you wish to participate in person or on-line, please visit the following link.

09:40-10:00 Welcome and Opening Remarks 

Prof. Zayn Kassam, Prof. Anthony Shay, Dr. Hakim Elnazarov 

10:00- 11:00  Keynote Address

Chair: William Hoffmann

Prof. Tala Jarjour  

Visiting Research Fellow  King's College London

11:00-11:30  Health Break

11:30 - 13:00  Panel 1. Rhythmic non-Dance Movement in Spiritual Contexts

Chair: Riaz Rhemtulla

When Patterned Movement is Not Dance: The Alevi Semah as Non-Dance, Devotion, and Commemoration

Sinibaldo De Rosa

Veiled Sensualities: The Aesthetics of Concealment, Desire, and Sacred Movement in Moroccan Sufi Performance 

Suchismita Ghoshal

Layered Devotions: Sound, Movement, and the Transformation of Ritual Practices in Yazd

Narciss Sohrabi

13:00 – 14:00 - Lunch

14:00 – 15:30  Panel 2. Movement, Mourning and Spiritual Experience

Chair: Daryush Mohammad Poor

The Funeral Dance Poyamal and its Spiritual Meanings among the People of the Pamir Mountains

Hakim Elnazarov 

Dancing Through Loss: Mourning, Memory, and Resistance in Contemporary Iran

Maryam Rezaee

The Body Remembers First: Sound, Movement, and Lived Spirituality in Contemporary Iran

Banafshe Amiri

15:30 – 16:00 Health Break

16:00-17:30  Panel 3. States of Transformation in Classical and Contemporary Performance Traditions

Chair: Maria Faidi 

Hal, Improvisation and the Spiritual Conceptualization of Time

Shahrzad Khorsandi

Staging Spirituality, Innocent Sexualities, and Glorious Histories: Choreographic Strategies of State Folk Dance Ensembles to Create Idealised National Identities

Anthony Shay

From the Elite to the People: The Choreographic Evolution of Meshkatian and Shajarian’s Masterpieces in Post-Revolutionary Iran

Daryoush Mohammad Poor

18:00-20:00 Opening of exhibition 

Performing Arts of Central Asia

Music, Dance and Cultural Expressions of Central Asia

(Only by invitation, for further information, please, contact the Institute of Ismaili Studies)

Day 2. Thursday, 29 October 2026

9:30 – 11:00 Panel 4. Performance Culture and Theatrical Arts

Chair: Shaharzad Khorsandi

From Zawya to Stage. The Performance of Devotion in Egypt

Walid Ghali 

The Emergence of “New Dance” in Iran:
from underrating of “Old” Dance and Movement Forms to borrowing from them

Afshin Derakh'shesh

Sacralising the Stage: Spirituality and Respectability in Belly Dance

Suhaila Salimpour

11:00-11:30 Health Break

11:30- 13:00  Panel 5.  Transmission of Knowledge about Performance Traditions 

Chair: Sinibaldo de Rosa

The Performing Arts and the Education about Muslims: A Case Study of “kathak dance”/Storytelling and the Body as a Place of Knowledge Creation, Understanding, and the Engagement with Audiences

Riaz Rhemtulla

A Step Towards Contextualisation of the IIS-SC: Integrating Performative Central Asian Qasida-khani Tradition into Teaching Learning Practices in The Region

Sayed Munir Shah

Living the Qasīda: Music, Faith, and Everyday Devotion in Wakhan, Tajikistan

Chorshanbe Goibnazarov

13:00-14:00 Lunch

14:00-15:30 Panel 6. Staging the Spiritual and Golden Eras in Egypt

Chair: Walid Ghali

 “O Honoured and Esteemed Isis”: Imagining Ancient Spectacle for Egypt’s Modern State 

Roberta L. Dougherty 

Stars, Dreams and Djinns in Egyptian Golden Age Cinema (1940s–1960s

Maria Faidi 

From Samia Gamal to Farida Fahmy: Dance and National Representation in Nasser’s Egypt 

Naiara Müssnich Rotta Gomes de Assunção 

15:30-16:00 Health Break

16:00-17:30 Panel 7. Traditional Performance and Musical Transformation

Chair: Hakim Elnazarov

Breaking the Silence: Women, Religion, and Musical Transformation in Hunza Valley

Qudsia Naunehal Shah

The ‘Mongol Play’ (Mughul-bozi): A Traditional Musical of Wakhan

Abdulmamad Iloliev

Raqs-i Aspak (Horse Dance)

Maruf Noyoft / Aliah Najmabadi

20:00-22:00 Musical Event at The Ismaili Centre 

The Ismaili Centre, London

7 Cromwell Gardens, London SW7 2SL

Day 3. Friday, 30 October 2026

09:30- 11:00 Panel 8. Devotional Music and Dance, and Sacrality of Space 

Chair: Roberta L. Dougherty

When Movement Becomes Divine: Music, the Body, and Devotion in the Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ and the Chishtiyya Sufi Order

Nida Fatima Sheikh

Dhamaal – Rhythmic Dhikr at the Shrine of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar

Shafaat Saleem 

Sounding Lineage: Qawwali, Sama, and the Ritual Assemblage of Devotional Sound

Wajiha Naqvi

11:00-11:30 Health Break

11:30-13:00 Panel 9. Comparative Perspectives in Dance and Music Studies

Chair: Anthony Shay

Ethnochoreohistory: A Critical Reframing

Idris Ersan KÜÇÜK 

The Relationship between African Sufism and Candomblé through Dance

Carolina Grandela Tortuero

To ‘Move like Water’: Narrating the Past and Performing the Future through Malay Muslim Zapin Dance

Katia Chaterji

13:00 – 14:00 Lunch

14:00 – 15:30  Panel 10. Publishing Roundtable

Eileen Srebernik, Roberta L. Dougherty, Anthony Shay

The publishing roundtable includes a writer/scholar, a librarian from a major university (Yale), and an editor from a scholarly press. They will present the process through which a scholarly book is published and provide advice for scholars about how to approach the publishing of a scholarly book. This roundtable is designed especially for new scholars to begin the publishing process. 

15:30-16:00

Closing remarks

Please do check this section regularly for further information.