Konzert Performance SEEDS

In the organizer's words:

Cultural reflections on colonialism and survival in a unique blend of music and poetry. Inspired by poems about African seeds and mystical connections.

SEEDS is a quartet founded in October 2024 in which musician/cellist, poet, visual artist and art therapist Tamara Walcott joins the trio "I lost myself in finding you" with Rasha Ragab, Christoph Nicolaus and Lucio Capece. These three are also members of the Rahma Quartet.
https://luciocapece.blogspot.com/2021/03/i-lost-myself-in-finding-you-trio-with.html

This new work was originally inspired by a poem by Tamara "Poem for Oryza". Tamara also made a movie about it.
The poem, a beautiful and exciting text, is based on the historical fact that a certain type of African rice found its way to America in the braids of enslaved girls and women, hidden as a means of survival in case of escape. This variety of rice, which was almost forgotten, has attracted the attention of genetic researchers in recent years because it requires little water and tolerates strong sunlight and could therefore be important for feeding the world in the future in view of the environmental crisis. This is a little known example of how enslaved people continue to create meaning through things or cultural artifacts regardless of their circumstances. Tamara, who is descended from African slaves, says: "The woman carries the rice in her hair, but the rice also carries the woman and gives meaning to an existence characterized by fear."
Rasha Ragab has also selected a poem by Mewlana Jalaluddin Rumi, which also refers to seeds - albeit from a completely different perspective. Rumi (September 30, 1207 - December 17, 1273) was a Persian Sufi mystic, scholar, theologian and a still important Islamic poet who lived and worked mainly in Konya.
Rumi's works were mainly written in Persian, but he also occasionally used Turkish, Arabic and Greek.
Rumi's intention can be made clear by sayings such as "Beyond right and wrong lies a place. That's where we meet." and "Come, come, whoever you are." or "You are not a drop in the ocean, you are an entire ocean in a drop."
His Sufi poem "Seed Market" reflects on the mystical experience of the interconnectedness of all things and the gift of giving up one's ego and finding one's true self. It encourages the reader to embrace the present moment, not to be afraid of change and to surrender love and trust to the All-One.
The most essential element of a seed is reflected in two different realities: holistic faith and trust versus fear, a secret survival strategy in the face of an unknown, probably terrifying future.
In the quartet project Seeds, the two poems are read, sung and interspersed by the two wonderful and profound performers Tamara and Rasha.

Both come from very different countries. Surinam and everywhere, as Tamara says, based in Paris. Nubia/Egypt, in Rasha's case based in Munich.
Colonialism means an imposition of horror and poverty, slavery, forced diaspora for countless people who in their original territories had prosperity, love for their natural environment and their ancestors and faith in their spiritual beliefs.
This reflection is important given the current situation in which many people are forced to leave their beloved territories, driven by the misery and violence also generated by colonialism, which has profited from the resources of colonized countries for centuries until today.