Foreign Sleep
2019
Performance
Duration: 20 Minutes
Co-choreographed by Lilian Nejatpour, Eva Escrich González and Lauren Stewart
Performed by Eva Escrich González and Lauren Stewart
Live Piano by Mahsa Salali
Original Score by Lilian Nejatpour
Photographed by Dimitri Djuric
2019
Performance
Duration: 20 Minutes
Co-choreographed by Lilian Nejatpour, Eva Escrich González and Lauren Stewart
Performed by Eva Escrich González and Lauren Stewart
Live Piano by Mahsa Salali
Original Score by Lilian Nejatpour
Photographed by Dimitri Djuric
Foreign Sleep investigates the absence of women from ceremonial practices in Sufi Islam and the wider Middle East. The work underpins women that are left out from these religious ceremonies and challenges this power dynamic through movement and sound. The performance is rewriting of female enlightenment, which samples various rituals that take place in Sufi Islam, including Zikr (meditative chanting) Muharram (self-flagellation) and Varzesh-e Pahlavāni (male wrestling). Foreign Sleep repositions the absent female body, using the figure of Rabia Basri/Rābiʿa al-ʿAdawiyya al Qaysiyya as a symbol for enlightenment and mysticism. Rabi was the first female saint in Sufi Islam, whose upbringing enabled her to follow a different trajectory to the invariable custom for Muslim womanhood.
In collaboration with dancers Eva Escrich González, Lauren Stewart and contemporary pianist Mahsa Salali, Foreign Sleep combines religious dance with voice recordings to examine the absent female body. Bodies become sculptures in flux, activating archives of movement and sound whilst troubling cultural relocation and gender stereotypes, a bilingual tension that is prominent in Nejatpour’s own cultural displacement. The composition of Foreign Sleep is a collaborative work between Lilian Nejatpour and Mahsa Salali. The musical elements developed through instruction and improvisation taken from Middle Eastern music rhythm and harmony. The piano parts are improvised live following the dancers movements with extracts from music of André Hossein (French-Iranian composer 1905-1983).
In collaboration with dancers Eva Escrich González, Lauren Stewart and contemporary pianist Mahsa Salali, Foreign Sleep combines religious dance with voice recordings to examine the absent female body. Bodies become sculptures in flux, activating archives of movement and sound whilst troubling cultural relocation and gender stereotypes, a bilingual tension that is prominent in Nejatpour’s own cultural displacement. The composition of Foreign Sleep is a collaborative work between Lilian Nejatpour and Mahsa Salali. The musical elements developed through instruction and improvisation taken from Middle Eastern music rhythm and harmony. The piano parts are improvised live following the dancers movements with extracts from music of André Hossein (French-Iranian composer 1905-1983).
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Foreign Sleep live at Bath Spa University
2019
Performed by Eva Escrich González and Lauren Stewart
Live Piano by Mahsa Salali
Documentation by Megan Ashton
2019
Performed by Eva Escrich González and Lauren Stewart
Live Piano by Mahsa Salali
Documentation by Megan Ashton
© Lilian Nejatpour 2023