 wanted us to have a conversation today about how art challenges power. We see that artists are often in the front line when in a conflict they're often persecuted just because of their art and talking to the three of you that are all artists I I wanted to start out with why is that like why is art so powerful that it makes people in power afraid? Simply art is the fastest way to talk to public and to even change the culture or you can even brainwash people with art so it's very dangerous. People would not listen to politicians but they would listen to artists and they would like memorize their songs or get affected with films and movies or theater not with politicians speeches so they must be very afraid of artists of course they know they are more powerful than them. When you were in Egypt and working as they you call yourself a sound composer yeah how did you experience that? I was oppressed in a different way than just being arrested for speaking out for writing I'm not a singer so I just can make like a production for another singer who is singing again as the regime but as an activist I opposed on social media and that will put you in jail like in a minute but also because I'm a woman I was sexually attacked and that's a very strong weapon to make people afraid and not just women it's all her family and that's what what the protest was it was the people the Egyptian people protesting against the regime so when you attack women you are already attacking all her family so it's all about scaring and make you comply with the system or the rules that they want you to follow or you will pay very high price for that so it's a very mean way to control and to prevail the dictatorship and control people's minds also through religion like it's all it's all it's about brainwashing. Do you feel like your art is kind of an activism in itself? I do it through my art and now I started adding other singers on my compositions and I'm still a bit afraid for my family in Egypt even when I do that here but I can take it further I can sometimes if it's really really I shouldn't say that but if it's really offensive I don't write my name on it I did that several times even while I'm here and this persona they want to kill I guess but they don't know it's me this is very dangerous to say now but they won't never they will never know that it is me so I still have this double personalities double artists I have also that instrumental one this is safe so it's even dangerous when you are abroad still. In no way art can also be controversial and you both work in no way and how have you experienced how art can be powerful or either as activism or in itself? I'm sort of thinking that for the in the original I mean as art as a power you know and as powerful then I would think that art it could be powerful when it meets people you know when you are a part of a movement or when you when you're are leading or working with a group of people or important movements in the people and not by itself really so I think that I mean when I was in a rap group called Galtos parliament a really good rap group and and of course we I've never been to here square and or anything like it so I agree it feels kind of silly to discuss it in this context but here we are so let's accept that no but but we when I mean we we have always seen our music as as a weapon or a tool to to change the world in some direction that we want to to change the world and we have been also been activists at the same time so so we haven't like been we haven't needed to go out what shall we make a song about because it's always there because you're always in some kind of a struggle and some kind of a fight and you need to to to express that than to make a song that can I can help it in some kind of way and and the moment when you feel that now it's working in some way is of course the moment when you are connecting with people and and are able to enrage people or to make people fight and and when you say something I mean we did one really an important thing once where we criticized the crown prince of Norway and you know and it was not an important political fight for us you know to to fight the monarchy was more like you know hey it's monarchy it's silly so let's like oppose it and it wouldn't be important if it hasn't been that there were like 1500 people in the crowd that were shouting with us you know and the crown prince was in the back of the room and and you know and it's the moment when you when you meet those though all those people and also all our important songs really has been is not about the songs it's about the the moment we make ourselves part of the great philosopher Cersei Lannister once said power is power you know and art isn't power and let's you can turn it into power in some way and thousands of marching people that's power you know that's obviously power so if you can work with that then you can have power it's much easier to do it against the prime minister because everybody has the prime minister the prince everybody loves you know more controversial but I mean it was just a fun idea when you were just saying crown prince and then lately we just hear crown prince in the media when we crown prince we hear about the of course crown prince of Saudi Arabia that's the sound so we nice to think about that suddenly just saw this image got us parliament with the crown prince of Saudi Arabia sitting on the back going in but I think there's a difference when you talk also I mean of course we can there's differences but I don't think we should we should get scared of discussion discussing a differences because there's also problematic when we when we put problematics of course there's a difference to be activist in Egypt and to be activists in Norway or being artists in different so of course there's a difference but then to the middle to to make the problem similar is problematic but also to not problematize different issues different places is also problematic because that means that's nothing goes nothing continues it's almost the same like to say that we are we are having a so okay time here that's why we don't need to be that active but there is a difference also is that I would say like I don't know enough about Egypt but let's say in Iran on other countries that I discussed with the power also makes art a certain contra power you know by by hitting on it by controlling it it also makes it to a power so if while in here just by giving it you can do what you want or it makes it almost unpower you know like a bit powerless so then you have to look for the function of it and the power of it while if I am an activist in in Iran in a country so if I dance in Iran which is not allowed to dance I'm already on the blacklist just by dancing without discussing it if I'm good bad or anything you know just by by doing it I am I am and that's also how to say powers thing so they they need the contra power to be able to to to to exist but we also have to understand that these powers are also making this kind of activism activism powerful by by making it on the blacklist or putting it on the other thing is also that I think what I always think there's a difference at least when I'm talking with some is that the audience is different also which means the audience are looking for the alternative places the audience is trained to read between the lines to to is they they are developed critical thinking of if they read the newspaper of the government they they don't believe in the thing that is written there in like while here we are not we have lost that training as an audience let's say in Europe or so you just so I think there are positive and negative is in in the both let's say like this so I think when it comes for me when it comes to activism of course we have this extreme neoliberal and fascistic way with like packed in Europe in them in a beautiful language acceptable of course it is my right to hate anybody that I like to that I want to hate I don't know what's the problem with it if you are free why can't I feel like we have very this kind of small nuances and we don't have anybody who says this is not correct and this is correct or so you don't have any power to def like to do this so I think it's for me it just looks a bit like a mess sometimes at least so you don't know where to hit it could that be just a difference between making like political art or whatever in in the light of strong censorship and light censorship in Norway with I would say that you have to be as a as a political artist you have to be all over there you know you have to be stage left you have to be you have to be you know if you're making a song about racism in Norway you're going to fight racism if you say hey I'm against racism and write a nice rhyme about it everybody will you know it will be it will be nothing you know it's like every politician says they're against the racism even the racist ones you know so it don't mean anything but so if you're going as an artist to say I'm against racism you really you have to go out and say I'm gonna kill all those and gonna you know cut my and you're like being really really extreme about it to get the point through you know that's you know you have to say if you're against police violence then you have to say you have to kill all the police you know to sort of get the message through but in other in other places it's maybe the opposite you know that you just have to have a small hint of it and the audience will will will catch that nuance and say yeah he says or she says she made this there's a very small nuance which means a lot and here's like you have to say really really big stuff just to make it to make a small point and the moment you go to the extremity you also lose nuances you know and then it's that's and I think that's what I'm trying I think there is almost like it's how to say so just for me it's personally when it comes to the art it's just about I think it's about understanding a goal like what do you want to achieve with it however small or big it's going to be and also to think how to say I think activism and different everybody have a different country has a different strategies and I think it's about for me it's about learning these strategies and using it in the art making how do I make the performances how do I relate to the public what do I because in one way you I for me at least in the performing art you're making a world how yeah how you how you meet the public that comes in so you can actually already there start to creating certain rules or certain ideas for example if you say let's say within dance that you have a lot this kind of thing that always male lifting women you just say you just and we're not gonna do this let's just not do this and then some people said but then you limit your art your artistic blah blah no but you can change it or at the end you're not gonna die if you say I'm not gonna do this in my shows at all or I'm not gonna be sexist I'm not gonna show female body parts or to sexualize a body in a sense so there are things that I think and but then of course somebody can say but now you put limitation on your art and I'm I say I yeah but it's my freedom is my choice also to do that because I want to achieve something it's not I'm not saying everybody else has to do it is also that yeah I think just my it's just that I think it we have a lot to learn from each other to be able to create that artistic rooms as radical as they can be and I think I have more like at least I have learned more when I'm when I'm confronted by somebody else's reality to understand what is my reality and how do they relate with that reality what could that be like an example is I saw this documentary about about advertisement and they have interviewed this Iranian advertisement company and then you have this person he's so cocky and so arrogant almost that it seems like there is somebody from New York in Fifth Avenue but he's in Iran and just like goes and he goes like creativity you want to talk about creativity we are the creatives person ever and then he talks about that they're going to do an advertisement about shampoo for female but they're not allowed to show a female hair they're not allowed to show a female in shower they're not allowed to show a female body and then he goes now you tell me how you're gonna make that advertisement yeah but no this is not allowed either no no no because it still looks so if they go if they really want to censor it they still can censor it they're very like a strict censorship there's this video of a dancers from Belgium was in Iran and then before the show because then the censorship comes and they look at the show before it goes on and they go this and this and this and this no it out and there's a very funny video of this guy that from a censorship comes and says to them no no no no no no no this no this only this so they're not allowed to use any circular movement no circular movement nothing everything has to be strict it's really like everything must be straight so then he's and then they the guy starts to pretend that he doesn't understand so then the censorship guy starts to showing him all the time no this no understand no but only so it becomes very funny video but sorry I mean if you want to see anything you can see I mean you're free to in a way that's what we know but but sometimes I hear because all of you seem very unafraid of being political but a lot of artists that I talked to they say that but art shouldn't be political I mean do you kind of destroy the art by making it political is is it should it be something you know out there a political while you know your politics is personal I don't think art should be political like in the form of like giving massages I don't I don't see it I don't think it should be direct like this this president is bad this is not art but it it can be a wisdom the whole performance that's you get it from between the lines and this goes in your conscious and live inside your conscious but the direct message that you can forget later I don't believe that and if I see I see it would be ridiculous if I just said something wrong so I really go through doing what exactly I shouldn't do like what they call taboo so I just do it and to be like a model of something that people are afraid to do is more powerful than saying that you can do that that you should do that like do it yourself and it will it would break through so I don't really believe in direct messages in that way so I don't call it political I can't call it even humanitarian it can only just art you can label it under any under any expression but not really saying one two three and for you I was thinking maybe you could say race that the the people that the parties who are against racism are are themselves racists that can be your message even like because you don't have to go very big you can say that people against racism are racist yeah but I like it's like a twist like that so you can put it in a sandwich because yeah racist people claim that they are against racism so this kind of complex ideas that you can you can really and put it put in a box and people will get it from between the lines not just say it through I'm all in favor of just saying it through yes no I just I mean I I mean I think that I mean I'm art is a different word and stuff like that yeah of course and and but let's not try to define stuff here but but but I mean I think that most of my best songs my my most both the most like the best music I made that has had has the most impact on real life has been direct you know it's been like stop this war just on a funky beat and a great rhyme and funny lines in between and and because sometimes that that the reality is that simple you know you got to stop this war you know you can't just bomb people and and and of course you can always put a lot of nuance into it and you can remove stuff and you can be but I mean I think it I think it should be a dogma for art not to be direct because I think that we are from different words like a female cannot even perform or dance so just seeing a woman dancing is a political act without saying anything but you are talking from a more level of opposition but I mean then that that's direct you know a female dancing in a world where females can dance but I think it isn't about I mean it all depends how you call it let's say if you're in Europe and you have a public support which means you're using a public money for making art you all already political so if you want or not it all depends if you label yourself or not or if you but you cannot say you are occupying a public arena you're taking a public time this is a social place it's not you cannot exclude people actually everybody is welcome so it is an it's in a it's an official space so to say that you're not political it's a bit problematic I would say but okay just to make it very clear it's very then I think you're a bit you're playing naive or you're naive you think that I can take the government money but and I can take a public space and you know public own space and public time and everything but no no no I am not part of the society I'm doing something called arts and it's totally by itself and it's protected by its own law and stuff like this no not not even especially not more and more now that where where the liberals has managed to even you make our taxes to private privatize the taxes so they say your tax money my tax money which was not something we used for many years ago we never said it was our money it was we pay taxes we didn't discuss like this so it's meant lots of things change so that's one part of it the other part of it is just to say about directness then again I think for me I come back to where you making what what is your audience and what is what is the society you're part of and how you choose to you could say if goddess parliament went to Egypt by the total freedom that they had here and they could say the directness in that room that would be super interesting to see when this can when when these things are moving let's say like that the same thing you know when when I was artistic director in cut plans and I brought Bushra which is a Moroccan choreographer female choreographers which works with so her idea and then to bring it to Norway to work with femininity the way she worked with in Marrakesh that's different to approach for example for us here then she had there I work you know she had this 70-year-old dancer with her where she was going around and you know almost like grabbing and talking about sexuality and grabbing thing and fucking thing with with the with the Chador you know why she was this sexually active in the way when she was dancing and moving in rehearsal so of course the confrontation of they know for some people in Norway to have this what is a 70-year-old Moroccan woman which doesn't speak French or English just barbara you know what and she brings this sexuality on you just go like okay what am I then you know as a Norwegian free female when she's like this you know you know what I mean she was doing a lot so they were just circling all the time so I'm just saying there are many so but I also just to last it for me just sometimes it's about destruction I like destruction sometimes and that's could be because I grew up in Iran when it was a war in a good or bad way and and I think sometimes directness when you say like you know like stop the war or doing for me when I was man I'm making something and I don't find the way that I want to say it let's say artistic or by the language then I just cut through it by the saying this is it and I like the way it destruct everything I like the way it breaks down it just the directness just takes away the composition I did the idea of composition the idea of the room as I the atmosphere whatever it almost breaks down that the by simplicity and directness almost breaks down all walls a bit and I like that when you suddenly see that yeah my mile I am limited as an artist and I don't find the language for this or the art itself is limited so you cannot say it so as as a destruction this directness I like but I must also say it could be that at this point we are old hip hoppers and hip hop it's about directness it is it is not only it's how to say because the moment you're direct in hip hop you have an energy and that's energy isn't much it's important so it's not actually about saying stop the war by saying stop the war it this is just the it's it's the energy that it produces that actually gets to the activism it's not the language so it could also be that you know the directness is something else yeah you know I'm really comprehending my ideas about this because I always thought during the revolution when we say stop the torture that this is very ridiculous because when you ask whoever the police to not torture the citizens they will not listen to you they are already criminals they like oh sorry I didn't know that you don't like torture I didn't know that you might torture so I always felt that we shouldn't ask dictatorships or oppressors to stop oppression or to stop violence it doesn't make any sense but now when you said it it was like an order not asking them to stop it's like ordering them to stop but still it would not work it won't work maybe it's the same about the Norwegian politicians that even the racist ones say they're against racist racism you know and even the torturing police say they're against for torture or they say they don't do it they did that they killed the protesters and next year in the memorial they build a statue for their memory with their names and they killed them next year they build a memorial for them so this is how you write history as if someone else killed them so we are against this but they are still killing and torturing like now you know while they are beating the memorial so so saying stop killing stop torture know for torture know for military trials no no no no they will not never listen you will never listen to you anyway no I don't speak to the people the the crowds that that can really make the the demand the pronouns that the pronouns used in the language is talking to the regime yeah yeah yeah but really really you're talking to the people I think it's to do but don't you think I understand in a way both yeah you can order them to stop then you talk to them as a equal if you can be which you can probably not but you know like and as you say it's true sometimes it's also about sometimes you say something that everybody knows in the same room and people say I you're you're preaching to the believers you know yeah but sometimes it's important to gather the believers and engage the believers and starting them I mean to be able to start a movement sometimes you need to gather you need to engage and you need so we can organize and sometimes we forget about this also part of the sometimes it's about creating a creating activism and creating this mobility and that's I think two different things but of course when you again when you talk about this kind of for me for for me you know sitting watching Egyptian you know Tahir in that time or Arab Spring coming from Iranian 1970 79 revolution then 2009 the green movement in Iran looking the whole Arab Spring coming up of course let's say my the history told me something else yeah it's happening again and in a way you know what's gonna happen of course Muslim Brotherhood will come because during Mubarak there was no there was no politician political parties which could exist so the only place which could be political is mosques and yeah the mosque which you could be political and they're the organized one they're the one who can organize no other political party can organize except mosques the same happened you know in Shah time you exclude all the all political parties so I'm just saying exactly exactly do they so there are many so I'm just it's just that this thing so so then when Mubarak left there were you know people are shouting happily that he left and I'm sitting at least something is thinking like we forget that he choose to leave he has made some deals because he has always had a choice to kill 5 million without any problem without any justification without anything so what has happened that he chooses to leave and I think this is something we forget of course that powers like you say power is power so when they choose to do something it's a bit weird so of course of course but I just want to to take us back to something that you said that I found interesting and I haven't really thought about the fact of building your own world and of course you do that because you work you know with the room kind of but I was wondering is that you know circling back to like our first question is that why art is kind of so dangerous because with your art you create the perfect world you create the world you know that could be and you let other people see what could be and and you kind of yeah you create something new and I mean even though you with I mean with dance and choreography you can't be as direct as us luck can with you know kill the police or whatever but you know you you create yeah you create the world and you can use us like songs you could also like literally I mean in the choreography you could of course kill the police I'm seeing a new project here I think I just think it's it's let's say if I want to be hopeful of course you create I'm not saying perfect world because then then I think it's a bit too ambitious to call anybody perfect but okay but but I think and it's best it tries to it creates a certain societies let's say that can create movements you know exactly you know like you are in the room or you know you know like ways of seeing the performance which was in Norway which was made as such a big noise you know they made it in a theater and maybe they had only I don't know how many public they had maybe say two thousand or something I don't know but or more but the vibration of it is totally different so I think we for me it's always about that yeah you have these people here but if you only touch like ten of them let's say they go and they sit in a dinner and they talk with somebody else and then it just it continues and that's a movement which is very difficult to control I think for me at least I'm thinking like it's very difficult to control this these spaces this very private spaces which the stories has been told again and again and if we go back to stories and I know this story of like you know Turkmens they have this very different ways of waving carpets and the Turkmens are basically so if if if a family took over an area then they banned they had only their way of waving the carpet like the how is waved and how the format inside of it so the ones were like the one to keep on their thing they did it at night and they made some under the pillow or something like this so today I can go to a shop and I can buy the under the pillow of somebody which made it and I have that story you know that this was waved you know woven sorry by that are somebody which basically tries to continue a certain tradition a certain way of thinking by the patterns create so in a way and so if you think about it that stayed they didn't manage to shut that person off it continued and now many many you know hundreds of years later I'm sitting on it it hangs on my wall and maybe it's not such a big you know it doesn't do such thing but actually it moves it survives it's it's it's and I think for me personally this is a movement you know so it's not about I was personally I will become we talked about age earlier I think some part of age is this kind of thing that at certain point I can become it's like you understand what you can do and then you understand that hopefully if you done something there is like three four generation after you which comes you know the ones who listen to your song or two you know like it's just this and that's something I think power understand power understand that if it's a good power this also we have to understand I rather have a very good power against me than bad power because that makes me good also would say I have to resist good so I was I think they understand this that maybe I have to shut this down now because if I don't do it now I have no control over how it grows but that those kind of no small tokens of fighting against oppression like those weaves underneath the pillows sometimes it's art and sometimes it's not like in the during the second world war we had these you call them binders yes that you put them in your color and and that was a symbol against the Nazis you know and and to get arrested no no they couldn't arrest people just for having those you know at least not in the start and they could use the red nissan you know hats on there you know you can do stuff that didn't have anything to do with art no or or or anything but it was just a small small discrete tokens of fighting the oppression yeah and it you know sometimes it's art and sometimes it's not and it doesn't really matter or you know it but it's I just thought about it but you were talking about it as art but sort of it is not or or it could be creating a scene yeah I can see this art yeah it's not just maybe not that important if it is or you could say there are different ways of activism sometimes sometimes art learn from activism and sometimes activism learn from art and then in the art needs to be a part or don't need to because art can be anything and and you know I I'm not telling people how art supposed to be but art is can be when when that thing about the pillows you know then art you know sort of comes inside the public fight you know it's it's a part of a bigger fight than itself and it still participates in it and it's a part of it and it's sort of very direct and very very you know it's both full of nuances and and very direct at the same time I see it very subtle it like sneaks in in the culture result it's subtle but still powerful powerful but it's like it goes in your system like near you get programmed on like being free or like it's for me as a child for example we never had elections I didn't know that saying no is an option no you know when I grew up can we refuse the present because he was the president for like 30 years so when I was around 25 he started when I was born I just realized suddenly that we can say no I never thought about it before we never had elections at least not even fake elections so I didn't know it was an option so when you move this away I don't know who can get this woman that rejection is a possibility it gets in your head and stays back there that's very subtle not direct but it's it leaves inside your head or you're subconscious but I'm thinking could this be a problematic you know that's part of when you're saying we're saying that it's just them when you talk it's just not it also confronts a bit we say you know art should not be at the same it we don't want to impose without anybody and some part of me and I'm now a bit on the edge because when now we've been talking too long and maybe I'm losing it but okay it's just maybe that's one of the problems that we have we don't dare to say what it should be and what it should not you know what I mean and what happened in that room at least I think in Norway or in Europe I would say the moment we don't say we have a extreme right-wing dressed in its most sophisticated something comes in and just goes into this small empty spaces and defines it and it says it should not be this without any problematic you know we are sitting you know you can say we are sitting here in post left-ish morality discussion you know like we discussed with ourselves because we've been so criticized that we are so we were so categorically we were so category we were so the left was so right and wrong so now we have embodied this discussion inside is am I okay if I say art should not be this you know you know what I mean and then while we are dealing with all this kind of discussion suddenly this right-wing past is liberalist just comes in and just goes like female don't have a right for shit if you ask me and he just go why do you're discussing you know but I'm not saying I don't know how to hit it I'm not saying I know how to hit it but it's almost like this personally I just go like what happened I could hit this so well and now I'm just like are you lost in the nuances no it's something like you know like and and of course I know what happens the moment I go to the other one you know I know what happens if I hit it also you know it's just that I know that it will not function as it did before if I hit it but my point is isn't that the I mean I can I have a lot of opinions on art you know what is good art and what is bad art for me you know what what what do I want to do and what do I what I don't want to do but but also in my perspective it's important to you know let the blossoms bloom and let people do their stuff and I think I mean that is the the method of the ultra right you know is to define what is what what's right and what's wrong you know and they would say and they would say no you know a really artistic dance choreography is that's bad culture we don't need it we should spend money on it and I don't want to say that even if I don't like you know watch it a lot you know because because I don't understand your thing you know and and it might be great it's just not I just don't understand it and I mean if I would say that no the only way for political activism in meeting culture is political direct rap music that would be kind of silly too you know I know I'm just trying to I think it's a bit I'm not really I don't have any answers it's just about there is almost like in a way what you said also is that what about if you dare because I read I sometimes think maybe it's also about daring to to define and fail because because I mean this is something I mean I had this thing since I have for me since I have this double it I have lots of contact with different people from different but then like you know I never go back I never go to Iran so I can I'm free in this sense to do whatever shit I don't need to think of consequences of what I'm doing some others must because they have to make something and then they going back to Iran or or anywhere you know in the country that they go but so I'm also thinking like what is the response what is the possibility and responsibility of that choice you know what I mean some I think I'm just looking because there are things that are happening I remember like one of the big thing yeah it is again it really depends where you are and what I was performing in Palestine in Ramallah and I was this performance where I'm talking about that reality is manipulated that I can manipulate my dreams by dreaming and I can like change the whole thing and while I'm standing and saying the text in Ramallah I have to stop I cannot say this in Ramallah because this the the Israel the Israeli government is rewriting a history again and again that's what they do they have actually taking a history and they rewrite it and I'm standing there in my total luxury of total free identity you know my identities and my mobility and my Norwegian passport and everything like this thinking like yeah come on let's play with this identity history and let's just move it around slip and then suddenly I'm standing I have in Ramallah I cannot say this I have to stop and I have to stop the