Song of the North
Growing up in Iran, multimedia artist Hamid Rahmanian remembers being a “very detail-oriented child, drawn to complicated projects.” He devoted much of his time to perfecting his calligraphy, and later made money by painting elaborate murals of rock album covers from the likes of Pink Floyd, Deep Purple and Black Sabbath on his friends’ bedroom walls.
“My family was not really interested in art,” says Rahmanian, a 2014 Guggenheim Fellow. “So I had to discover this on my own, later in life. But I’ve always loved color and painting, crafting and building complicated projects.”
That passion for detail would serve Rahmanian well. After earning a degree in graphic design at Tehran University, he moved to the United States in 1994 to study computer animation at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. From there, he would go on to build a successful career spanning the graphic arts, film, animation and shadow theater.
Rahmanian may have been unwilling to limit himself to just one art form, but for the past 16 years, he’s happily dedicated himself to a single pursuit — sharing the ancient stories of the Shahnameh (or Book of Kings) with a modern Western audience.
“The Shahnameh is the longest poem written by a single poet,” he says. “The Persian poet Ferdowsi collected and put close to 60,000 verses together in the old epic tradition, chronicling the folklore, mythology and history from the Iranian Plateau. So we’re talking not just the geography of Iran as we know it today, but from the north of India to the Black Sea and Balkan regions. This is really the book that kept the Persian language and culture alive after the Arab conquest in the seventh century. The ex-Roman territories like North Africa, Egypt and Syria lost their language to Arabic. But we kept our language alive through the Shahnameh.
“It’s sort of like the Iliad or Odyssey for Iranians,” he adds. “There are love stories and tragedies, and you can actually see the origin of stories like Romeo and Juliet, Rapunzel, Macbeth — many stories from Western literature are rooted in the Shahnameh. It’s the identity of Iranian culture.”
After he immigrated to the United States, it became clear to Rahmanian that most Americans had little knowledge or appreciation of this culture.
“For me, Iran is like a beautiful symphony,” he says. “But in the United States, you only hear one note. You only hear negativity. So I thought maybe I should help people have a better understanding of this culture that has constantly been demonized. The Shahnameh is a collection of beautiful stories, and who doesn’t like a good story? So I thought maybe that’s my job here — to provide these stories for the next generation.”
Rahmanian started by creating a new, fully illustrated edition of the Shahnameh based on the visual traditions of the Persian Empire and featuring a comprehensive English translation by Ahmad Sadri. That project would become a bestselling 600-page book called Shahnameh: The Epic of the Persian Kings. Rahmanian went on to produce a pair of intricately crafted pop-up books, then shifted his focus to cinematic theater productions that combine shadow puppetry with projected animation.
Song of the North
After premiering in Paris in 2022 to enthusiastic crowds, Rahmanian’s latest project, Song of the North, arrives at OZ Arts this weekend. Once again adapted from the Shahnameh, this vibrant multimedia work tells the story of Manijeh, “a heroine from ancient Persia who must use all her strengths to rescue her beloved and help prevent a war.” With nearly 500 handmade puppets, more than 200 animated backgrounds, and a tireless ensemble of nine actors and puppeteers, Rahmanian calls Song of the North “80 minutes like you’ve never seen before.”
“It’s like the audience is watching a movie, while the ensemble is making the movie,” Rahmanian says. “So the location where you shoot the movie, the editing room where you edit the movie, and the theater where you screen the movie are all on one stage. I used to make movies, but always had a very graphic design approach in my storytelling. But shadow theater brings together cinema, graphic design, puppets, all the things I love — they all sort of meet in shadow theater.”
For Mark Murphy, executive and artistic director of OZ Arts, this unique blend of forms is just part of the appeal.
“What strikes me about what Hamid is doing is just how magical it feels,” he says. “I mean, I find shadow puppetry fascinating on its own. But through the use of this video animation, he takes it beyond the scope of anything I’ve experienced before. He uses these incredible cinematic techniques — close-ups, cross-fades — so he’s able to create epic battle scenes and landscapes, but also can move in close for more intimate scenes. It’s really quite stunning.”
Murphy says Rahmanian will be on hand to discuss some of these innovative techniques after each performance at OZ, offering audiences a rare glimpse into what’s happening behind the scenes.
“The level of choreography going on backstage is just amazing,” Murphy says. “Hamid’s work is so complex, and yet completely accessible. It’s enjoyable for kids of all ages, but the sophistication of the visual imagery and the use of cinematic concepts makes it just as fascinating for adults. We’re always trying to find new ways to tell stories here at OZ, and this project is a great example of that.”
