Weaving Light (Into Darkness) - Setareh Nafisi

Performed by Kamerkoor JIP
www.kamerkoorJIP.nl

Subtitles available in Farsi, English and Dutch

Video | Felipe Pipi
Sound | Tijmen de Vries
Conductor | Jonathan Ploeg
Piano | Setareh Nafisi

WEAVING LIGHT (INTO DARKNESS)
Composer | Setareh Nafisi
Texts | Forough Farrokhzad and Setareh Nafisi

Never before have the demonstrations for justice and equality in Iran been as massive and outspoken as those in recent months. Weaving Light (Into Darkness) is inspired by the Women, Life, Freedom uprising in Iran and is dedicated to all writers, journalists, artists, human and women's rights activists held as political prisoners in Iran.

Setareh Nafisi wrote a poem as the textual basis for her composition, in which she uses the metaphor of weaving to relate to the misery that takes place in the lives of these activists, including some of her friends. The repetitive actions of the loom are reminiscent of the hopeless days of the Iranians who were imprisoned and sentenced to death. Amazingly, there are prisoners who, despite this deep misery, are still able to create beauty: most recently, works of art, including weaving, have been smuggled out of a women's prison in Iran. In the fabric of pain, these women know how to weave a thin thread of hope.

Nafisi was inspired for this piece by the documentary The House is Black (1963) by the influential Iranian filmmaker and poet Farough Farrokhzad (1934 - 1967), which movingly and poetically portrays an institution for leprosy patients in the Iranian countryside. A poem from this documentary is recited by Nafisi.

Видео Weaving Light (Into Darkness) - Setareh Nafisi канала Kamerkoor JIP