“John Cage Is Happening” at East Art Gallery

TEHRAN,July 10 (MNA) -- A series of shows of performance art entitled “John Cage Is Happening”, which has been arranged by 30 Iranian artists to mark the centenary of American composer John Cage, is currently underway at Tehran’s East Art Gallery. The performance art show has been inspired by Cages’s greatest music-theater work “Song Books”, the gallery announced on its website. John Milton Cage (1912-1992) was a composer, music theorist, writer, and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde artists. The first performance was staged on June 30 by Hamid Purazari and the last will be performed by Reza Servati on July 30. Atila Pesyani, Payam Forutan, Mona Zandi, Hasan Majuni, Asghar Dashti and Reza Haddad are among the artists collaborating in this project, which has been organized by Amir Raad and Puya Ehsaii. According to Raad, some of the performances are inspired by only one composition from the book and some are based on a collection of them. Some performances are inspired by concepts taken from the book as a whole. “Song Books” is a collection of instrumental compositions, songs, electronic music and theater pieces that can be combined in countless ways. The book exemplifies an astonishing range of musical styles that is increasingly relevant to the contemporary musical world. The exact times of the performances and the full list of the artists are available at the gallery website www.tehraneastgallery.com.