Cynthia Zaven's Report
Being asked to participate in a sound residency in New Delhi was incredibly inspiring. India had always been one of the most appealing destinations to me, and to a musician, a one-month sound residency wouldn’t have been a more appropriate opportunity. I took off leaving behind my teaching schedule, my studio and my piano, eager to indulge my senses with new inspirational elements. When I travel, a lot of my production is site specific as I try to get away as much as possible from my usual daily tools. Little did I know that I would spend my time looking for a piano; As if going all the way to India had made me miss the one thing that I’m bound to leave behind each time.Looking for a proper piano to rent in New Delhi was like looking for a sitar in Beirut: very challenging to say the least. But then this is India, and in India crazy things do happen. Through Hemant from Khoj I met the incredible Rabiya Jayaram. We had a brief talk about my work and a few days later, I heard that she was simply offering her piano. It was beyond my expectations. Beautiful, old and out of tune, the instrument was perfect for the performance I had in mind. New Delhi is one of those places where anything is possible, where nature and men intertwine, where colours and sounds overwhelm senses on a daily base; a city with a heart that is so big and loud it could contain anything; Why not a piano on the back of a truck playing with the traffic? One day before my performance a young lebanese minister was assassinated in Beirut; it was part of
the long parade of political assassinations that had started with Hariri in Feb 2005. I decided not to tune the piano. It suited perfectly with the chaos of the city I was in (Delhi) and the city I was from (Beirut). A different chaos, but chaos nevertheless. I had taken the piano out of its normal 'habitat', therefore de-contextualizing an ordinary setting, and was using it to interact with a city that was not mine, in a language I knew best (music). We drove around the
busy roads of Delhi with me sitting in the back improvising on the piano, challenging the
instrument to connect with the urban environment, almost like trying to fit in a place I didn’t
belong to. Some drivers would beep back, some would just stare in awe thinking it was a movie that
was being shot. Feeling the instrument turn into a purely sonic interface to communicate with
cars, rikshaws and trucks was both an intense and fun experiment. Thanks to the super Khoj team
who filmed and Michael Northam who recorded the sound, I had the material I needed to work on the
sound and video installation for the Open Day. And there it was, my "Untuned Piano Concerto with
Delhi Traffic Orchestra" screened on a wall with a rikshaw inside the venue. Speakers on each side
of the screen would be playing the traffic track. Visitors would sit inside the rikshaw to hear
the edited piano track coming out from the small speakers I had installed in the back and the
front of the vehicle. It was messier than I thought as I had imagined the whole setting to be
indoors, but the rikshaw couldn't fit through the door. Messy, chaotic and noisy, like the
performance itself, and definitely an experience I will not forget.
This residency was beneficial to me on several aspects. It gave me the opportunity to step outside
my world, meet and share thoughts with Sophea, Lex, Michael and Justy, as well as Emanuel, get
acquainted with Delhi's vibrant artistic organization Khoj, the wonder girls Aastha and Rohini,
the fabulous Pooja Sood with the fabulous laugh, Hemant (“Ask Hemant!”) the wizard of khoj who had
all the answers, and Surabi, the last minute angel who worked her magic with the editing of the
film.
It also made my return to Lebanon much easier; The country’s turmoil had stopped being
inspirational since the July 2006 war. Back from India, I stayed completely disconnected from the
local news for a while, and couldn’t help wondering why people always fled to the west instead of
the east in search of a “better life”.