Joe Namy, Jana Saleh, Christopher Ibrahim, Fadi Darwiche, George Athanas, Tarek Khuluki: space, breath, time

Long ago, a musician named Tansen discovered one of the most powerful sonic forces known to man. A series of notes and rhythms that, when played with purpose and intensity, could produce enough energy to create a light, start fires, and move objects with sound. One day, he was playing with such intensity, that he himself started to catch fire.  His wife, Mehrunisa, called out for him to stop, for fear that he might burn to death, but he was lost in the sound.  She quickly grabbed the nearest instrument and, out of panic and love, began playing the music to bring the rains, conjuring a rainstorm to save his life, flooding the city with song.

Join us as we attempt to burn and flood the Beirut art center, in a special immersive sound experience for 5 orgs/synthesizers with Jana Saleh, Christopher Ibrahim, Fadi Darwiche, George Athanas, and Tarek Khuluki.

The performance is based on a score by Joe Namy, made up entirely of text relating ideas each musician is meant to interpret, about their place in time and sound and beyond. The audience is encouraged to move across performance space, amongst the musicians, to explore the flux in the sonic characteristics of the performance area. This performance was originally commissioned for the Delfina/Southbank center exhibition “echoes and reverberation”.

In some far off place

Many light years in space

I’ll wait for you…

I’ll build a world of abstract dreams

And wait for you.

– Sun ra

Joe Namy is a Beirut-based artist/composer. His projects often address aspects of identity, memory, power, and currents encoded in music/organized sound. he was a participant in the Ashkal Alwan home workspace independent study program and received an MFA from new york university, as well as having studied jazz, Arabic, and heavy metal drumming. His work has been exhibited, screened, amplified at the Brooklyn Museum, Beirut art center, Detroit science center, queen’s museum, and less prominent international dance floors. Some of his projects fall under the sound art platform titled Electric Kahraba, which operates as an experimental radio program on clocktower.org.