Zipper Hall
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Archive of Desire is a multidisciplinary production combining live music, poetry, and visual art, created for the 160th anniversary of the birth of Greek poet C. P. Cavafy. The performance is set to the images of a constellation of abstract works by Broad collection artist, Julie Mehretu.
An exaltation of desire, Robin Coste Lewis, Julie Mehretu, Vijay Iyer, and Jeffrey Zeigler meditate collaboratively on the sensuality of Cavafy, diaspora, and the liminal spaces present everywhere in his work. The evening draws inspiration from Cavafy’s archive, processing the sonic, visual, and cultural tones found in his poetry through recitation, live music, electronics, and new visual work. A poet of the in-between, Constantine P. Cavafy was born in Alexandria in 1863 to Greek parents from Constantinople, and inhabited a fluid cross-cultural existence that strongly influenced his writing. Cavafy spent most of his life in Alexandria, where he lived in a neighborhood of intersecting walks of life—and his work mirrors the vibrancy and tensions of the worlds mingling outside his door. Cavafy’s poetry is marked by a pervasive sense of liminality: his language can be idiosyncratic, playful, modern to the point of being called by some “prosaic,” yet also nostalgic. Similarly, his poetry often references Greek history and mythology, yet he is a monumental figure of modernism, and his works offer viewpoints that transcend their time and resonate today. Cavafy’s poetry was a safe haven for him to explore his queerness—sometimes explicitly, sometimes in more coded language.