"If the television show, "Are You Hot?" had a fraction
of the heat that choreographer-dancer Banafsheh Sayyad and her
all female Namah Ensemble generated at Japan America Theater,
the show would have been a hit. Talk about sensual: Iranian-born,
locally based Sayyad, a purveyor of trance dancing and unabashed
hair tossing, presented "En/trance", two hours of exotic
music and dance that fused ancient forms with postmodern punch.
Most numbers were accompanied by Zarbang Percussion Ensemble,
led by the extraordinary Pejman Hadadi, who opened with a blistering
50-minute set.”
“Riveting
… out of drums – played with every part of the hand
– came drama”
“With the full Zarbang Ensemble on stage, all hell broke
loose!”
The
Independent, UK
“The
music making of Pejman Hadadi and Javid Afsari Rad, was downright
bewitching”
Allan
Ulrich, Voice Of Dance, 6/02
With drums that can sing, ZARBANG puts on a hugely energetic
performance.”
Vancouver
Sun
“ZARBANG is a riveting ensemble. In the opening, Pejman
Hadadi, Reza and Behnam Samani displayed their subtle palettes
of finger and palm techniques, crescendo-ing up and down and
then all around. The way the three intuitively danced around
each other’s styles and rhythms was trance inducing. Later,
Afsari Rad joined in on Santur with beautiful solos and Afghaistan-born
Hakim Ludin proceeded to dazzle the audience with a vast array
of exotic percussion instruments.”
“ZARBANG’s instruments created a sense of a global
drum family that had every spectator with a pulse tapping fingers
and moving feet to the rhythms.”
“A group of performers who challenge stereotypes about
Iranian identity, ZARBANG and Banafsheh Sayyad’s work
is entertaining and revolutionary, both.”
“Playing Tombaks or goblet-shaped drums, Mehrdad Arabi,
Pejman Hadadi and Behnam Samani set high standards from the
beginning. The trio explored an amazing array of sounds, colors
and techniques in complex rhythmic passages, hair-trigger responses
to one another and their selfless joy in one another’s
contributions.”
“Afsari Rad began with a heartbreaking solo on the Santur.
You didn’t have to be Persian to feel the tidal, nostalgic
pull of the music. The performance was so evocative that it
took a while to realize Rad was working dazzling, complicated
variations on the opening tune. His colleagues looked on in
admiration, then joined in and rose to his level.”
