Art Beyond Borders: Edinburgh Iranian Festival 2013

The third Edinburgh Iranian Festival promises a re-examination of the culture, history and art of a much-misunderstood country

by  Bram E. Gieben, The Skinny

From 1 to 16 February, the third Edinburgh Iranian Festival comes to the capital to celebrate the history, culture, language and art of Iran. Often, the portrayal of Iran in the media focuses on the negative – Iran's policies on censorship and its political situation are the subjects most often addressed, but the rich cultural heritage of Iran, not to mention its thriving contemporary cultural life – both in Iran itself, and in the expatriate Iranian community – are often passed over.

The Edinburgh Iranian Festival seeks to redress this balance, and to expose the expat Iranian community in Scotland, and Scottish audiences, to a wide array of Iranian culture, history and art. Sara Kheradmand set up the first festival in 2008, after founding the Edinburgh University Persian Society, and the first season ran in 2009. “Doing something like this – which is about culture, about giving something back to both the Scottish and the Iranian community – is something we are all passionate about,” she says.

This year's festival is dedicatedv to the Persian poet Ferdowsi, who wrote Iran's 'national epic,' The Shahnameh. It celebrated its 1000th anniversary in 2010. “There is a long-standing tradition of people – usually men – acting out the stories from The Shahnameh. People will gather around to listen,” says Kheradmand. Xanthe Gresham will be performing an English-language version of some tales from the epic: “We've never seen anyone doing this before,” says Kheradmand. “She has taken the translations and applied her own twists.” There is also a lecture from Professor Ali Ansari about the relationship between The Shahnameh and modern Iran.

While talking about life and culture in modern Iran, both Kheradmand and her colleagues are keen to dispel some myths. Haleh Jamali, the curator of the festival's visual arts strand and a featured artist, says: “You rarely see programmes on Iran's culture or history, so we would like to focus on that.” The film strand engages directly with life in present-day Iran, and the hardships that are entailed: “Modest Reception touches upon life in villages; Orange Suits is about street-sweepers,” says Kheradmand. The films are intimate: “You get to know their lives.” The lecture programme explores contemporary life in Iran from different perspectives: “We have a lecture about tribal life in Iran with Professor Borbor – a completely different lifestyle than you would encounter in Tehran,” she says. “The photographer James McGachie's lecture is about his travels in Iran – he presents an outsider's perspective.”

The art exhibition is based around the theme of ‘borders,’ and presents work from international artists alongside contemporary work from Iran, and Iranian expats. “We were interested to see how people across cultures and nations would respond to the theme,” says Jamali. “Some are about geographical borders, some are about more abstract things – the borders between the real and unreal.” Given that the rest of the programme has a strong focus on Iranian history and culture, why does the Borders event not focus exclusively on contemporary Iranian art? “In the final selection, we have some Iranian artists, but the majority are not Iranian,” says Jamali. “Sending art from Iran can be quite difficult and expensive, so that was a factor. There are some traces in the Iranian pieces, some references to their cultural identity. But there aren't specific references to Iran. [Their work] can be seen as part of a Middle Eastern art tradition, rather than a specifically Iranian one.” 

According to Jamali, the Iranian contemporary art scene is alive and kicking: “In the past three years or so, performance and video art have become quite strong in Iran,” she says. She “can see lots of very high art coming from Iran in the future.” Perhaps at future festivals, more of this work can be exhibited. Nonetheless, this year's show still has some fantastic Iranian art on display: “There are Iranian artists living in Iran and expatriate artists in the exhibition, so it is a chance to compare their work,” Jamali says.

The festival’s music strand sees five performances from contemporary Iranian bands. “In the Iranian population right now, there are a significant amount of people who are under 30. These youngsters, through today's media and technology, are very much exposed to Western music, and this has an effect,” says Kheradmand. “You get fusions of jazz, pop, hip-hop, lots of diverse musical styles. Many of these bands use traditional instruments.”

Roxana Vilk, whose band GOL are on this year's bill, use the daf and santour, blending them with jazz and electronica. “The group Baran have mixed it in another way – they have Indian and Spanish influences, as well as Iranian and Kurdish,” says Kheradmand. “Radio Tehran are simply a rock band who happen to sing in Farsi. The more traditional bands, you might hear on Iranian radio channels...”

“But who listens to those radio stations? That's the interesting question,” says Vilk, who is also working on a contemporary dance and video art piece inspired by traditional Iranian tile and metalwork. For Vilk, the internet has changed everything – when GOL were featured on BBC Persia, they had a flood of requests from Iranian fans asking for more of their music, which has never been commercially released in Iran, but thrives illicitly in the backstreet music shops and underground recording studios which service the young music fans of the country.

There is “virtually no copyright in Iran,” according to Vilk. “I've recorded in Tehran, and the musicians there will have a better understanding of Western music, and Eastern music, than we do here. They are so culturally and musically literate.” Much of the music made and enjoyed in Iran has to be discovered via unofficial channels, like internet radio. “Women singing is still forbidden – you can sing as a chorus, but not solo,” says Vilk. “If you have a record with a lead singer who is female, that will be released underground.”

Another important event in the festival calendar is an exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland, curated by Friederike Voigt, the Museum's Senior Curator of the Middle East and South Asia collections. It includes metal works and ceramics, and will show “contemporary art in the context of historical pieces.” Voigt says: “We want to show some of the principles applied in the decorative systems; their inner nature, which still inform today. Pieces by renowned artists such as Parviz Tanavoli or Khosrow Hassanzadeh were acquired and are now on permanent display.” For Voigt, the exhibition is an opportunity to “explore how artists draw on their own heritage.”

One such exploration is Roxana Vilk's dance piece, which uses the patterns of Iranian metalwork and ceramic tiles as “a sonic and choreographic score.” Vilk explains: “Showing figurative human forms is a complex issue in Islamic culture. But the patterns in the tiles and metalwork are about movement and repetition. I wanted to ask how this could be used by bodies, without coming out of the territory of traditional Iranian art and values.” This kind of cultural dialogue between the past and the present, the historical and the contemporary, is what the festival is all about.

Speaking frankly about censorship in Iran, the festival's curators are loath to categorise the effects of Iran's attitudes towards, and laws about art as entirely negative. “In certain ways, censorship creates creativity,” says Kheradmand. “Art and culture always carries on. It finds a way, within the limits.” For Jamali, “it depends on the artist.” She says that living and working in Iran “helped quite a lot,” because she “managed to concentrate on something which [she] could present.”

Vilk meanwhile is wary of romanticising art produced under censorious regimes: “Take Václav Havel or Milan Kundera – undeniably, their lives were made more difficult by censorship. I think that outside Iran, there is a market for art, music and films which idealise that censorship, and the artists' work produced in reaction to it.”

With workshops on calligraphy, Farsi, Iranian cooking and a whole host of other events, and a gala performance from one of the festival’s long-term supporters, Irish-Iranian comedian Patrick Monahan, 2013's Edinburgh Iranian Festival promises to educate, inform and entertain, all in the name of reaching a better understanding of the life and history of one of the most maligned and misrepresented cultures in the modern world.

“We have always used the festival as a platform to bring together artists, musicians, lecturers and other people together,” says Kheradmand. “Once you understand another culture, and it stops being alien to you, you're not afraid of it. You see the people. You see the culture.”


The Edinburgh Iranian Festival runs from 1-16 Feb. For times, prices and dates of events, check out the full programme at the festival's website: www.ediranfest.co.uk

Via The Skinny

A Soul Aflame

Sashar Zarif and Alim Qasimov Take the Azerbaijani Art of Mugham to New Heights:   

Zarif beautifully melded together the various aspects of his multifaceted identity, taking the audience on a spiritual journey from the mountains of Azerbaijan and the gardens of Persia to the steppes of Turkistan

Detail of a Persian miniature depicting the defeat of Sheybani Khan and the Uzbeks at the hands of Shah Ismail and the Safavids. Courtesy REORIENT

by Joobin Bekhrad, REORIENT

The Caucasus – that mythical land of mountains, valleys, and steppes – has always held a peculiar, inextricable place within the depths of my soul. Don’t bother asking me why, though, as I myself have yet to relate the beginnings and sparks of this romance. I didn’t fall in love with a picture, as the Persian lovers of old often did, nor was my imagination made fertile by the apple of a wandering dervish or the devices of a wily matchmaker. Perhaps something long dormant within the recesses of my being was set alight when I read of the picaresque adventures of the rebellious Koroghlu, the flowery affair of Taher and Zohreh, the tribulations of David of Sassoon, the plight of Rusthaveli’s Man in the Panther’s Skin, or the valorous deeds and escapades of the nomadic Turks of old, as sung to the sounds of the kopuz by the bard Dede Korkut. Or, maybe it was the cry of the itinerant asheghs, and the hauntingly beautiful folk melodies of a region likely older than history itself. As they say in the Persian Sufi tradition, however, where there is love, there is no room for reason.

Of all the fabled lands of the Caucasus, Azerbaijan has perhaps intrigued me the most. The land of fire (as it translates from the Persian) where Zarathustra’s flame once burned bright, is a fascinating hybrid of sorts. Having been an integral part of the Persian Empire, once served as a bastion of the Zoroastrian faith, and given rise to illustrious Persian poets such as Nezami (of Leila & Majnun fame) and Khaghani Shirvani, there’s an unmistakable Iranian element at play in the culture and identity of this nation. At the same time, however, there also exists a strong Turkic undercurrent, which has beautifully merged with the former. Through waves of migration by Turkic nomads from Central Asia, as well as Iranian politics, the outward Persian identity of Arran – as the land was referred to by throughout the annals of time until only recently, owing to political reasons – was slowly displaced by a new Turkic one. Although the Seljuks first laid the foundations in the 11^th Century during their exodus from the ancestral Turkic homeland in Central Asia through Iran towards Byzantium, it was perhaps the Persian Safavids – a dynasty with Turkic origins – who brought about the ‘turning point’, when they replaced the ancient Iranian Azari language in Azerbaijan (i.e. the western Iranian province) and Arran with a Turkic tongue, and zealously promoted Turkic culture and customs among the populace – not to mention making Shia Islam the official state religion of Iran, as an affront to their bitter rivals to the West, the Sunni Ottomans.

As manifold and complex as the history of Azerbaijan (which henceforth shall be used in reference to the country) is the story of Sashar (a.k.a. Alireza) Zarif, a bright and talented Iranian-Azerbaijani dancer. On an unforgiving December’s eve, shortly after the birth of the Persian god Mitra heralded the end of the struggle between light and darkness (according to Zoroastrian lore), Sashar depicted through the music and dance of his ancestral Azerbaijan another struggle, albeit on a less cosmic scale. Though he was born and raised in Tehran, and now resides in Toronto, Zarif’s family originally hails from the city of Baku, from which his grandparents fled during the Second World War. Watching his grandmother sit cross-legged on a tiny gelim singing traditional folk melodies to the patter of a tambourine, the young Zarif became enthralled with his native Azerbaijan, and set out on a journey to reconnect with his ‘home’ and unearth a part of his identity. Many years later, after the passing of his grandmother, Zarif visited Baku in search of her house, though to no avail. ‘I’m actually glad I didn’t find her house’, he surprisingly remarked in the prelude to his performance. According to the artist, he is a dancer first and foremost, and it’s only the boundless, immaterial world of dance that he can truly call home.

As Zarif mentions, the performance of traditional Azerbaijani music – known as Mugham – once incorporated strong elements of poetry and dance, although through the vicissitudes of time, they have largely been abandoned, especially in the case of the latter. Drawing on the classical Persian Dastgah repertoire of modes and scales and the Avaz singing tradition, yet boasting a unique and undeniable Azerbaijani flavour of its own, the Mugham is perhaps the quintessential Azerbaijani art form, with the legendary Alim Qasimov at the helm as its most renowned contemporary exponent. Evoking the image of his departed grandmother, sitting humbly on a floral-patterned cushion with his hand raised to his ear, lethargically swaying from side to side, Qasimov accompanied the writhing Zarif, singing of wine, roses, and nightingales, invoking the ardour of the Eastern mystics of yesteryear. At times seemingly reciting a lullaby with utmost tenderness, while at others, wailing impassionedly with startling urgency, arms akimbo, soaring to brilliant sonic zeniths, Qasimov, plied the impressionable Zarif as if he were a plaything of sorts; and in response, with an ethereal, otherworldly, Parajanov-esque quality, Zarif danced to Qasimov’s tune, as well as that of the troupe of virtuoso musicians on the tar (a Persian lute with variants in the Caucasus and Central Asia), kamancheh (Persian spike fiddle), nagghareh (Azerbaijani frame drum), and balaban (a variant of the Armenian duduk) like a lover responding to the coquettish glances of his beloved. Indeed, aside from a celebration of traditional Azerbaijani music Zarif’s performance – which took a laborious eight years to bring to fruition – was also gorgeously imbued with Sufi rituals and aesthetics (hence the reference to the Sufi Sama’ ceremony in the performance’s title, Sama’-e Rast) as well as the folk traditions of his Central Asian forebears. Grinning like a deranged paramour, embodying the ecstasy of a Mowlavi dervish and the fervour of a wild shaman, Zarif beautifully melded together the various aspects of his multifaceted identity, taking the audience on a spiritual journey from the mountains of Azerbaijan and the gardens of Persia to the steppes of Turkistan, in the footsteps of his nomadic ancestors. As he notes:

A person who has lived through many displacements, like myself, clearly carries with him/her many different allegiances of belongings, and ought to be allowed to use all of them … I scour my memory to find as many ingredients of my identity as I can. I then assemble and arrange them. I don’t deny any of them.

Though Zarif may not have found his grandmother’s house, he perhaps discovered that evening what he’d been seeking all his life. Defying any form of categorisation and abandoning his earthly persona, he electrified all the dazzling colours of his variegated persona through the power of music and dance, emerging as intricate and resplendent as the most wondrous of gelims. It might all sound extraordinary, but Zarif might perhaps be inclined to differ. As the Persian mystic Rumi once said, Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere – they’re in each other all along.

Joobin Bekhrad is the Founder and Editor of REORIENT, and the Co-Founder of artclvb

Via  REORIENT

Scarlet Stone

Who are we to blame?! Being scattered is the fruit of the bitter seeds which we planted on this land, and now they have bloomed. Whoever has had an ideal in mind and a desire in heart, now grapples with the self in the dark black cave of separation. But the key to this big black cave ...?!  

-- Siavash Kasrai

 Scarlet Stone is a new multidisciplinary and collaborative music/dance/video work told in the language of dance-theatre to be performed in:  San Diego Mandel Weiss Forum, UCSD, November 19, 2011; and Los Angeles Freud Playhouse, UCLA, December 10 and 11, 2011.

This epic piece is based on the last work of Siavash Kasrai, Mohre-ye Sorkh (Scarlet Stone) which re-tells the most famous tragedy of Iranian mythology, namely Rostam and Sohrab. The production uses the modern rendition of Ferdowsi's ancient mythology to portray the current struggle of the people of Iran, especially those of the youth and women, in their brave quest for freedom and democracy. The goal is to make this project directly relevant to the current political and social climate of Iran and the Middle East in general. Scarlet Stone emphasizes the value of wisdom over infatuation and brings to our attention the need for all Iranians to take responsibility for the cultural, social, and political development of the country in the past 60 years.

UCSD's professor, director/composer- Shahrokh Yadegari in collaboration with French-Iranian choreographer/dancer Shahrokh Moshkin-Ghalam (also starring as Sohrab) have gathered some of the best performing talents of the Iranian diaspora to include Afshin Mofid - former NY ballet star (as Rostam),  Ida Saki - young rising star dancer (Gordafarid -Sohrab's lover), Mariam Peretz - Bay Area-based acclaimed dancer (Tahmineh-Sohrab's mother) and Fatemeh Habibizad, the first female Iranian Naqqal - (Epic Story Teller, Ferdowsi) for this production. Advanced interactive video designed by Ian Wallace, and stunning lighting by Omar Ramos and Kristin Hayes define the world of the story.

Similar to the artistic form of Kasrai's poem, Scarlet Stone is staged with modern aesthetics and a deep commitment to the traditional and ancient values of Persian arts. Advanced interactive technology is used for production and projection/diffusion of video and sound, which will help the integration of the multiple disciplines used in this project. With a critical view, Scarlet Stone offers strength as well as hope. One can argue that much of what is addressed in Scarlet Stone, both in terms of societal problems and solutions are alive in the current social and political movements in Iran. For many years, the only option for defining a structural basis for a social or political movement was either leaning towards the left or the right. Kasrai, having come from the leftist tradition and having been the victim of the disillusionments which followed the left movement in Iran, proudly writes a hopeful poem for facing the problems which have plagued our times. We feel the current movements in Iran (and the Middle East in general), where all sections of people have come together to voice their desire for peaceful reform and freedom, are a living example of this approach.


Yadegari says: our goal is to produce Scarlet Stone in a way for it to become a catalyst for communication among Iranians, Iranian diaspora, and all those interested and invested in the evolution of the political and social life in the region. The production employs artists of highest caliber and uses exquisite interactive design technology to tell the touching and sobering story of Siavash Kasrai, in which he praises wise and passionate commitment to global human values as a beckon of hope for the current sociopolitical climate of Iran. We believe that the recent movements in Iran and later around the world, are fundamentally new forms of peaceful approach to political dissent, where actions are not fed by partisan politics, but by grass root social necessities. Moshkin-Ghalam believes today's generation of the youth and women in Iran are the generation of the `Shorab's and 'Tahmineh's, who bravely, passionately, and peacefully have been struggling against oppression. The non-violent resistances of Iranian people after the 2009 election in Iran is an excellent example of the committed, thoughtful, and intelligent political activism which Kasrai has depicted for us.

About the poem:

Based on the "Shahnameh", the poem "Scarlet Stone", by Siavash Kasrai, is set at the last moment of the life of Sohrab. Kasrai was one of the most important and eloquent contemporary poets of Iran. Kasrai was persecuted before the 1979 revolution by the Shah's regime, and after the revolution by the Islamic Republic of Iran. Kasrai's life work has been a hopeful message for Iran and the proud Persian culture. He has written a number of works based on the mythology found in Shahnameh. In "Scarlet Stone", Sohrab (the mythological character) confronts the author of "Shahnameh", Ferdowsi, for the reason of his tragic death and the meaning (or meaninglessness) of his futile quest for peace and justice. Kasrai finished this work in 1990 in exile, when the Islamic government had already established its successful autocratic and oppressive rule over the people of Iran by mass terrors of intellectuals, artists, and nationalists. One finds one of the most hopeful and meaningful messages regarding the recent struggles of people of Iran in the answer that Ferdowsi gives to Sohrab in "Scarlet Stone", that: "Your fight is not only local, but a global struggle against injustice"; "when you began your road to be a hero, you should not expect the path to be easy"; "you may think you are dying in the book, but your name will forever be the light and the symbol for those fighting for justice and freedom."

Click here to read Segments of Scarlet Stone in Persian 

Excerpts of Scarlet Stone (Mohre-ye Sorkh)
by Siavash Kasrai
Translated by Haleh Hatami.

Many tales reach their end and yet
"the old sorrowful crow has not flown toward the nest"
but still flies in this lone night.
Twinkling, the bleeding North Star
drips in the cloud.
The phoenix of clouds
went to die in the nest of the night.
Nearby, split open,
Sohrab
in the dirt
burned, dissolved,
in the flames of fever.
But the attack of fever
Brought Sohrab to speak in the bloody bed
I am burning and
in no need of water
No, water cannot quench my thirst
Oh, the misery of this craving,
what a frightful mirage
Mother,
Where is this place?
what will be come of me?

Sohrab

Did the wind carry it off
In the garden, whatever there was?
Alone in the open spaces
this unripe fruit of termination
Rubies of blood
lone scarlet drops
Who bequeathed this stone,
this red rose, tell me tell me, who lay it near me?

Tahmineh (mother)

My only son
My sole fruit of youth, my love, where have you gone?
What happened to you?
O, young forest of hope,
what happened that this tree, brimming with branches of wishes,
became so untimely severed?
I told you, didn't I?
That the scent of your joy
Afrasiab must never sense.
But you, proud in your "good thoughts"
But you, in haste to see Tahamtan
shut wisdom's eyes.
The enemy reached out
his hand in expedience,
but you, unknowing,
were wrongly sitting with these hypocrisies.

I thought in raising a son
skilled and handsome
Tahamtan's heated temper
would become serene
That the sitting of this son with that father
in our homeland
would burn the root of enmity's fruit
and shelter this realm
within the wings of love

Rostam (father)

Father and son face to face and estrangement
Strange
with one hundred clues of visage and stature
I didn't recognize you
You didn't recognize me
Who is this concealing eye-closing sorcerer?
Wherefore this blindness?
The heart was saying: Rostam,
Turn and look – doesn't he have your scent?
Say it, seek it
Alas, the vain intellect rendered the judgment lame:
No!
"There goes the enemy".

When your hand draws the dagger of deceit
even in the name of justice
be warned
In the end
that dagger will dig in your own heart.
Once again
I repeat 'ere I finish this account that this is how it is.
It is our bond and love
the envy of others
But sorrow and separation of that dear pair
are cause for comfort for this tribe of mean deeds.

Sohrab

Where is that moonlight cresting above the ancient tower
Where is that bird - where -
What happened to that irascible flower?

Gordafarid

Oh, impatient soul
-Sohrab -
night is leaving the halfway mark
dawn is approaching sleep
Our meeting
in this story
was far too hurried and ill-timed.
Apart from sorrow, what was the point?
Like the fast fleeting of a meteor by a meteor
Or a fistful of roses fallen on water
Pass as a phantom (or shadow) in this sinister night
With heartache
I leave you
With love
I entrust you
to God.

Sohrab

Sohrab said: No
Stay with me a moment
In the narrow passage of that meeting,
at the peak of this wicked deed,
a hand devilishly seized our judgment.
Together, our hearts opened a door with love
Our meeting was essential to this story
Yes,
If we didn't drink from love,
we witnessed it as a fistful of roses
floating with the current.
Behold, the path through the Valley of Darkness
is in my sight
I am dying
in love

Sohrab to Ferdowsi

Oh sage orator poet,
with a point of blood
you concluded
this story that love
had prefaced from the start.
You fostered me so lovingly
and set me free so soon,
through words.
Oh, hero-weaver.
This was not your way.
With the circling of the quill, your hefty book
renders my father - old warrior - immortal.
But me - young
yes, young - you killed me at the hands of this very man,
disgraced Rostam-e Dastaan, through the story
and set Tahmineh down in a bottomless grief.
I came
to the path
so pure
such a seeker
like a drop of water,
toward the sea.
I came
to set justice and brotherhood
on the thrown
and then serve my father
Let liberty be
our wholesome custom.
Let us open wide the doors of treasures and wealth,
let no one sleep hungry in our lands.
I said that my war
is the end of wars.
From here on, all the world is love and brotherhood,
and the stems of roses the emblem
on the quivers and shields of heroes.
In the dark, in our dispute with death,
father and son
and those faces, worthy of enmity,
hidden in the corners -
peering at us
As if, when I arrived there
the world turned on end -
dishonesty visible,
unities concealed.
Closed-lipped mutes,
those tame submissives, from which creator born?
Or, from which creation, those poorly-molded figures?
Are they not, silently,
kindle to the flame?

Ferdowsi

Calm!
Oh hope of the heatbroken
drawn from
the peak of Rostam's legacy.
Calm.
Having tread in treacherous paths
and others of grandeur and grief -
Hero rich in origin,
bring this story to its close
heroically.

In my quest to build this palace for people
and this arduous poem
I am a wise poet
mirror holder
to the nature and face of the age.
The moment you accepted your father's stone
world renowned ruby
fastened to your arm
you opened wide the gate to self calamity, and from the start
seek disaster's secret in the scarlet stone.
Sohrab, that ornament on your arm,
that stone
is the stone of world heroism.
Know that a man come forth from this,
even within our own borders, inevitably
plays a universal role.
That stone, in your hands,
renders every mean and dubious thing -
indigence and ignorance, injustice and fear -
as visible as an image.
And, in this way,
it awakens
your eyes
to the pain of the age.
And thus, good thoughts and self-belief
fall short in achieving
the grand task
Happy are those who in the heart of the dark halls of ignorance,
in their burning anguish, find wisdom's light within reach

Shameful he who turns his back on comrade and homeland
Turning - with one hundred excuses - toward the foreigner
Yes, it is possible for the path to the sea be near
and for years
to stay safely beyond the reach of the deadly depths.
But one cannot
know the ocean and steal the pearl from the shell
without immersing in water.
Sohrab
Oh, wounded by ignorance in the dark,
the cure is in the king's treasury.
But not for you or for your wounds.
Yes, you thirst not for water, for water
lies beneath your feet.
Hear from me that your cure lies in the light of being
in the rocky springs of knowing,
Sohrab, that is your place.
Allow me to tell you a secret - out of kindness - openly
This wonderful stone
is an infusion of poison and antidote.
Dying and eternal blooming are contained in it.
It is poison its red wine, poison.
Apart from lovers, may no one lay eyes upon this spirit.
It slays, unexpectedly
and raises you up every dawn like the sun.
Beware, oh auspicious one
Oh eternal youth.
You go showing
your wounded flank
to anyone carrying a dagger.
You go disclosing
your wounded side
before the eyes of the nigh-struck, distraught exhausted.
Before those who unaware of how things work
and who use their arms to battle
the ornamental collar of valor.
Let not the lovers take the wrong path
and advance on the known road with this scarlet torch
In a book, thus,
I have battled much.
Not with the sword
- with the pen!
Good or bad,
whether heartbreaking or heart warming
your cradle, your fate
your book of sorrow, of oppression and anthem
your golden book of wisdom, testament to love,
it is your Book of Kings and your book of origins

Via  Scarlet Stone

Another Birth

I know that it’s always difficult to convey a performance in words; I know I can never give the true picture of the ideas, concepts, inspiration or Instant Messaging behind a creation; and I know that describing this process is only IM-possible… I know…and yet, I know that I don’t really know…!  

After a spending a butterflish lifetime in the world of Arts, I still wonder how creativity works! Sometimes it feels like there is someone else doing all of this, and it’s not me. I have to be quiet until arriving at the moment that it decides to flood into my being. Where exactly does it have the most effect on: my mind, my body or my soul? I hear the word ‘inspiration’ several times a day – if not from the other people, from an odd being living inside me… Instant Messaging; when IM is about flourishing, I know that I have to sit down, and don’t move at all; then everything I do as an artist is all clear…!

I don’t know how it works for others; whereas for me, being determined, consistent and persistent with myself makes it possible; being devoted, focused and connected not only to time and space but also every insignificant incidence or even to an absent gaze of a passerby that I am exposed to; and following an inner voice who calls me in all the streets of my pure imagination. These make it happen.

There is an alley

which my heart has stolen

from the streets of my childhood.

On 29th of January, I stood for a while in front of the Martin Harris Centre. I gazed at the sliding doors, as it was for the first time that I was stepping into the building. I was thinking of what my theatre practice course is about; when I was woken from daydreaming by hearing my name being called. My enslaved brain followed the order and turned my head to the direction of the voice. It was Sasha- my supervisor and the course convener- with his eternal mystic smile asking me how I was doing!

I wasn’t sure about how or what I was doing at that particular moment. However, what I did afterwards was somehow linked to everything I was surrounded by; to what other people in our group were involved with; to what Anna, Amir and Rodrigo shared with my conscious and unconscious being. As we moved further along the line of time, it felt like a life was growing inside me. I was amazed by their talents, values, ideas, creativity and passion that eventually brought more meaning to my life; I was amazed of how wonderful they are. They’ve had a notable influence on my work by being my audience, taking pictures and generously giving comments and feedbacks in all of our sessions and rehearsals. This has led me into another layer of my discovery towards Drama in practice to include all of life… I was standing in front of a window… I was watching the creation of a universe…!

In a room as big as loneliness

my heart

which is as big as love

looks at the simple pretexts of its happiness

at the beautiful decay of flowers in the vase

at the sapling you planted in our garden

and the song of canaries

which sing to the size of a window.

After the outline of the course was introduced to us, I almost knew what I’m going to do. This was one of my greatest opportunities to experiment some of my IM-possible theories in performing arts. I knew that it had to conduct me in a parallel pathway with my PhD proposal. I needed to test everything, bodily movements, optical illusions, and recognising people in their everyday lives. Moreover, I’ve hoped to go beyond the borders of Eastern and Western cultures, to find new ways of a cross-cultural communication. So I’ve began my exploration in practice based in improvisation and the phylogenetic possibilities and constraints of the moving human body.

I started off my journey by identifying common movements within everyday social interaction; using everyday movements to express commonly understood experiences and forms of human action that exist across all cultures; and even digging it deeper by investigating the association between cross-cultural discourses and forms of artistic practice, production and expression.

No fisherman shall ever find a pearl in a small brook

which empties into a pool.

What do we have in common?!

Our first task was improvisation, so while feeling a true happiness underneath my skin, I began my real performance -- by performing for the real life; by playing in the real life; and by acting and being alive while experiencing: breathing, speaking, waking, sleeping, moving, staying, walking, watching, eating, drinking, working, studying, caring, loving, thriving, surviving, grasping, sitting, standing, falling, developing, shrugging, improving, protecting, hurrying, cuddling, controlling, screaming, fearing, yawning, snoring, reasoning, constructing, logging, hunting, writing, competing, pushing, travelling, shopping, putting, inspecting, posing, clapping, listening, destroying, battering, dreaming, tumbling, getting, hugging, boarding, flirting, reaching, throwing, smelling, laughing, reading, arguing, experimenting, questioning, breaking, making, knocking, shouting, persevering, shaking, touching, kissing, whispering, singing, dancing, running, jumping, washing, cleaning, fighting, gossiping, observing, removing, remembering, moving, resting, bathing, trembling, carrying, following, smiling, and even thinking of more actions and feelings to fashion new actions and feelings… playing…

…We all play in the real life, and I don’t believe if you deny multiplicity of role and character in interrelationships with the outside world; while encountering different people or being surrounded by different environmental conditions. So where is the border of being a performer and an ordinary person? As I was exploring ways of approaching this question, I was astonished by finding my ‘hero’ in Performing Arts in ordinary people and their role in everyday of their lives.

Life is perhaps

a long street through which a woman holding

a basket passes every day

Life is perhaps

a rope with which a man hangs himself from a branch

life is perhaps a child returning home from school.

On the second session our task was bringing in a stimulus to be used for an improvisation. I brought in a CD with three tracks which I had listened before. Nevertheless, I tried to improvise my movements in front of our group as my audience for the very first time.

I used the power of improvisation, alongside the connection among body, mind and audience, in order to maintain momentum and create aesthetic movements. I am always influenced by the audience, even all those imaginary ones, or merely being in front of the lens of a camera. Their identity and presence change my being, setting, character, action and reaction.

It's important to mention here that I used this music later on in my final performance. In fact, I moved around a circle; I had begun where I ended and I had ended where I began. In other words, all the way I was connected with the core of the process.

The journey of a form along the line of time

inseminating the line of time with the form

a form conscious of an image

coming back from a feast in a mirror

Something that I really love about this project is our ‘unedited’ online photos usually taken by Anna and Rodrigo. To be honest, I indeed hate the sense of perfection, as it stops me going further in my search for creativity. Sometimes I’m simply in love with my failures; I have to fail… I have to fall… I don’t exist…!

They say that ‘the devil is in the detail’; a creative writer told me once, when he was commenting on my proposal. Apart from what he really meant, this expression has led me to think that god is in the whole... In my opinion, we can find both concepts of god and devil inside: when we are focused, we feel better as we are closer to the core; on the other hand, when we are breaking down things into smaller and smaller parts, might result in becoming unconsciously destructive...!

Right before starting our last session in February, we received our feedback sheets and I found out that I lost mark because of some detailish mistakes! I needed to empty myself from who I was. I needed to explode to fashion new movements and new sense of self; to embrace the whole universe and become the universe itself. I had to have nothing, in order to be part of everything; to disappear and then come to existence...!

Ah

this is my lot

this is my lot

my lot is

a sky which is taken away at the drop of a curtain

my lot is going down a flight of disused stairs

a regain something amid putrefaction and nostalgia

This is all about madness. I admit and even confess that I am not ashamed of being like crazy… You are moving with your naked soul while dancing, so why should I hide it: I have to carry the burden of madness in order to reveal something greater than myself; I have to get along with this naked soul to create another life, another birth… or as Nietzche states: “You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star”.

That day the devil inside was evoked. I went to the class quite late, but I was still restless. I walked around the stage like mad, and felt as if I was merely a shadow. When Sasha asked me if everything is alright with me, IM whispered: go on, here is your starting point. I screamed hard and loud: ‘I don’t exist’; loud enough that made everyone stare at me in a way that encouraged my craziness… …oh, and I just loved playing the role of being totally crazy…!!

Then when I finally managed to sit down, Rodrigo showed a video and his own pictures in relation to Faust. I was exposed to Faust and my unconscious self was more than ready to make a pact with the devil inside in no time. I stood in my imaginary ring of fire to call devil down, and subsequently choked and blindfolded my true self.
 

I know a sad little fairy

who lives in an ocean

and ever so softly

plays her heart into a magic flute

a sad little fairy

who dies with one kiss each night

and is reborn with one kiss each dawn.

The following day the ghost was gone in a glance, as quickly as I witnessed the glory of morning’s first beam. We were supposed to use the rehearsal room that day, to develop initial ideas of our own performances. I was still imperfect; therefore I was able to create!

Anna asked me to listen to a piece of music and perform a dance reacting to it. She wanted to see what my impression is as I had no idea where the music is taken from; as I was listening to it for the first time. I was still confused at the brainstorming level of my own performance and wanted to find out how kinaesthetic dreams can affect our consciousness! So while dancing to the music for Anna, I was developing my own performance too. It chilled my fever and released the slight parts of me from being chewed by Faust… Soon afterwards, I realised that this cold song is called ‘Ice Dance’ from the Edward Scissorhands soundtrack. How could I feel and move in a chilly way without knowing where the music was taken from? Is my body the knower?

If we bear in mind that our body ‘knows’ how to move, we would never spend so much time commanding our body to do things. The body’s natural state is balanced and if given any new environment the body will automatically balance itself. We simply need to practice following our bodies so that we can create the right movement in any environment. Let go of the idea of what has been taught to the body, or what it has to do. Let the body lead as to what is satisfactory and appropriate. If the body desires to move in an asymmetrical way, it will create a greater symmetry to the entire body. Apart from the conscious attempt for our movements, our subconscious always takes over the body. In this way new forms of movements and behaviour -generated from our subconscious- could be created. …and it is in this way that I’m working to create a cross-cultural and cosmopolitan self…!

And it is in this way

that someone dies

and someone lives on.

After performing to the ‘Ice Dance’, I found myself burning on fire in a desert, as I was dancing to ‘Desert Rose’. Life is a paradox itself; however, what is exciting in performing arts to me is the swift shift of time and situation in performer’s imagination. Beautify everything, even destructive, sad, and insignificant ones… being the beauty and becoming the change!

I shall wear

a pair of twin cherries as ear-rings

and I shall put dahlia petals on my finger-nails

and swallows will lay eggs

in the hollow of my ink-stained hands.

We were told to work on 3 tasks for the following week: Hamlet’s ‘to be or not to be’ speech, Lady Macbeth’s ‘out damn spot’ speech, and our own monologues. We were supposed to think of our own interpretation of Shakespeare speeches. The whole weekend I exposed my subconscious to some videos and different plays of the two speeches; yet IM was very quiet. The day we had our class, IM finally woke up and nudged me when I was filtering the context of the speeches. IM nagged in her shrill voice: No… I’m fed up... I have already seen ‘enough’ death! Bring some life to me; bring life to the performance; break this stereotype! It was then that I found my own monologue in a poem.

My whole being is a dark chant

which will carry you

perpetuating you

to the dawn of eternal growths and blossoming

in this chant I sighed you sighed

in this chant

I grafted you to the tree to the water to the fire.

I grafted a merged concept of ‘death’ in both of Shakespeare speeches to the concept of ‘life’ in the poem called ‘Another Birth’.

In our first class in March, I brought in a CD and told everyone that I want to work on bodily expressions of both speeches in one performance. I also added the elements of chairs and table to that. From what Sasha and Anna commented, apparently I had both glimpses of Hamlet’s posture in my body, as well as having some movements like I was trying to wipe blood off of my hands.

Where could I find my lot in life then?

Life is perhaps lighting up a cigarette

in the narcotic repose between two love-makings

or the absent gaze of a passerby

who takes off his hat to another passerby

with a meaningless smile and a good morning .

Life is perhaps that enclosed moment

when my gaze destroys itself in the pupil of your eyes

and it is in the feeling

which I will put into the Moon's impression

and the Night's perception.

I used the translated version of the poem in my piece. ‘Another Birth’ is by the most famous woman in the history of Persian literature; Forough Farrokhzad (1935-1967). Iran has rich literature including mythical stories which have been composed in poetry. Since ancient times, Naghali or a form of story-telling (both for adults and children) was used for narrating the Iranian fables, myths and epics. In this play, one person both narrates and plays all the roles. Naghali is used to convey a story or an event in verse or prose with special tone, feelings and expression. In other words, artist move around the stage and express words through body while using various colour of voice.

I wanted to experiment the possibility of reciting a poem in English combined with Naghali and work further through a cross-cultural perspective.

First, I asked Anna to read it in English as a way of reciting a poem. So many thanks to Anna with her immense talent as I wasn’t able to develop the idea without her very kind help. Then I started to recite the poem by adding Persian movements and intonation. I wanted to see if I can communicate bodily, and interpret words on a moving body. I failed on my first attempt due to the complexity of finding the right form of cross-cultural expression through words.

Then, I was asked to recite the poem in Farsi and having those bodily expressions. I was surprised when they told me that it was more effective. They could understand in a better way even without knowing the language. I didn’t get downhearted, as it just made me to think of finding a way to bypass this barrier. Soon after, I read a simple text taken from my diary without having any particular gesture. It worked quite well; yet it wasn’t what IM wanted me to do.

I asked myself: Is my body the true guide and the knower? Which part of the body can transfer the awareness of self?

my lot is a sad promenade in the garden of memories

and dying in the grief of a voice which tells me

I love

your hands.

I will plant my hands in the garden

I will grow I know I know I know

I bloomed in one day. The following day that we had our rehearsal, I developed the idea. I decided to have both Persian and English versions of the poem in my piece. With the help of Anna and Rodrigo, I found the convincing epiphany that I was looking for it. One part of the poem, ‘I know’ was repeated three times, to which I added the role of hands. However, it was in our latter rehearsals that I expanded the idea towards a cross-cultural notion of life through a combination of the body’s motion and voice’s intonation.

That day I also managed to add the element of scarf to my piece, highlighted the role of hands while punching the floor with open hands, and emphasised on ‘I know’ by colouring my voice. I used the importance of hands as a symbol of having the ability to endure hardship and change the undesirable world.

there is an alley

where the boys who were in love with me

still loiter with the same unkempt hair

thin necks and bony legs

and think of the innocent smiles of a little girl

who was blown away by the wind one night.

During the Easter break I went to America on a research trip; primarily for the purpose of documentation in another project. However while doing research on relation between space and ordinary people's motions in their everyday lives, I came across new ideas for the theatre practice project. Through observation and photo documentation, I attempted to break down daily movements of the human body to rudimentary sense of being a human. This helped me to realise my piece - only few days before our tech rehearsals - by adding slides to my performance and using real moments to create constructed moments. Along with repeating the role of hands, in the slides, I tried to communicate through images related to the context of the poem. To give a fluid structure to still images, I ranked other elements such as: ocean, window, footprints, using high contrasts, etc.

I could eventually finalise my project in three sections: 1) verbally (combined with bodily expressions), 2) visually (combined with music) and 3) kinaesthetically (in relation with the whole process). Each section was merged to the other one and there was no interruption between them.

A day after my arrival in the UK, I had my last rehearsal with Anna. On 7th of April that we had our tech rehearsal and our technical team, Karl and Dan, stepped into our pieces. Talking about my own performance, without their support, assistance and attendance, I would never be able to run it as I expected. Many thanks to both of them for their hard work and fantastic job! We all had our performances on the 8th of April. Although, my busy schedule could kill any sense of satisfaction, I had a very good feeling about the whole process. After all I was at the threshold of giving birth to ‘Another Birth’!

That day, when I came back home, I sent an email to my best friend living far away from me and described my performance:

“Now my whole being is a dark chant, shared with a window at the drop of a curtain that gives me the freedom of imagining my own scenery... Today I had the tech rehearsal of my piece... Its name is ‘Another Birth’ which will carry you, perpetuating you, to the dawn of eternal growths and blossoming... It has three sections: in the first part a brilliant artist who is a friend of mine is helping me with my piece (her name is Anna and we are both doing this course). She is reciting the poem in English and I murmur it Farsi and move around her and express her words as they do while reciting a poem in the Persian culture, and she has the British style of recitation. Then her voice fades in my voice saying the following part of the poem in Farsi. She stands still while I am on my knees on the floor... When it comes to the moment that I say in Farsi “I know, I know, I know”, she starts again by continuing it in English at my second ‘I know’... She continues the poem until I say the last verse in English; while I’m standing still and trying to have kind of British style and movement and she moves around me... When I finished the poem, she repeats the same part in Farsi while moving and expressing in her own way... hmmm, I would call it a cross-cultural exchange!! Then I sit on the floor, and when I die with one kiss each night, she covers my hair with a scarf... She leaves the stage and the lights go off... I am sitting in the darkness, when the second section starts with showing the slides at the background with music.... (Oh I forgot to say that I have a background of a window that opens to an ocean.... both at the first and the third sections) …and at the final part before the slides finish, my dance starts with a white spotlight on where I am sitting on the stage, and soon after I got up from the floor the whole stage is bathed in blue-wash... The whole performance runs for 20 min, and I finish my dance when I am reborn with one kiss each dawn...”

On the 8th of April, it was born. We celebrated afterwards at KRO bar without having Karl and Dan due to other work commitments. Finally it was finished, yet it was merely my beginning steps towards my greater goals.

I think although we all had worked quite differently, we were connected somehow in our pieces. Something happened to all of us: we flourished like spring flowers next together and in each other’s shadow… This was itself another birth!

Theatre Practice project 2008