Why is life so precious? Why do we mostly mourn the dead? Death is the only certainty of life. Through death we gain a vantage point outside of life, and it is from this vantage that we come to appreciate what we have. Let us celebrate the cycle of life, a turn of wheeling elements that includes the mortal boundaries which define our time on this world.
Epiphany: The Cycle of Life is a collaboration between visual artist Ali Hossaini, composer Paola Prestini and librettist Niloufar Talebi.
It is an ecumenical Mass for humanity where the artists explore their relationship to life and the beyond. Epiphany unfolds through a poetry of word, song and image that relates
personal experiences of death to universal themes. The work is a 4‐channel video installation accompanied by an original polyphonic score for chorus. Lasting about 50 minutes, it should premiere with live performers then open as a recorded installation.
lThe work was conceived by Hossaini who reflected on his mother’s description of her last days. Noting the resemblance of her experiences to those described by the Tibetans in language that contains dance‐like gestures, video paintstrokes and hidden meanings that portray the disintegration of living perception as a complex synaesthetic environment.
Niloufar Talebi’s inspiration for Epiphany draws from Western and Eastern traditions including the Latin Mass, the Bardo Thödol (Tibetan Book of the Dead), Zoroastrian rites, Avestan prayers, Aztec / Day of the Dead ritual and Rilke’s Duino Elegies. Talebi’s text is an amalgam of poetry, praryers, deathbed soliloquies and oracles told from multiple perspectives.
Paola Prestini joins her collaborators in a global embrace, and in Epiphany she has created a life‐affirming musical work that revises the concept and mood of the Requiem Mass. With exhilarating range her compositions express complexity, optimism and worldly awareness.
The installation
To create the installation four projection screens are arranged into a square. The audience is contained within the square, which becomes an immersive video environment. For the opening night the piece should be performed live within a sacred space such a cathedral. Choir and musicians can be located within the screens or in their usual location.
After opening, Epiphany can remain on location or be transferred to a gallery space where it is exhibited as a recorded loop.
Niloufar Talebi
Niloufar Talebi is a writer, artist, performer, and award winning translator. She is the editor/translator of BELONGING: New Poetry by Iranians Around the World (North Atlantic Books, 2008), and the creator of multimedia projects, Four Springs (2004), Midnight Approaches (2006), ICARUS/RISE (2007), and The Persian Rite of Spring (2010). She is the author of tash Sorushān (Fire Angels) (2011), a libretto reflecting on the decade since 9/11, co‐commissioned by Carnegie Hall and Cal Performances. She has presented at numerous venues including, the Neustadt Festival of International Literature and Culture, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, National Arts Club, PEN World Voices Festival, DUMBO Arts Festival, St. Mark’s Poetry Project, Riverside Theatre, Philoctetes Center for the Imagination, San Francisco International Poetry Festival, Bowery Poetry Club, Red Poppy Art House, Theater Artaud, Berkeley Repertory Theater, Asia Society, Sadho Poetry Film Festival, Visible Verse Film Festival, LA Craft and Folk Art Museum, CalArts, Queens College, The New School, CUNY, Yale University, LitQuake and more.
