A small exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum, "
Light of the Sufis: Mystical Arts of Islam" focuses on the Sufi, or tasawoof, tradition, and the influences of cultures that contributed to its origins as well as artistic expressions that have emerged from these practices.
A lecture,"
Ruminations with Zahra Partovi" featured this artist and translator of Jalalluddin Mohammad Rumi's poetry who works with artists in NYC who are creating visual artworks drawn from the ideas and interpretations of his Sufi poems.
During her passionate talk with a background film of people's feet going up the stairs at the Met, Partovi read works in both Persian and English and pointed out the poet's fluid outpouring as a Sufi teacher, Muslim preacher (her term), philosopher, scientist, psychologist, poet, and storyteller. The reach and depth of his knowledge, she believes, contributes to his ongoing popularity. She also described the origin of Sufism as a response to a need for "softness" in traditional Islam as it was being practiced in 12th c. Iran. There, Sufism flowered out of the advanced learning and philosophies developed by traditional Islam, Buddhism, Christianity, and Neo-Platonism.
Partovi's response to one very general question from the audience interested me. When asked, "Who was Shams of Tabriz?" Partovi offered first the famous story in which Rumi, renowned scholar, after three days of non-stop discussion with this stranger named Shams of Tabriz, throws his books into the river having found a deeper source of knowing. But then, rejuvenated that story with a line from one of Rumi's poems---Shams was "an excuse"; he already was the knowledge. One artist in the audience complained that the presentation smacked of proselytizing. While museum representatives quickly jumped in to explain the intention to explore art and culture, Partovi listened with a wry look on her face.
Partovi's translation appears in the exhibit on a glass sculpture by Kelly Driscoll. Light seeps through graduated glass plates and casts shadows of the words for the viewers to read instead of the etched letters, including: "I am like the sun drowned within the light; I know not how to distinguish myself from light!"
As a teenager, the only Sufi order I knew of lived in a communal trailer park in western Kansas. When I moved to Boston in the early 90s, I encountered the American version of Sufism through dance mentors and poetry and used copy of Sa'adi's Rose Garden I found in a used bookstore in Davis Square. I still remember a memorable lecture on Sufism at Harvard Divinity School presented by a Sufi scholar from the American southwest. Unfortunately, his name escapes me. His main focus was that American Sufis avoid the connection between Sufism and Islam. I'd always associated both together and was surprised by this, but soon became aware of this sticky topic. Since then, I've also encountered doubt from those who follow traditional Islam toward contemporary Sufis in the US. This topic continues to interest me. Today's appearance of this column by Omid Safi "Is Islamic Mysticism Really Mysticism" showed up in The Huffington Post's Religion section. ..." The second half of the essay interests me most: So what we have had for the last few decades is a situation of Orientalists and Salafi Muslims seeking to construct a "real Islam" that is untainted by Sufi dimensions, and many new agers seek to extract a mysticism that stands above and disconnected from wider, broader and deeper aspects of Islam."
She had so much." "But Will it Make You Happy?" The overwhelmingly popular column in the NY Times about a woman who stepped off the earn/spend treadmill and whittled her belongings down to 100 items hooked me. I still like it though I agree the article does oversimplify the "simple life." Among those who took odds with it was Adam Weinstein in "The New York Times' Twitty Orientalism " who criticized the Eastern religion references Hinduism, Sufism, Yoga, and other "eastern" paths that people flit in and out of in oversimplifed form when convenient (I see myself in that list). Weinstein is right in many regards. We're so mired by consumer society that sometimes our winnowing down of items ends up in buying more in the long run. Purge, binge. We use these other belief systems when convenient (and trendy) and just as easily take them off again. Spirituality is hard; commitment isn't popular in our society. Weinstein then moves into more serious territory that results from this winnowing down of that classic "Other." Orientalism exists, he says, with terrifying results though we live in an age that tries to educate ourselves away from it.
A small exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum, "Light of the Sufis: Mystical Arts of Islam" focuses on the Sufi, or tasawoof, tradition, and the influences of cultures that contributed to its origins as well as artistic expressions that have emerged from these practices.
This Monday, May 25, I'm performing a choreography with my teacher Dunya with members of her company, Dunyati Alembic. My work is one of four interconnected works featuring Anasma Vuong, Nisaa, and our choreographer, Dunya. It an honor and a learning experience to working with these women! And thanks to Paul B. Goode who took this photo at a previous showing of the work.
