On March 14 and 15, Third Angle New Music presented Samā at the A-WOL dance collective. The multimedia project was the creation of 3A’s guest creative director, Fahad Siadat. This was not a typical Samā, which is a form of Sufi meditation including music and dance. This Samā was an hour-long multimedia art piece, combining music, dance and projected visuals into an entrancing and transportive experience. 

Samā is in line with some of Siadat’s other works such as The Conference of The Birds, combining vocal music and contemporary dance with spiritual texts. (And yes, for the eagle-eyed jazz fans, Siadat’s piece shares a name with the fantastic record by Dave Holland, featuring Anthony Braxton on the saxophone. Holland was also influenced by Sufism, and both take their name and creative inspiration from a poem by Farid un-Din Attar.) Siadat’s opera Saharava draws from another esoteric tradition: western Tarot. Both of these were choreographed by André Megerdichian, who also helped choreograph Samā.

The performance opened with Siadat, Megerdichian and Jennifer Deckert leading the audience in a sonic meditation. Those familiar with Oliveros’ sonic meditations will be familiar with this particular meditation, “Teach Yourself to Fly.” We tuned into our breathing, relaxing into the experience. Our breath turned into long tones, each member exhaling into a pitch that formed a cloud of tone clusters. 

Siadat’s music combined percussion, singing and electronics into a rich and engrossing tapestry of sound, enveloping the audience in its warm glow. Each piece would grow in intensity, adding layers of looping percussion over an oppressive drone while Siadat sang incantations above it all. This happened about five or six times through the performance, each one taking a slightly different character: some were more slow and meditative, some more ecstatic.

The dancing was well-choreographed, full of slow and deliberate movements. Near the end of the show the two dancers held each other close in a sensual embrace. Beneath the dancer’s feet, lights projected geometric patterns that morphed kaleidoscopically. The low light cast massive shadows on the warehouse walls. The sounds of rain pattering on the roof and the screaming engines of weekend drivers intruded on the performance, but added to the atmosphere. Happy accidents, if you will. 

Mixed with earthly sorrows

It was an intriguing performance, but it left me wanting more. The multitude of references in the program notes and the poetry told us there was something more at play than just an hour of music and dance. I went digging for more information on Samā, to see where Siadat got his inspiration. In doing so I found this poem by Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī, also known as Rumi. This poem is a loose translation from the poet’s Masnavi collection by British scholar Reynold A. Nicholson. 

‘Tis said, the pipe and lute that charm our ears
Derive their melody from rolling spheres;
But Faith, o’erpassing speculation’s bound,
Can see what sweetens every jangled sound.

We, who are parts of Adam, heard with him
The song of angels and of seraphim.
Our memory, though dull and sad, retains
Some echo still of those unearthly strains.

Oh, music is the meat of all who love,
Music uplifts the soul to realms above.
The ashes glow, the latent fires increase:
We listen and are fed with joy and peace.

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I’m not a big fan of this translation, to be honest. It imposes English poetic norms such as the rhyming couplets and iambic pentameter upon the original text. Take a look at this translation for a different perspective on this passage, with a more Bible or Quran-like prosody.

However, his intention of (hearing) the shout of the viol was, as (in the case of) yearning (mystic lovers), the imagined (voice) of the Speech (of God).

(Since) the shrill cry of the reed-pipe and the threatening (sound)  of the drum are a bit similar to the (angelic) trumpet for the (Resurrection) of all of (mankind).

Therefore, the wise (philosophers) have said (that) we have received these melodies from the circling (movements) of the heavenly spheres,

(And that) these (tunes) which people are singing with (their) throats and lutes are the (same) sounds (made) by the revolutions of the heavenly spheres.

(But true) believers say that Heavenly influences caused any ugly voice to become beautiful,

(Because) all of us have been parts of Adam (and) we have (all) heard those melodies (before) in Paradise.

Even though (our bodies made of) water and clay have cast some doubt [about this truth] upon us, something of those (melodies) comes (back) to our memories–

Yet because it is mixed with earthly sorrows, these shrill and deep  (tones) can never give the (same) joy.

Therefore, the mystical concert has become the food and nourishment of the lovers (of God), since the gathering of the (entire) mind [focused on God] is in it.

The mind’s thoughts (then) obtain a certain strength [of concentration] and, moreover, they become (mental) images from  (hearing) the cries and whistling [of the reed-flute].

What both translations do contain is a beautiful meditation on music and its relationship to the divine.

Rumi’s poetry is an essential part of Sufism. Sufism is an esoteric, mystical form of Islam that emphasizes one’s personal connection with God. Though Sufism existed well before Rumi, his poetry had immense influence on subsequent Sufi thought. The Persian poet spent most of his adult life in Konya, in modern day Turkey. After his death, his followers formed the Mevlevi Sufi order, who have kept the tradition of the “whirling dervishes” alive until this day. This whirling dance was a part of Sufi practice for some time before Rumi, and even inspired the poet’s spiritual growth. But it was the Mevlevi order that made this whirling meditation essential to their spiritual life, being an essential part of the Samā.

The man I was sitting next to through the performance wasn’t impressed. He was intrigued because of the name and its relationship with Rumi, and thought it went too far towards contemporary art and beyond the original cultural and spiritual practice. I am not knowledgeable enough of Sufism to say where Samā fits in the cultural exchange / cultural appropriation paradigm. I can understand the objections some may have to the way Samā turns something mystical into contemporary art. Maybe such things are best kept to the realm of religion and not to music. But Siadat himself is aware of this tension, and continues forth regardless. 

Ted Gioia’s Music: a Subversive History has many themes woven through its five hundred page history of music. The one I found most intriguing was about music’s relationship to ritual, sacrifice, ecstasy and the divine–things that are mostly lost to us in a secularized, commodified culture that tends to treat music as entertainment more than anything else. In Gioia’s brief discussion of Rumi, he has this to say: 

“[b]y establishing the Sama ritual–a Sufi ceremony integrating music, dance, poetry, meditation, and prayer–he created what is perhaps the most powerful model within the world’s major creeds for integrating the human aesthetic and spiritual impulses into a  codified practice of ecstasy. This was a bold endeavor, an attempt to bridge a gulf that many still see as unbridgeable. For critics, it represented an unacceptable merger of the sacred and the profane.”

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In this context, profane doesn’t mean blasphemous, but what it originally meant: pro-fano, “before the temple,” i.e. “outside the temple.” Prayer, ritual and meditation are sacred; music and dancing are profane. For those critics, to merge those two is to bring the sacred down to the level of the profane, and to lend undue weight to the profane. But music and dancing have always been part of religious practices, forming the connection between the body, mind and soul. There is plenty of space within contemporary secular society for ritual, meditation and prayer, too.

Siadat makes this connection clear in his pre-concert comments. I quote from the written sheet he gave us that included this speech:

“I have come to believe that every performance is a form of ritual and every performance space a type of temple. To both present and witness such a ritual is an act of devotion we engage in together as a community.”

He also stated that Samā, “shares kinship with the ancestral possession ceremonies of Candomblé, the glossolalia found in the Pentecostal church, the transformative rituals of Balinese Kecak, and any other traditions made by those who seek closeness to mystery.” His intention then is a sort of perennialism, a belief in which all religions are seeking the same eternal truths through different means. 

Siadat’s performance wasn’t trying to be an authentic Samā. It was a contemporary art piece that drew heavily upon the Sufi practice, transposing those rituals for a modern audience. For Siadat, what he does and what the Dervishes do are not so different. Taken in its whole, Samā is a careful piece of contemporary performance art that raises the question of art’s relationship with the divine. I may not have felt the touch of God at Samā, but it still left me with strong impressions to take back into my material world.