Adventures of Noorie
Every year in October, as part of our annual arts festival, ‘October Jam’ at maraa, we dedicate time toward deep listening, as a gesture of our love and passion for music. Over the years, we have made humble efforts at hosting performances, raising support for musicians, recording, writing and translating, pushing ourselves to go deeper into the journeys of music. We have had the pleasure of meeting various friends across the country- musicians, poets, translators, writers who are similarly preoccupied with questions of history, politics, imagination, and memory, in relation to various musical practices.
Given that at present, we are uncomfortably surviving inside an ‘imaginary nation’, amidst censorships and coercions, we felt the need to start afresh. We wished to imagine life outside the rigidity of state boundaries and in defiance of cultural homogeneity. Collectively, we dreamt of a creature, named ‘Noorie’ who wakes up one morning and finds she can no longer remember anything. All she is left with are the memories in her body: sounds, tastes, smells. She sets out on a raging journey to discover herself.
Across landscapes, she meets musicians and storytellers who tell her different versions of history, of memory and community. From time to time, she stops for water and rest under the shade of giant trees, as she enjoys the night breeze and moonlight. She is unsure of how long her search will be, but she is determined to discover through verse and music…As she travels, she uncovers missing notes, hidden languages, censored imaginations, and unrecorded histories… listening closely, she re-collects, remembers and experiences her senses afresh.