PERFORMANCE LITERATURE #8: SHADI ANGELINA BAZEGHI OG MORTEN SØNDERGAARD

Free entry
Language: Danish

With the PERFORMANCE LITERATURE event series, the poetry reading is presented as a unique happening relating with its own equipment and expression to the work of the authors. For this eighth and provisionally last event you’ll be presented to the work and reading of the two poets Shadi Angelina Bazeghi and Morten Søndergaard.

Shadi Bazeghi Angelina (b. 1974) debuted with the book 'Vingeslag' in 2015, and in 2020 she published 'Flowmatic'. In 2007 she graduated from Forfatterskolen in Copenhagen and has furthermore studied astronomy at the University of Copenhagen. In addition to her authorship, she works as editor and translator, and has, among other things, translated the poems of authors Forugh Farrokhzad (Irania) and Audre Lorde (United States).

Morten Søndergaard (b. 1964) debuted with 'Sahara i mine händer' in 1992. He has published a large amount of book moving in the borderland between literature, visual art, music and performance. Most recently, he published 'From today, collected poems 1992-2017', as well as a translation of Gilgamesh (in collaboration with Sophus Helle).

For the event, Shadi will perform the poems of 'Flowmatic' accompanied by pianist Frederik Blæsild Vuust. The poems are raw, battered, smashed and beautiful, and, like the rest of her writing, shaped by a uniquely powerful voice. Starting from the body and the memory, Shadis poems reaches out through language -- furious, fragile, powerless, tender and in shock -- towards the corners of this "fucked-up world". Simultaneously, internet and computer languages converses with and shapes the poems. This is an experience of infiltration and a feeling of moving between different worlds that is almost impossible to avoid of in the realms of our today life.

Morten, who during the event appears in the guise of the archivist, will during his performance connect a variety of different directions in his authorship and his artistic work in a reading revolving primarily around the lyrical sound of the word, the lyrical circumstances of the word, the appearance, temperatures, etc. Deep down the archivist is dreaming about stepping out of the spotlight and letting the archive speak for itself. Morten is his own accompanist during his performance, he himself shapes the music with which the reading takes place; everything is connected in the infrastructure of the authors work. And all along Mortens performance an enormous geological and significant figure rises behind the archivist: it is the mountain in Tuscany, where Morten is living and working at the moment interfering with his poetry.

The event is a part of the project Performance literature: stage and archive. Throughout various initiatives the project aims to investigate what poetry readings can state as a literary form of expression, and the project ensures that the reading is documented and preserved for posterity. The project is funded by the Statens Kunstfond, Aarhus Kommune and Dansk forfatterforening and is carried out in collaboration with Kunsthal Aarhus.

Image: Portrait of Shadi Angelina Bazeghi, 2015. Photo: Jakob Dall.
Image: Portrait of Shadi Angelina Bazeghi, 2015. Photo: Jakob Dall.
Image: Portrait of Morten Søndergaard, 2019. Photo: Tina Axelsson.
Image: Portrait of Morten Søndergaard, 2019. Photo: Tina Axelsson.

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