at the lab
time flows in all directions_ water flows through me
Dina Amro

Tuesday 22 October 2019
The Lab | 6:30 PM

Dina Amro's documentary sound piece time flows in all directions_ water flows through me, explores the tradition of Palestinian rain summoning and the concept of time bending using music and sonic heritage. Her practice revolves around performance and improvisation as it challenges the mummification of Palestinian sounded rituals. Performances are impossible to replicate, especially if they rely heavily on improvisation. The artist uses this knowledge to employ vocal improvisation as a way of transmitting knowledges about Palestinian music, and to respect that this music is a living archive rather than a dying repertoire.

The substantive elements of the sound performance embed themselves in several traditions of time-bending: by using recordings of women she has interviewed, the artist adds her voice throughout the performance to theirs, metaphorically and literally singing with them, thereby challenging the notion that the songs they sing and the miracles they cite are obsolete. The artist also adds her own writing and composition to the piece, thereby intertwining the sounds of the old women with writing and improvisation that takes place in an irreplicable way during the performance. The piece revolves around the performer's research on rain summoning in Palestine, and this is already a tradition which challenges notions of seasonality and offers participants in rain summoning rituals the sovereignty of controlling the future and the resources available to the village in the future. The performed piece is a conclusion/continuation of Amro's installation at Darat al Funun.

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