With inspiration from 13th-century Persian poet Rumi and Victorian-era American dancer Isadora Duncan, two faculty members present an evening of dance and poetry titled “The Watching Heart: A Journey in Peace.”
The performance — which begins at 8 p.m. April 13 in the Olin Dance Studio — is a collaboration between Fatemeh Keshavarz, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Asian and Near Eastern Languages and Literatures and professor of comparative literature and of Persian language and literature, and Alice Bloch, lecturer in the Performing Arts Department, all in Arts & Sciences.
Keshavarz describes “The Watching Heart” as celebrating “the peaceful core of Islam and Judaism and the joyful diversity of Persian creative culture.”
The program features two dances by Bloch: “Peace,” set to poetry by Jesuit priest Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889), and the wry “Where’s the Jew.”
In addition, Bloch will perform a selection of works by Duncan (1877-1927), the revolutionary “mother of modern dance.”
The program also will highlight three poems by Keshavarz: “Before the Cosmic Blast — and After”; “Dost,” about a poet in captivity; and “You and I,” inspired by a nameless, shoeless Afghan boy.
The evening will conclude with Keshavarz and Bloch performing “The Watching Heart,” a collaboration set to poetry by Rumi (1207-1273).
Keshavarz, a native of Iran, writes poetry in both Persian and English and is the author of “Reading Mystical Lyric: The Case of Jalal al-Din Rumi” (1998), “Recite in the Name of the Red Rose: Poetic Sacred Making in Twentieth-century Iran” (2006) and “Jasmine and Stars: Reading More Than Lolita in Tehran” (2007).
Bloch, president of the Missouri Dance Organization, has performed and taught at numerous venues, including Lindenwood University, the New City School and the Center of Contemporary Arts. She recently created “Mom’s Rose,” an evening of dance and original poems, and performed “Words to Movement” at the Gerard Manley Hopkins Festival in Ireland in 2006.
“The Watching Heart” is free and open to the public.
For more information, call 935-5110 or e-mail anell@artsci.wustl.edu.