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hekayat-e bakhe-o do bat — حکایت باخه و دو بط
(2014) - performance lecture in English, in collaboration with Hannah Nürnberg and Charlotte Brohmeyer
Presented at Europäische Akademie für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Palazzo Ricci, Montepulciano, Italy September 2014.
With the support of Kolleg für Musik und Kunst
The performance lecture engages with the task of translating a very old parable from the iconic hybrid text of Panchatantra (Farsi: Kelileh o Demneh), by using verbal communication, light and shadow, body and sound, the performance exercises the classics of storytelling, pushing experimenting on the narrative elements of the story.

Panchatantra, the animal fables as old as we are able to imagine, has endured so much transformational torture in history, vanishing points and revivals; now exists in old Farsi (with the title: Kalila and Dimna کلیله و دمنه) as an iconic transcript and witness for an old language hybrid of Farsi and Arabic. A reading of this story in English and collaboration with non-Iranian dancers opens thinking about contemporary themes along the voice of the ancients. When approached in a surgical carefulness, the story of The Turtle and the two Storks (حکایت باخه و دو بط) provides a richness that allows rethinking with linguistic deconstructive tools. The story is already enriched by themes of literacy, science, friendship, space-travel, pollution, evolution, virtual space, language, and speech.



Multi-media performance 'Hekayat-e Bakhe-o do Bat' at Palazzo Ricci, Montepulciano, Italy 2014 Multi-media performance 'Hekayat-e Bakhe-o do Bat' at Palazzo Ricci, Montepulciano, Italy 2014 Textual map of Multi-media performance 'Hekayat-e Bakhe-o do Bat' Palazzo Ricci, Montepulciano, Italy 2014 <br /> Language itself is constantly submitted to many endurance tests. Under translation, our texts will register different levels of exhaustion and irritation. How this kind of trial might end in the fatigued body of the translator or in her/his voice? Translation is always transformation. It is always therefore a form of transmutation. In Iran, since one century, there is a battle for purification of language, to protect Farsi from insertions of alien languages. This is a performative and ideological battle between literary critiques, moms, imams, thugs, teenagers, elders, historians, and dead poets. The global circulation of culture that extends the notion of translation beyond language, and the concept of translation—the process of change that occurs with transportation of people, ideas, technology, information, and images from one or more countries to another—allows for consideration of the sociopolitical context and agency of all parties in cultural exchanges.

© 2014 Sina Seifee