Reviews
REPORTAJE
Un viaje que separa alma y cuerpo
El espectáculo 'Into the vast' rememora el hipnotismo de las danzas persas
MIGUEL PÉREZ MARTÍN - Madrid - 16/03/2011 
El ser. El trance. Abandonar el cuerpo mientras suena una música hipnótica y tribal. Es la compleja concepción de un espectáculo de estreno en España que concibieron la bailarina Banaf-sheh Sayyad, los percusionistas iraníes de Zarbang y el griego Matthaios Tsahourides para su presentación anoche en los Teatros del Canal, dentro del Festival de Arte Sacro. Into the vast promete ser más que una hora y media de entretenimiento, es el viaje a las emociones que anula todo sentido común para separar el alma del cuerpo, como hacen los derviches turcos, que giran durante horas hasta entrar en trance.
Los instrumentos pasan por todas las músicas, desde lo salvaje a la bulería
El público enloquece y no se resiste a mover la cabeza, a estremecerse
- Vestido azul: la invocación de lo divino. Sayyad baila despacio a los sones de la percusión de agua (panderos llenos de granos de arroz que suenan como el discurrir de un arroyo), sus brazos se mueven como a cámara lenta siempre en dirección al cielo. Cada movimiento está calculado al milímetro y una voz clama en árabe y luego en inglés los versos de Jallal-e-din Rumi: "Lloré, oh mi corazón inundado, ¿adónde vas? Silencio, dijo el rey. Ella viene hacia nosotros". Sayyad se acompaña de los tristes lamentos de la lira póntica del griego Tsahourides (posición de violonchelo, arco de violín, sonido de viola, cuerpo estrecho de laúd), y va realizando su viaje interior para luego poder abandonar su cuerpo. Tras su marcha lenta, quedan los músicos en una sesión de improvisación en la que unos dan el relevo a los otros hasta acabar en una interminable repetición del mismo tema.
- Vestido negro: la transición al abandono del cuerpo. Sayyad se viste de oscuro y volantes para bailar al ritmo de un cajón flamenco, pero sin abandonar los movimientos pausados de la danza persa. En este tiempo se pregunta a sí misma: "¿Cuándo reconoceré mi propia divinidad?". No es una réplica de las danzas persas tradicionales, es una revisión del conjunto de la música folclórica, de lo ancestral y lo moderno. Los años de Sayyad estudiando danza contemporánea persa salen a la luz en sus movimientos, gestos que le han valido el reconocimiento en Norteamérica, Europa y Australia. De fondo, los músicos empiezan a compartir ese trance y se dejan llevar mientras la bailarina gira y gira con la larga melena al aire. La música nos transporta a las estepas y los desiertos, al viento que sopla entre las dunas, y la lira póntica se enzarza en una lucha consigo misma para interpretar una celérica fuga que algo tiene de los maestros europeos barrocos y de las canciones eslavas de los Balcanes.
- Vestido blanco: la alegría y la gloria. La música se va acelerando y Sayyad, de blanco y con un velo rojo en las manos, está fuera de sí. Los instrumentos pasan por todas las músicas posibles: del misticismo del derviche al ritmo tribal, de lo salvaje a la bulería. Sayyad baila una sentida petenera -también ha estudiado flamenco- para pasar a un baile tosco con las piernas abiertas, y de ahí a los giros sin fin mientras contorsiona, pierde el rostro entre su frondosa melena, y se golpea el pecho sin cesar de bailar. El público enloquece y no se resiste a mover la cabeza, a estremecerse, rompe en palmas al ritmo de una música cada vez más rápida y el trance se convierte en un clímax compartido por toda la sala, en el que desde el patio de butacas hasta las galerías la gente sigue el ritmo con los pies, mueve la cabeza en círculos, silba. Acaba rotunda la música y se enciende la luz: el alma, que había escapado del cuerpo, vuelve a su sitio. Y la euforia del viaje cumplido se convierte en aplauso.
The Voyage of Separation of Soul from Body
The dance performance Into the Vast invokes the hypnotic essence of Persian dance
Miguel Perez Martin, EL PAIS Madrid - 3/16/11
Presence, trance, surrendering to hypnotic tribal music, were all elements of the intricate performance created by Persian dancer Banafsheh, the Persian percussionists of ZARBANG and Greek musician Matthaios Tsahourides for the closing night of the Festival of Sacred Arts at Teatros del Canal in Madrid. Into the Vast is much more than an hour and a half of entertainment. It is a voyage rich with feeling that surpasses all common sense to demonstrate the separation of soul from body, just as the Turkish Dervishes do when they whirl for hours until they enter into trance.
Blue Dress: The Invocation of the Divine.
Banafsheh dances softly to the rhythm of the water drum, her arms moving in hypnotic slow motion up towards the sky. Each movement is intensely meaningful as if calculated to the smallest millimeter, as a voice claims in Persian and then in English, the poetry of Jalāl-e-Din Rumi: ‘I cried, oh my hypnotised heart, where are you going? Silence, said the Emperor. She comes towards us’. Sayyad, accompanied by the lament of the Greek Pontic Lyra of Tsahourides, realizes her inner voyage to abandon her body. After her gradual departure, the musicians enter into improvisation where they perform solos back and forth, gradually building towards a climax.
Black Dress: Abandoning the Body.
Banafsheh dresses in dark and frill to dance to the rhythm of the Flamenco Cajón, without abandoning the gracefully subtle movements of Persian dance. At this time, she asks herself: ‘When will I acknowledge my own divinity?’ This is not a replica of traditional Persian dances; it is an innovative fusing of the tribal, the ancestral, and the modern. The years of devotion to contemporary Persian dance are apparent in her movements and gestures which have earned her great recognition in North America, Europe and Australia. In the background, the musicians start to join in the trance and surrender as the dancer whirls and whirls with her long mane floating in the air. The music transports us to the plains and the deserts, to the wind that blows between the sand dunes, and the Pontic Lyra embroils in a battle with itself to interpret a hasten escape that carries hints form the Baroque Masters and the Slavic songs of the Balkans.
White Dress: The Joy and the Glory.
The music accelerates and Banafsheh, in white, and a red veil in her hands, is out of her body. The instruments travel through different genres of music: from dervish mysticism to tribal rhythms, from savage to Bulería. Sayyad dances with heartfelt bewilder - as she has also studied Flamenco - to arrive at an earthy dance with legs in wide stance, and from there, onward to her endless whirling. She loses her face between her voluptuous manes and hits her chest as she dances without stopping. The audience has now been driven crazy and do not resist to move their heads, shake, and break into a clapping rhythm while the music accelerates and the trance is converted into a shared climax throughout the concert hall. All the way from the balcony to the orchestra, the audience follows the rhythms with their feet, rotating their heads in circles and whistling. The music comes to a robust stop and the lights go up: the soul, that had escaped from the body, now returns. The bliss of the voyage converts into unstoppable applause.
“A group of performers who challenge stereotypes about Iranian identity, ZARBANG and Banafsheh’s work is entertaining and revolutionary, both.”
"If the television show, "Are You Hot?" had a fraction of the heat that choreographer-dancer Banafsheh and her all female NAMAH generated at Japan America Theater, the show would have been a hit. Talk about sensual: Iranian-born, locally based Banafsheh, a purveyor of trance dancing and unabashed hair tossing, presented "En/trance", two hours of exotic music and dance that fused ancient forms with postmodern punch.Most numbers were accompanied by Zarbang Percussion Ensemble, led by the extraordinary Pejman Hadadi, who opened with a blistering 50-minute set. Banafsheh continuously brought down the packed house with theatrical flair. Soraya Soltani's flowing chiffon and velvet harem-like costumes - including veils that would make Salome jealous -helped amp up the startlingly beautiful whirling dervish moves."
"From the very beginning of Banafsheh’s performance, I realized that we are faced with something entirely different and distinctive from what has commonly been called Persian Dance. Banafsheh’s dance was not only a highly artistic and virtuosic work both in terms of choreography and execution, but also for the first time I was witnessing a dance that one could call contemporary or modern Persian Dance – a dance with its own artistic language, neither Eastern in the style of Arabic, Indian and Chinese, nor Western as in Flamenco, Modern European or American. A dance close to the essence of Persian culture with harmonious movement, insightful, connected to the music and above all, beautiful.
The dance form created by Banafsheh can only be called Banafsheh Dance. Much like how Lezgi Dance is reminiscent of Azeri culture or Flamenco is particular to Spain, etc, Banafsheh Dance can be representative of Persian culture.
Banafsheh Dance has another beauty, which comes from being borne in a period where dance is forbidden in our country. In essence, Banafsheh Dance is a heartfelt expression of our cultural and artistic needs that have been long oppressed. Luckily, unlike most of our modern music, both inside or outside of Iran, Banafsheh Dance is not backwards and regressive artistically. It is actually advancing on the path of becoming international – even if Banafsheh Sayyad, as the creator of Banafsheh Dance may not entirely find this chance for herself."
Read the entire review in Persian in HERE
"In the second half, ZARBANG enlarged its percussive setup: besides the Tombak, brilliantly played frame drums and the Iberian Cajon built a richly coloured surface for the many-faced dance of Banafsheh who has the ability to combine different traditional roots to create one expression of dance and movement. Her uniquely fluid and supple hands and arm movements fit perfectly to the crystal clear and transparent sounds of Javid Afsari Rad’s Santur.”
“Banafsheh’s body moved in a trance, exuding a supernatural power as the vortex which seemed to take the submitting body higher and higher became really perceptible. At the end, in a spectacular finale she improvised on a flamenco-rhythm, and dance movements from the Middle East merged together with Iberian gestures.”
"Beautiful, meditative movement…Banafsheh is very ambitious in developing a new language, extending the dance into other areas and combining the miniature and sema dance forms."
"Banafsheh, a font of exquisite perpetual motion, is a temple frieze come to life, a one woman whirling dervish, trance spinning to a glorious percussive track as she beckons us into her exotic world."
"The highlight of the night was Banafsheh ... who was amazing to watch ... she danced fluidly enough to be part of the music. She depicted the ultimate Persian woman. She moved perfectly in circles for an entire three minutes without a flaw. She resembled the whirling dervishes of Sufism who spin in a trance to reach the point of perfect meditation."
"Banafsheh’s trance dance, Cycle of Fire was mind-blowing. She whirled as if possessed."
"Prayer #7, a breathtaking trance dance by Banafsheh and the two dancers of her Namah Ensemble, would be right at home in a modern dance concert. Though never touching, the dancers stayed in touch - with one another and some force that propelled them. Banafsheh's solo, Axis of Love impressed because of her pure and transparent response to the music as performed by a fabulous trio from Los Angeles, Pejman Hadadi, Javid Afsari Rad, and Brad Dutz whose work proved to be one of the evening's many musical highlights."
"Namah Ensemble’s Prayer #7 was interesting to look at. The stylized and syncopated bowing, spinning and trance-like hair-tossing of 3 black clad women had variations that became mesmerizing."
"The Namah Ensemble from Iran confirmed the power of musically focused, non-narrative dancing. Accompanied by percussive beats on skins, this trio of incantory dancers spiraled in tandem and around each other as if carried along by the desert wind."
"Pejman Hadadi and Brad Dutz’s musical backing was the perfect accompaniment for the elegant whirling of lead dancer Banafsheh and her talented ensemble."
"Namah Ensemble shone brilliantly at the Festival of Iranian Theater in Hamburg. They presented a stirring fusion of traditional Persian dance with magnetic sufi spinning and the powerful stomping of flamenco to an enthusiastic crowd."
"Part whirling dervish, part flamenco femme fatale, sensuous and audacious, Banafsheh’s dance is a mesmerizing foray into the body as trance mechanism; a DNA strand, supple, fluid and noble, come to life."
"In her bravura improvisational solo ‘Search’, Banafsheh gloried in her hard-won technical prowess: initially swirling a translucent veil in complex patterns as she whirled, then lashing her hair rhythmically, next striking deeply sculpted flamenco poses accented with bursts of authoritative footwork and finishing with bold, mercurial undulations sustained by a spectacular command of balance."
"The perfect way to open ritual aspects of Persian dance to a wider audience while preserving the sense of participating in something sacred."
"Banafsheh has mastered the lore of traditional Persian, flamenco and tai chi movement."
"Amvaaj, a seven-part self-styled journey of seekers was skillfully performed by the six-woman NAMAH in the UCLA Dance Building."
"NAMAH presented a decidedly contemporary innovation to Persian dance, flamenco, trance states, and improvisation. In "Axis of Love", Banafsheh took the audience on a simple journey of ascension as she slowly raised her arms, all the while spinning. It could be said it was like the earth spinning; or, like a flower opening up to reach the sky's rays. As the program states, it was "...a structured improvisation exploring the familiar within the infinite."
"The three women from the NAMAH wove gentle curlicues in space, indulged in unisons on the diagonal and articulated extremities in a manner that suggested the symmetries of some species of American modern dance. The music making, which featured composer Pejman Hadadi on tombak, daf and frame drums; Brad Dutz on nagara and percussion, and Javid Afsari Rad on santoor, was downright bewitching. The music have been newly composed, but at such moments, questions of ‘authenticity’ don't seem to intrude.”
"In ‘Amvaaj’, Banafsheh presented a complete evening filled with spiritual mystery fused with reason and virtuosic Western dance technique, with special attention to improvisation. This very fulfilling evening took the audience through seven stages of a long and far-reaching journey filled with wishing, hope, enthusiasm, search and many many trials to reach union. In this spiritual journey, prayer had a big role. All this was presented in a beautiful form influenced by eastern practice and ancient thought yet expressed with modernism. This work had brought Banafsheh and her ensemble to a very solid place that they were invited to present the Persian sacred tradition in the context of the World Festival of Sacred Music to share their message of unification and humane understanding. We hail Banafsheh Sayyad, Pejman Hadadi and Hossein Behroozi-Nia."
"Equally spectacular as the dancing was the musicianship of Pejman Hadadi and Hossein Behroozi-Nia"
"The fascinating dance and sounds of Persia, the modern-day Iran, transformed the concert hall to a landscape for the senses. The dancer and choreographer, Banafsheh translated the musical intensity and intricate nuances of ZARBANG with the language of the body. Her fluid movements were constantly dynamic, at times floating, then whirling at high speed, opening our vision to new dimensions. With complete mastery of her body, she exuded power down to the tips of her fingers.”