CARPET CONCERT is an idéa and space, to create sounds, music and new unthought spaces beyond the western knowledge and cosmology. The new born event series that I founded, tries to combine the occidental and the oriental world in a new identity and hybridity.
The Mission is simple: It´s to highlight a distorted and stereotypical image of the so called „Orient“, and to celebrate a new narrative, beyond the perceptions of popular one-dimensional Orientalist ideas.
The relations between the Orient and Occident have been shaped by that which the Palestinian researcher Edward Saïd calls «Orientalism», a set of beliefs and stereotypical narratives. Now, these narratives have not only impregnated how Oriental cultures are presented outside of their context until today, they have also affected how they see themselves. Since the liberation movements of the 1960s, however, a growing number of contemporary artists and thinkers have participated in a critical reflection of imperialist or Orientalist stereotypes, developed counter-narratives, or opened themselves up to completely new ones, eventually creating artworks about home and history, desire and estrangement, isolation and exile from dis-Orientalist perspectives.
I have always wanted to combine my Live-Sets with traditional instruments from the so called "Orient", to transform the genres. Well aware of the polemics of the expression "Orient" or "Carpet Concert", I do not use this expression affirmatively, but rather descriptively. As a provocative impulse to open discourses, to deconstruct projected identities in the musical process.
It’s not easy because there is a tension between reproducing the oriental cliches, as well as an empowerment to say that I understand „oriental“ not only as geographical, but also in this theoretical discourse.
In the last editions I have paired up with some great musicians, who play "Saz", "Tar", "Tanbur". The focus is on national and international artists who are looking for progressive approaches to invent and mix all kind of “Eastern” music with electronic sounds, who understand its codes, such as complex rhythmic structures and re-interpret it in a new and experimental way.
Let´s deconstruct Alladin on the next Carpet Concert.
xoxo
Seba