Julidans: Language of the Birds

In 1987, the last song of the now-extinct Moho bird was recorded: a call to a mate who would never answer again. A song projected into the void. For creator Reza Mirabi, that sound evoked a memory of a text he had learnt as a child – Mantiq ut-Tayr, or The Conference of the Birds, a twelfth-century Sufi poem. In it, birds from all over the world gather around a single question: How do we respond to a world that seems to be falling apart?

A question that has lost none of its urgency.

Reza translates this centuries-old allegory into the present day in Language of the Birds. It interweaves choreography for two dancers Gustavo Ciríaco and Mathilde Bassetti, live music by Saba Alizadeh on the kamancheh (a Persian stringed instrument) blend with electronic and noise elements, music by singer songwriter Astønne, with Percussionist Khaled Abdou, and live storytelling by Sher Doruff.

The birds’ search for a leader is interwoven with real-life stories: two sisters in Gaza counting the remaining birds, vets in Delhi rescuing thousands of birds of prey, a tsunami survivor on the Nicobar Islands who was warned by birds, a pigeon speaking from the rooftops of Tehran.

The performance does not seek definitive answers nor pass judgement. It creates space for attention, for listening, for the questions we rarely ask aloud. How can we continue to interact with each other in this day and age, across distance, differences and disruption? These voices together – human and animal, old and new, near and far – form the true language of the performance.