Sethi and Asani will also explore the music and poetry of the ghazal, a form of literature dating to the seventh century, at a Friday event sponsored by the Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute. “The Art of the Ghazal” will provide intellectual and cultural context for the art form that, for Sethi, is a channel for building connections between ancient spirituality and contemporary issues of identity and culture.
“The ghazal has been the main vehicle for edgy love poetry through the ages, and poets have used the amorous form of the ghazal to put forth very political ideas,” said Sethi. “They have challenged hierarchies and normative thinking about gender, religion, sexuality, and the division between material pursuits and spiritual pursuits. Many of the issues that we call identity politics today have been discussed in interesting and creative ways through ghazal poetry.”
Like Sethi, other performers at Arts First reimagine classical forms of theater, studio art, and music for contemporary audiences.
The Harvard Pops Orchestra will bring its signature offbeat symphony to Science Center Plaza on Saturday for a triple-header with CityStep and The Harvard Undergraduate Drummers (THUD) to kick off the daylong Performance Fair.
“An assumption about classical music is that it’s stodgy, but that’s not what Pops is,” said orchestra co-president Elida Kocharian ’21. “At a Pops concert, you’ll see people laughing onstage. It’s very different from other classical performances.”
The Pops program includes the “Star Wars” title song, a video-game play-along to “The Legend of Zelda,” a piece based on the 1888 poem “Casey at the Bat” arranged by music director Allen Feinstein ’86, and “CatCerto,” a Mindaugas Piečaitis piano concerto written for a cat accompanied by orchestra.
“The performance is going to be experimental and different, which is the best thing about Pops,” said Ava Hampton ’21, the Pops’ other co-president. “The goal is to have as much fun as possible and to have everyone in that crowd having fun. At Arts First, it’s all about participation and making art accessible.”