Bedecked in Middle Eastern silver jewelry, a young woman in a dark red plastic coat with lipstick to match holds a violin while swaying in front of an electronic screen of traditional Persian visuals. The electronica soundtrack to her striking appearance mixes drum machines, horns, record scratches, and Iranian pop music.
Meet the experimental artist Sadaf, a recovering classical violinist turned avant-garde performer. Born in Iran, raised in Canada, and now based in New York, Sadaf H Nava (her full name) makes use of her unusual life journey in her multi-media career. “I gravitate towards certain things intuitively and also incorporate my broad influences, from traditional Middle Eastern music to South American music,” she explains.
Sadaf has opened for Grimes at the Guggenheim, and improvised live performances around the globe, from the Nexus Cultural Centre in Beijing and the Treize Gallery in Paris. Her first full-length experimental album History of Heat has recently been released.
Sadaf Uses Art to Reflect Emotion
As History of Heat begins, Sadaf speaks liltingly in French as dissonant violins grate in the background. From there, the album continues to build in chaos and intensity. This tension and release, the turmoil of sounds weaving together, reflects the chaos of human emotion.
“To me, performance is about working through something,” explains Sadaf. “It’s very psychological in that way. Especially when you improvise and don’t know what’s going to come out it.”
Sadaf’s work deals frequently with the idea of constraint. She expresses fears and feelings of limitation in her visual performances, frequently binding her limbs with elastic bands or blindfolding herself:
“Maybe it has something to do with being Middle Eastern, or being a woman in general,” she comments. “But I think this relates to the idea of performance as therapy. I must be working through something.”
Sadaf Draws on a Classical Background
For the first decade of her life, Sadaf played classical violin. Eventually, the strict practicing schedule grew too limiting. But she did not quit music. Instead, she turned to experimental art. She now uses her training on violin to create tension and dissonance in her performances.
“I let go of the anxiety surrounding the craft of being a good musician because I approached music as a performative act, as improvisation,” she says.
Far from the strict stylistic guidelines of classical training, Sadaf thrives in New York City’s experimental music scene. In any given performance, she might use samples of other recordings, her own vocals, and her violin along with visual elements like face coverings, blindfolds, and bindings.
Navigating Identity Through Art
While Sadaf likes to pull from all aspects of her background, she also rejects their limitations.
“I don’t like things that are easily pinned down or understood,” she admits. This applies to her art – which she prefers not to label with a single genre – as well as to her own heritage and identity.
“I have a personal relationship with my heritage, but I did not grow up [in Iran]… It’s all mediated through memory and distance,” she explains.
“I think that, along with being the anxiety generation, we are the -ish generation; -ish is an in-between, it has to do with taking references from everywhere, and identity-wise I really relate to it, too. I think most first-generation immigrants relate to feeling in-between, like you don’t belong to either culture.”
Sadaf’s History of Heat is available online and through streaming services like Spotify.
