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September 4, 2018

Nasimi - Poetry, Art and Morality Festival to be held with organizational support from the Heydar Aliyev Foundation

Nasimi – Poetry, Art and Morality Festival will be held in Azerbaijan in the course of 27 – 30 September, to be the first festival of its kind. Dedicated to the creativity of Nasimi (1369-1417), one of the great poets and thinkers of the Orient, with the objective of immortalizing poetry and art, the Festival is being realized with the organizational support of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation and the Culture Ministry.

 

Poems of great poet Imadeddin Nasimi, who had lived six centuries ago, make everyone be lost in thoughts before the mystery of a body by not only examples of splendid word mastery, but also their power of meaning and sharp sincerity, and call to look into deep layers of heart.

 

The Festival will be held under the slogans “Beyond the limited self”, reflecting the poet’s philosophical views, and “I am a particle, I am the Sun...”, taken from his words. The programme of the large-scale event covers various types of art, and fields of knowledge. Programmes will be organized during the days of festival in various places of Baku city and Nasimi’s homeland Shamakhy.

 

On the first day of the Festival, participants will pay a visit to the Shakhandan cemetery, where Nasimi’s brother Shakhandan and eminent poet Seyid Azim Shrivani are buried, then the Juma Mosque, one of the oldest mosques of the Caucasus, built in 743, the Pir Omar Temple in Avakhly village and the Shamakhy History and Ethnography Museum will be visited.

 

A poetry and music assembly will be arranged before Nasimi’s statue in Shamakhy, and an event will take place with participation of the winners of the literary contest dedicated to Imadeddin Nasimi, held by the Culture Ministry in the framework of the literary project “Word”. Young poets presented their works they had written having driven inspiration from the genius of Nasimi. Mugham and music pieces calling for morality will also be performed during the Festival.

 

Inauguration of the International Ethical Design Station will also take place in Meysary village of Shamakhy, under the name of “Delicate Fashion”. Built on the basis of materials printed by “Baku” magazine over the course of a last few years under the name “ECO. Fashion Route”, this place will embrace information and enlightening on ecological sensitiveness in the production of garments and interior items, as well as recycling, rehabilitation of forgotten and obsolete traditional production methods and technologies, and the functions of demonstration and sales rooms. Works by Azerbaijani and foreign designers will be displayed. Dress styles that had been used in Azerbaijan for hundreds of years, various colours being in fashion in different periods, as well as garments decorated with national ornaments will be demonstrated at the exhibition.

 

Thereafter, an evening of acoustic and electronic music, called “Before stars”, will take place at the Shamakhy Astrophysics Observatory of ANAS named after Nasreddin Tusi. Sahib Pashazadeh, Irshad Hussein (Azerbaijan), Ali Phi (Iran), Sati Kazanova (Russia), Rabih Beaini (Lebanon/Germany), Abdel Karim (Lebanon), “Hanoi” duet: Nguen Le (Vietnam/France) and Ngo Hong Guang (Vietnam), Görkem Şen (Turkey), and Ar Bard Duet from France will take part in the programme.

 

On September 28, renowned German scholar, Michael Hess, who has been studying Nasimi’s creativity, will give lecture at the Heydar Aliyev Centre on the theme “Understanding Nasimi in the contemporary context”.

 

On the same day, the “Live Life” exhibition, organized following the initiative of Vice-president of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, founder and head of IDEA (International Dialogue for Environmental Action) Public Association Leyla Aliyeva, will be presented at the Heydar Aliyev Centre, after being demonstrated in London, Paris, Berlin, Moscow and Tbilisi. The exhibition aims at drawing attention to environmental issues, protection of nature, and enlightening the public on the role of art in this field.

 

“Hurufiyye” Exhibition to be presented by the Barjeel Foundation of the United Arab Emirates at the Heydar Aliyev Foundation will include 26 works of painting and graphics. These works relate to artists-our contemporaries residing in a number of Arab countries, demonstrating a movement called “hurufiyye” (letters, pictures built on calligraphy), which has disseminated widely for the last 20 years. Several paintings of Honoured Artist of Azerbaijan Tarlan Gorchu will also be displayed at the exposition.

 

Thereafter, the program will continue with the music and video art installation “77 million paintings” of renowned British composer Brian Eno, the creator of the genre “ambient music”. This work has so far been shown in such cities as Tokyo, London, New York, Buenos Aires, Barcelona, Sidney, Mexico, Capetown, Rome etc.

Te event’s official opening ceremony will take place at the Heydar Aliyev Centre. At a concert programme, to be arranged at the Centre in the evening of September 28, poems of Nasimi will be presented, and pieces of mugham, new arrangements of songs of 8-9th century eminent Azerbaijani musician Abdulgadir Maraghai by young and middle-age composers for the ancient music instrument ensemble “Sounds of centuries” under the Azerbaijan National Conservatoire, the work “An Epos about Nasimi” by great composer Fikret Amirov, and the song “Dua” composed by Honoured Artist of Azerbaijan Tunzala Aghayeva to Nasimi’s poem will be performed. Renowned British singer of Azerbaijani descent Sami Yusif too will perform at the concert.

 

The same day of the Festival will end by a presentation of the music project “Cycle” by honoured artists of Azerbaijan Rain Sultanov and Isfar Sarabski, glorifying moral and literary values in the Chamber and Organ Music Hall. In this project, Isfar Sarabski will perform jazz music on organ, along with pianoforte.

 

On September 29, renowned master of yoga Nandan Guatam will hold “Artistic yoga session” at the Heydar Aliyev Centre. The training conducted by N.Guatam will be accompanied by music composed by himself.

 

On September 29, the work “Aus den sieben Tagen” (From the seven days) by German composer Karl Heinz Stockhausen will be performed by an ensemble comprised of international musicians as a joint improvisation. The composer, having not written a note, saw his duty in making up texts encouraging the musicians spiritually. Having read these texts, musicians make free improvisations and, in this process, they become inspired both by the author and by the performances of each other. The fact that the musicians are seated separately, in different corners of the palace complex, embodies perception of the truth as if in secret, loneliness. Having been combined by applying contemporary communication means, these separate music performances will be broadcast through Internet. Musicians representing different cultures and styles – Honoured artists of Azerbaijan Elchin Shirinov and Shahriyar Imanov, violin player Osman Eyyublu and, from foreign countries, Kudsi Erguner (Turkey), Sefudi Koyate (Guinea), Naomi Sato (Japan), Christina Vantsu (USA/Belgium), Elisabeth Harnik (Austria) and Gianluka İadema (Italy) will participate in the project.

 

On September 29, a video lecture called “Empathic civilization and distribution economy” by world-renowned American economist Jeremy Rifkin will also take place at the Stone Annals Museum, followed by a Q&A session.

 

At the Stone Annals Museum will also be presented a music project called “Bahariyye”, made by inspiration from immortal Nasimi. Along with five mugham performers, an electronic music performer too will perform on the scene: Teyyub Aslanov (khanendeh), Aliagha Sadiyev (tar), Elnur Mikayilov (kamancha), Shirzad Fataliyev (zourna and balaban), Kamran Kerimov (naghara), and Farhad Farzaliyev (electronic music and sound design).

 

On the same day, performance of a group dancing using the inclusive method “DanceAbility” will take place in the Seaside National Park. During this performance of the organization “DanceAbilityAzerbaijan” in the course of three weeks, both healthy people and those with physical disabilities will come together to share the joy of expressing themselves by dances and movements. These dances will bring the spirit of Nasimi philosophy of seeing a supreme and perfect being in humans to the Baku Boulevard.

 

On September 30, presentation of the public art project called “Opening Wall” will take place in the abandoned industrial warehouse in Gala settlement of Baku. Up to 10 local and foreign-national “urban art” artists will partake in the project, creating their works on the building’s walls. Among them will be artists from USA, South Africa, Brazil, Belgium, Spain and France. Children and juveniles, having closely watched the process of creating works, will paint pictures under the leadership of artists. Students of the Azerbaijan State Art Academy will then reflect the same sketches on the walls on a large scale.

 

On the same day, familiarisation will take place with the exhibition “From waste to art” and with the works created in the framework of the project “Sound in Stone” at Gala Archaeological and Ethnographic Museum Complex, and a concert programme of Paraguay’s famous “Recycling” Orchestra (an orchestra with music instruments made of recycled wastes) comprised of children and juveniles will be presented.

 

During the Festival days, merger of Icherisheher’s fascinating attraction with art will make guests of the city undertake a tour of old Baku. Exhibitions, installations and video projections will be shown in Icherisheher, and samples of poetry and music pieces will be performed, theatrical shows presented. Imitative poems (nazire) written to Nasimi’s hemstitches will appear in front of viewers on Icherisheher’s narrow streets and walls in an unusual form – for example, in the form of calligraphy on a wall, or in the sound recording, or even being “revived” on any panorama based on “QR code” technology.

 

At the end of the Festival, winners of the poetry contest dedicated to Imadeddin Nasimi’s memory in the framework of the Culture Ministry’s literary project “Word” will be rewarded at the Baku Media Centre.