This image was taken the first of May 2009 at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History. It was also the first opening for my DANM MFA InterActivate Exhibition.
I was accompanied by accordionist Jovan Jovanovic and violinist Slavica Kovacev from Australia.
This image was taken the 29th of May 2009 at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History during the performance of Balkan Song.
It was also the second opening for my DANM MFA InterActivate Exhibition.
This image is from the performance "endurance" piece that took place on May 29th between 1-4 pm at the SC MAH.
At the beginning of the piece, I gave a presentaion on the history of Sevdah.
Then, I came from behind the screen as "Zora" the Balkan woman.
I served to the audience/participants pouches for the performance. Inside the pouches was a smaller pouch full of lavender, a "Balkan Song" lyrics book and chocolate gold coins.
Zora sang the sevdahlinke and then gave the backstory to each song as explanation for the lyrics.
Zora then sang the song again so that the participcants could sing along.
Zora also explained the importance of coffee particularly the grinding.
She, then, asked the audience to help grind.
The finale was a song entitiled "I'm in pain, you're in pain." at which the artist's mother came up and sang along.
The third manifestation of Balkan Song was the multi-channel video installation with four movies that all involve sevdah.
This is the fourth video.
Me.
