This is a Mountain Story
Mihran Tomasyan and Saro Usta use music, movement and paper to piece together shared memories of growing up in Istanbul’s Kurtulus neighbourhood.
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Two friends who grew up in Kurtulus, a neighbourhood in Istanbul, use music, movement and paper to construct and reconstruct their shared memories. In this performance, Mihran Tomasyan reflects on where he comes from and where he ends up. Mihran Tomasyan and Saro Usta, grew up together in the Kurtulus neighbourhood of Istanbul, sharing the same culture and a strong sense of common identity. In SAR, they use music, movement and paper to bring together their memories, take them apart and piece them back together. “You chose your seedling, decided on a good place for it, prepared its soil, watered it for the first time, turned your back and walked away, days passed, perhaps weeks, the rains came, and then snow, winds blew, every now and then you came and checked, it had grown to your height, it had held up well, its roots could sink as deep as eternity, then came spring and then came summer, the sun rose, the moon set, Venus came up, you were already dead, who knows where your grandchildren woke up, some had departed, those who arrived had departed from other places, it didn’t work out, some things went wrong, the tree grew, there used to be one house in the distance, then there were three, then five, then five hundred, murders took place in its shade, and of course, some kissed, too, some never realized it stood there, and some gave it water. Then they chopped it down. And thank goodness for that because the pavement needed widening. This performance was constructed upon a…