about robert farid karimi

(short version)

Robert Farid Karimi is an interdisciplinary playwright, multimedia humorist, activist, and poet and the artistic director of kaotic good productions. His works include self (the remix), The Cooking Show con Karimi y Comrades, Shaving time, and the Approximate Value of a Foot Bubbler. Karimi has collaborated with artists such as Guillermo Gomez Peña and Laurie Carlos; performances include the Edge of The World, Reverend of the DiscoChurch, and McMuertos. His awards include a National Poetry Slam Championship, an Alliance of Artists’ Communities Midwestern Voices & Visions Award, a Verve Spoken Word Grant, NPN Creation Grant, a Kohler Arts/Industry residency.

A San Francisco Bay Area native, son of Iranian and Guatemalan parents and a UCLA graduate, Karimi’s work has been featured from Alaska to Australia. A National Poetry Slam Champion, and Def Poetry Jam performer, Karimi’s writings have been published in Callaloo, Latino Literature Today, and Total Chaos: The Art and the Aesthetics of Hip Hop by Jeff Chang. A 2009 Creative Capital grantee, he is currently developing The Cooking Show: Diabetes of Democracy, Farid Mercury, an exploration of Persian politics, masculinity and pop divination, and editing Punto!, a new Latina/o spoken word anthology.

 

Long Version

Robert Farid Karimi, an interdisciplinary artist/activist/poet, multimedia humorist whose Iranian/Guatemalan hybrid heritage serves as a point of departure for his artistic/spiritual/political reflections. His works include self (the remix), The Cooking Show con Karimi y Comrades, Shaving time, and the Approximate Value of a Foot Bubbler.

Karimi has collaborated with artists such as Guillermo Gomez Peña and Laurie Carlos; performances include the Edge of The World, Reverend of the DiscoChurch, and McMuertos. His awards include a National Poetry Slam Championship, an Alliance of Artists’ Communities Midwestern Voices & Visions Award, a Verve Spoken Word Grant, numerous NPN Creation Grants and residencies, and the first primarily performance artist to be invited to the Kohler Arts/Industry Visual Arts residency. As artistic director of Kaotic Good Productions, Karimi directs film/theater and teaches workshops about comedy, mixed race issues, performance, and cross-cultural spirituality and is a popular public speaker.

A San Francisco Bay Area native and a UCLA graduate, Karimi’s work has been featured from Alaska to Australia. Karimi’s writings have been published in Callaloo, Latino Literature Today, and Total Chaos: The Art and the Aesthetics of Hip Hop by Jeff Chang.

A 2009 Creative Capital grantee, he is currently developing new episodes of The Cooking Show dealing with diabetes in communities of color, writing a new non/fiction verse collection and working on a new show Farid Mercury, an exploration of Persian masculinity through the lens of Queen pop star Freddy Mercury.