May
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Week 8: Music, Dance, and Poetry in Sufi Piety
May 3, 2016 | Comments Off on Week 8: Music, Dance, and Poetry in Sufi Piety
For this week, I was inspired by the artistic elements of Sufi piety. Music and dance both play large roles in Sufism, although they are sometimes looked down on and seen as unholy or forbidden in other areas of Islam. However, to some, they are integral to the worship process and help the individual feel closer to God. The arts, and music in particular, play a complicated role within the greater context of Islam, and the lines between worship and art, or sacred and not sacred, are often blurred.
To represent the place of the arts in the religion, I made a time-lapse video of a number of objects associated with art spelling out the word “Islam”. The guitars represent the act of performing music. The headphones represent the act of listening to or experiencing music. The sheets of paper represent writing, and specifically poetry. The shoes represent dancing. Each of these artistic acts plays a role in making the practice of Islam around the world what it is, and to some practicers of the religion, are integral to it. I used modern devices, such as the headphones, to show that these ideas and practices follow through to and are still relevant today. Additionally, the items in the video are being arranged by two individuals. These two together represent community and teamwork. Religion is largely about community, and the acts of worship described here–singing, dancing, writing–often require more than one participant. The two in the video are symbolically building their own personal vision of Islam through the use of various forms of artistic expression.