(no subject)
Tonight was really cool - I went with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
iyindo to see the Ilkhom theater performance which was really avante guard and had some amazingly powerful artistic moments - the movement was really wonderful, the combination of musics was cool (though none of it was specifically Uzbek I might add) and the use of the image of women was interesting, especially bearing in mind that the 3 women in the cast were all of Russian descent and were portraying Islamic, basically orientalized eastern women. The main language of the piece was Russian, but they did a lot in Uzbek and projected titles in English and obviously the tajweed was in Arabic. Very very interesting work, with tons of integrity, but still I find myself interrogating it for strategic essentialism. At moments it reminded me of Caravan, the very popular tourist cafe in Tashkent were all the waiters are Russian but they dress up in Uzbek "traditional" clothes. The whole thing was too complicated for my snot laden brain at the moment. I'm very glad I went and I really enjoyed the art as much as I feel the need to analyze it. And it turns out that the singer, Shavkat, is from the conservatory and knows Malika opa and I think I actually have a recording of him singing with Husniddin's group. We exchanged emails but now I feel like I should track him down. I realized on the drive home (after milkshakes at Mels with iyindo and her boy) that I need to invite him to the beach this weekend since I don't think they leave for Arizona until Monday. I'll make some phone calls tomorrow.
iyindo to see the Ilkhom theater performance which was really avante guard and had some amazingly powerful artistic moments - the movement was really wonderful, the combination of musics was cool (though none of it was specifically Uzbek I might add) and the use of the image of women was interesting, especially bearing in mind that the 3 women in the cast were all of Russian descent and were portraying Islamic, basically orientalized eastern women. The main language of the piece was Russian, but they did a lot in Uzbek and projected titles in English and obviously the tajweed was in Arabic. Very very interesting work, with tons of integrity, but still I find myself interrogating it for strategic essentialism. At moments it reminded me of Caravan, the very popular tourist cafe in Tashkent were all the waiters are Russian but they dress up in Uzbek "traditional" clothes. The whole thing was too complicated for my snot laden brain at the moment. I'm very glad I went and I really enjoyed the art as much as I feel the need to analyze it. And it turns out that the singer, Shavkat, is from the conservatory and knows Malika opa and I think I actually have a recording of him singing with Husniddin's group. We exchanged emails but now I feel like I should track him down. I realized on the drive home (after milkshakes at Mels with iyindo and her boy) that I need to invite him to the beach this weekend since I don't think they leave for Arizona until Monday. I'll make some phone calls tomorrow.