Season 2008-2009
"Only Sound
Remains" (Tirgan Festival)
"Hallaj" (Richmond Hill Theatre)
This July, participants of the Acting Workshop will be led by Soheil in a theatrical exploration of the work of the late Iranian poet, Forugh Farrokhzad. Soheil will lead participants in a fascinating multilingual exploration of Forugh’s poetry, working with music, movement and fragments of the poems to montage a rough narrative for final presentation.
Forugh’s poems have been described as full of a bitter longing. They are timeless, profoundly humanist, feminist and deeply controversial. Forugh confronted the social, political and religious conventions of the Iranian society of her time; as a woman, she was composing poetry in the man's world of Persian literature. Forugh’s poetry has been translated into many languages including English, Italian, French and Greek.
Soheil Parsa’s students
will present their work based on this collaboration at the Tirgan Festival on
Saturday, July 19th. For more information, please consult the website of the
Tirgan Festival.
Hallaj
by Soheil Parsa
Premiering at the Richmond Hill Theatre in January 2009
Mansur e-Hallaj was a legendary Sufi poet, teacher
and martyr, who lived in Iran from 858-922CE. He was fascinated with the ascetic way of life at a very young age. In his teen
years, he studied under many famous Sufis, later traveling through
Persia, India and China, where he experimented with a number of religious
philosophies, including Buddhism and Hinduism.
He saw the society’s evils as rooted in human greed and the betrayal of
religious and humanitarian ideals. Walking through the streets of Baghdad,
he told his listeners to stop wasting their time and money attending services in
the mosques or making pilgrimages to Mecca in search of God.
He won the admiration of
the public and the rage of the orthodox jurists. Hallaj was
accused of being associated with the movements of anarchy and revolution. But what really landed al-Hallaj
into trouble was his claim of identification with God. He uttered “I am the
Truth”, or ”I am the God."
For these four words, Hallaj was exiled, imprisoned,
and finally brought to a political trial in a religious court. He was found
guilty of heresy and condemned to a brutal death.
Soheil Parsa has inspired himself from this history to
create an original script. Accused of heresy, Hallaj,
a legendary Sufi master, has been condemned to death by the Orthodox religious
authorities for his thoughts and teachings; namely his claim of being "The
Truth". On the day of his execution, he is given the chance to recant his
thoughts and save the lives of his wife and son. In the final hours of his life,
Hallaj struggles to make a choice: hold on to his beliefs and sacrifice his
family, or recant and save their lives.