A-Alavi Shows are semi-improvised storytelling performances, which combine different elements from theater, music, and storytelling traditions.
The idea is to create unique experiences which will bring smiles upon your face.
Each show is designed as a unique experience with respect to the location, audience and often involves guest performers.
Each year, we pick a theme to explore. In 2025, the theme is:
"Wait and See".
As we are all waiting for something, being Godot, a good news, better times ...
Born in 1966 in Tehran, Iran, based in Basel, Switzerland, Amin Alavi is a Danish writer/performer. If you ask him, he would say that he is a storyteller who likes to experiment, improvise, interact with his audiences and confuse them. He likes to establish a parallel reality, where the viewers/readers can enter, be part of it and be entertained on a higher plan. In order to do so, he often works with meta-stories – stories about stories. Amin calls his performances for shows. And they are dedicated to A-Alavi, whom he met one sunny afternoon in a beach-bar.
According to Amin, a show must trigger all senses, from listening to feeling. Thus A-Alavi Shows often use theatrical elements combined with music and text and even food.
Storytelling
"All stories are true, and if they are not, they are not stories." We do have a weakness for stories about stories though and we like to play with and to stories.
And we like to involve our audiences in being part of the process as well. For whose stories are they anyways?
Performing
We perform open-structured storytelling shows (with or without music) at bars, venues, festivals and private gatherings. See the list of our stories here.
We often work with artists from different backgrounds.
Amin believes that it doesn’t really matter, if you understand
the text or if you listen to the music or just look at the action'
on the stage. At the end of the day, they are all interchangeable
and you get a story that you are involved in making.
The shows are 40% fixed and 60% improvised and the music
spans from free improve to experimental pop. He has established a group of professional musicians, from jazz to classic to pop and rock, whom he often works with (See Partners in Crime).
We have been accused of
"Captain Beefheart, Tom Waits and Gil Scott-Heron met some other crazy people once and they began to get funky."
"Meta-stories as they were not told before."
"The best shows I have seen in a long time -
including my own shows."
"I had no idea boredom could be so exciting. I lost the track of time."
"That was quite a show, you put up there."
"Can we do it once a week?"
Curious?
"The best shows I have seen in a long time, including my own"
JD
"Wow, this is a world class, high level entertainment"
BG
