Duration : 7´00”.
The video ‘I Can Sing’ (2008) renders both ironically and critically to immigration issue and to those who try to adjust themself to the new conditions in cities in transformation Here they are forcing their way between the minarets that have traditionally dominated by the city. Against the backdrop of her reconstructed home, a headscarf-wearing Anatolian woman sways to a lament. Her lips move. But the soundtrack is Jeff Buckley’s bitter, defiant version of Leonard Cohen’s classical ‘Hallelujah’.
‘Well It Goes Like This
The Fourth, The Fifth
The Minors fall and The Major Lift’
The major keys, characteristic of Western music, become a symbol of uprooting; traditional Turkish music relies on the softer, minor tonalities. Swaying to ‘Hallelujah’ the woman spreads her arms to the sky, lays her hands on her heart. What god is she singing to? The staging alternates between praise and lament, its reference to the global idiom of karaoke giving it an ironic touch. |
