SOLO LAPTOP PERFORMANCE

Upcoming: Solo Electronics

"Tattoos and Other Markings" explores the experience of memory, weaving together concepts of the old and the new, past and present; traditional and processed sounds from Armenia and Egypt, spoken text, and machine sounds. The piece explores the incompleteness of memory and the places in-between where things are less remembered and memory is more obscured. The voice of Komitas (CD 4275) courtesy of Traditional Crossroads.

RADIO ART

Voices from Behind the Veil, 21:30, 2004 - (In Arabic & English)

VOICES FROM BEHIND THE VEIL, 21:23, 2004 (In English and Arabic)
Voices from Behind the Veil, integrates interviews of Egyptian women on the subject of the hijab (the various head and body coverings of Islamic women) into a multilingual sound collage of women's voices. By weaving women's opinions, stories, and discussions about the hijab together, Voices from Behind the Veil reveals the multifaceted opinions and emotions by using a variety of communication styles, some completed statements and other partially revealed dialogues, yielding a richness of diversity in sound and content. The primary impetus of this project is to shift the (western) gaze from stereotypical assumptions easily conjured by visual images of veiled women to an aural encounter where the women (both veiled and not veiled) speak for themselves. Material for this project was gathered in the summer or 2003, where I was studying Arabic music with Egypt’s well-known violinist, Alfred Gamil. The interviews are comprised of all Egyptian women who represent varied perspectives on veiling—two women are unveiled, one woman wears a more “Spanish” veil, another with a traditional hijab (headcovering that covers all of the hair), and one with. The participants are also diverse with respect to their age, socio-economic class, and education. Subjects covered in the interviews include personal stories, historical and cultural phenomena, relationship to the body, other women, men, fashion, family, the western world, the workplace, Islam, and societal expectations. Behind the layered interviews is a background of street sounds in Cairo.