zaman/i/a: tuning time through the swahili seas is a sound performance that listens to time across the swahili seas. the work draws together zamani (swahili), zaman (arabic), and zamana (urdu/hindi), words sharing a common linguistic root that resonate across indian ocean worlds. rather than marking time as a linear progression, these terms suggest a layered temporality in which past, present, and future circulate together. within this constellation, zamani evokes a deep temporal ocean beyond individual memory: a reservoir where histories gather and reverberate. at the center of the performance is the daf, whose circular frame becomes both instrument and cosmology. the work approaches this oceanic sense of time through sound—through repetition, vibration, and return. drawing on archival and field recordings from the indian ocean world, fragments of voice, rhythm, and environment are woven into looping sonic structures. across devotional and communal musical practices of the indian ocean, the drum often serves as a medium of collective remembrance and spiritual attunement. here, its resonance becomes a way of tuning time itself. through layered rhythms, resonant strings, and archival echoes, the performance imagines a swahili seas sense of time—tidal, cyclical, and spiritual—where sound carries memory across oceans, generations, and moments of eternal return.
references
- music featured in above excerpts: al jumaa by assalam sufi band
- music featured in above excerpts: hussein zahawy daf solo
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