Scheherazade: A Performance Art Piece

Scheherazade is a hauntingly beautiful poem written by Richard Siken as part of a collection of poetry titled “Crush”. Crush explores themes of queer romance alongside darker themes of death, despair, and abuse. Scheherazade is inspired by the character (of the same name) from One Thousand and One Nights; a collection of Middle Eastern tales. This project reinvents Scheherazade as a Performance Art piece; a live performance which will take place in front of an audience in a gallery space surrounded by paintings inspired by Siken’s poetry. The performance consists of an audio — made from a reading of Siken’s Scheherazade and overlayed with sounds that emulate a natural location, such as a forest. The dancers will move in response to this audio, enhancing the narrative of the poem and visualising descriptive elements of the prose. The result is a movement based piece, emotive and abstract, that creates a visual representation of Scheherazade; honouring Siken’s written work and enabling a varied audience to enjoy the piece. Scheherazade is inherently gothic while also romantic— exploring themes of desperation and melancholy as well as longing and fantasy.  The poem itself emulates a dreamlike state, where fiction and reality mesh, and various stories blend to become one narrative.