WATCH VIDEO:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMQkbJVPpNUOR for a lighter more up close view click:
http://www.vimeo.com/8014279READ ALONG:
Soraya: Dedicated to the Women of Campaign for One Million Signature against Discriminatory Laws in Iran, and the women of MY generation who are in prison
Cklara: And My generation who are in prison with them
Cklara and Soraya (together): for their courage!
Cklara: The title of this piece is: "Sculpting the Edifice, Cracking the Walls"
Soraya and Cklara: counting to 30 out loud
Cklara: 30 years!
Cklara and Soraya (together loudly): June 2009!
Cklara: We stood there,
us women, young girls- too young to have cast a ballot,
but not afraid of a bullet,
us women, mothers, sisters, and daughters,
with our hearts out and our arms bare,
we bear no arms,
instead we put up our arms to create signs,
our fingers in peace signs, and our bodies symbols of victories not known to us.
We stood there us women, in waves,
equal to the men by our side
We Stood there,
Us women, with our children
ladies with wrinkles of old age,
girls with rebellion of youth,
holding roses in the front lines,
in every protest, riot, ambush and crack down
We did not pick a fight
holding picket signs and slogans became a crime
Us women, us women, us women…
Our cause breaks the dividing lines,
Soraya: us women, we are Iranians
Cklara: we are Baluch
Soraya: we are Persian
Cklara: we are Kurds
Soraya: we are Azeri
Cklara: we are Turkemen
Soraya: We are Lor
Cklara: We are Arab
Soraya: Us women,
we stood in the front lines and shouted
“!نترس Natars!” “Do not be afraid.”
We are not afraid of sticks and grim faces of oppression. We were born from mothers who did not have the right to look our fathers in the eyes. We live with men who think it is their birth right to own us. We resisted marriages at 15 and ran away to become unemployed professionals.
We do not have the right to live with the child we gave birth to, if we no longer can love an abusive husband.
No!
We are not afraid!
Us women, we have seen much worse at home.
Cklara: “Shazde koochoolo ba sedaye Ahmad e Shamloo”
The Little Prince!
I probably first learned about death from the translation of The Little Prince, spoken on a tape in Farsi by the voice of Ahmad Shamloo.
The Little Prince wants to return to his home planet but he can’t take his body with him because it is too heavy so the author says: “He fell gently, the way a tree falls. There wasn’t even a sound…”
If Little Prince had to let go of his body to find his freedom, to find his way back home, then we were all meant to go one day.
I must have been 6 years old at the time.
I was not afraid anymore;
not when they came kicking at our door,
not when I watched my parents as they
began chewing papers with writings I could not read,
not when big ugly strange looking men who smelled like sewers and smoke broke our windows in the middle of the night,
trashed our house, and took my father away,
not when I was left alone in the basement that was our house,
with no electricity or water for days,
not when my father did not return.
I knew that even if my parent’s body becomes too heavy one day, just like the little prince, they will find their way back home and I can look up at them and I would see “five-hundred million little bells.”
Soraya: She had just started kicking in my stomach when I started singing for her and teaching her poems.
No, I didn’t want her to become an artist but this LIFE, this CHILD in my belly has to be born strong or she could not last long!
I remember last time (pause, take a deep breath, exhale)
they beat every fiber in my body until I bled so much that the fetus growing in me decided the darkness of the womb is better than the darkness outside.
You see, us women, we sing and read to our children so that they will believe that life is beautiful.
***Begin reading Siawash Kasrayi (Poem Arash Kamangir)
آری، آری زندگی زیباست
گفته بودم زندگی زیباست
گفته و نا گفته ای بس نکته ها کین جاست
آسمان باز ، آفتاب زر
باغ های گل ، دشت های بی دروپیکر
سر برون آوردن گل از درون برف
تاب نرم رقص ماهی در بلور آب
خواب گندم زار در ، چشمه مهتاب
بوی عطر خاک باران خورده در کهسار
آمدن ، رفتن ، دویدن ، عشق ورزیدن
در غم انسان نشستن
پا به پای شادمانی های مردم پای کوبیدن
آری آری زندگی زیباست
زندگی آتشگهی دیرینه پابرجاست
گر بیفروزیش رقص شعله اش در هر کران پیداست
ورنه خاموش است و خاموشی گناه ماست
زندگانی شعله می خواهد ، شعله ها را هیمه سوزنده
جنگلی هستی تو ای انسان سربلند و سبز باش ای جنگل انسان
سربلند و سبز باش ای جنگل انسان
Cklara: And that poem taught me that LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL!
Us women, we stand barefoot at times,
Us women of this generation, carry the onus of the past
But we want to build a new life,
we want to unveil the black torture halls
and cast away the unfounded shari’a laws
us women of this generation don’t want to be bound
by childbearing and drug wars
at times us women, of this generation
we yearn for the safety of the womb, before the madness of consciousness!
Soraya (SINGS Kurdish song):
له ژیر زنجیری ئه ی ئه مان ده بابه ی دوژمن
سه ری هه زاران ئه ی ئه مان لاوی وه کو من 2
تیک و پیک نه شکیت نه پلیشیته وه
له گولاوی خوین ئه ی ئه مان لاو نه تلیته وه2
دایک را نه کات بو چول وچیا
هه ی داد هه ی بیداد ئه ی ئه مان کورپه که م جی ما2
کچی چوارده سال بو زیندان ئه بریت
پرچه جوانه که ی ئه ی ئه مان ده سکه نه ئه کریت
تیا ده ر نه کریت سوپای بیگانه
رزگاری نایت ئه ی ئه مان ئه م نیشتمانه2
Cklara Moradian and Soraya Fallah will be performing a reading of an original short One Act Two Women Play. This piece is an original collaboration by both women and has been written by Cklara and Soraya unless otherwise noted.
The Concept of this piece is Iranian women and trans-generational activism. It delves into the most recent movement in Iran but also looks at how the spirit of courage has been shaped. Cklara and Soraya tell a universal story of heroism through personal narrative.
