Short Bio:

THE FANTASTIC MAZ JOBRANI INTRODUCES ME TO PERFORM MY LATEST PIECE “THESE HANDS” ON JULY 25TH 2009 AT UNITED4IRAN GLOBAL DAY OF SOLIDARITY -UCLA IN FRONT OF THOUSANDS: 

Cklara Moradian was born in Iranian Kurdistan (Eastern Kurdistan) on May 1987. She marks this year as the year before the largest bio-chemical attacks in the history of mankind that terrorized her Kurdish people in Halabja and surrounding areas. Conceived and raised by incredible political activists and inspirational artists, she spent the first eight years of her childhood in Iran. Though her environment was brutal, she was protected by her family’s love and the richness of her Kurdish/Iranian culture as well as her families activism in the leftist Iranian progressive movements. Her parent’s prison memoirs, revolutionary childhood, and the stories of the countless prisoner’s of conscious who were much like her “aunts” and “uncles” were her bedtime stories. The years between nine and thirteen can neither be summarized nor ignored. Cklara and her family fled Iran and sought asylum from UNHCR in the former soviet satellite regions. The stories of these years are the realities of thousands of other displaced refugees around the world. Though they are full of madness and at times unbelievable tales of human atrocity, Cklara remembers travel, new languages, and a world of experience, human connections, and adventures. Cklara has lived in California since the age of thirteen and has done her best to grow from a teenager into an adult woman. These years have been years of healing and reconciliation and of solidifying her much battered identity. She has also used this time to formulating her vision for a better world. She is currently in her senior year of undergraduate studies in Philosophy and undertaking the monstrous task of either applying for Law school or a graduate degree in philosophy. She boldly claims that to write is not just her passion, but a necessity, as much needed for her survival as the air she breathes and the food she consumes. She is an activist for human rights, specifically Kurdish women and youth rights, and LGBTQQ rights. She remains deeply involved in Iranian politics as well. She takes her membership with Amnesty International very seriously and collaborates closely with other NGOs to bring awareness towards progressive movements. She uses spoken word, poetry and art to break through to her generations’ epidemic of apathy and cynicism.