Excerpted from (ai) interview, (ai) performance for the planet publication, Issue Fall 2002 (for subscription email membership@artsinternational.org)

The story of the poor-boy-turned prince Aladdin and his magic carpet has entranced listeners for thousands of years, criss-crossing the world from ancient Persia and Greece to the farthest reaches of the globe. Now, two international theater groups, The Builders Association and motiroti, are using the story of Aladdin to explore modern-day cultural interaction.

Builders, based in New York City, is known for theater pieces such as Jet Lag (1998-99) that incorporate new media into live performance. London based motiroti produces theater, visual art, installations, films, and events that investigate how forms of expression circulate among cultures. The two groups have admired each other’s work since 1993, and two years ago dramaturge Norman Frisch, who had worked with both, suggested a collaboration.

Marianne Weems, director of Builders, and motiroti founders Keith Khan and Ali Zaidi were intrigued by the idea. Along with Frisch, they started tossing around ideas and soon decided to create a work inspired by the rags-to-riches story of Aladdin. By early 2001, Alladeen – the title is derived from the Arabic spelling of the character’s name – had begun to take shape. Looking for a way to link their ideas, the collaborators were inspired by a newspaper story about international call centers in Bangalore, India. The centers are run by American and British hotel chains, rental car companies, and other corporations that train their Indian employees to "pass" as American (or British) to the ears of customers calling toll-free numbers. A product of the global economy, this bizarre synthetic world was just what Weems, Khan, and Zaidi needed to connect the three cultures and place their piece in a contemporary setting.

In a sense, Alladeen retraces the ancient Silk Route by examining contemporary communications – particularly the technology trade between India and the US – and storytelling via Hollywood and Bollywood film versions of Aladdin. The piece also addresses the hybrid nature of culture in Bangalore, London, and New York City while looking at how the lines between the different ethnicities and cultures in these cities become blurred, and how they borrow, steal, and reinterpret each others’ signs and stories.

Alladeen consists of three parts: a live multimedia performance, a music video, and a Web project that organizers hope will reach non-traditional theater viewers as well as be an outlet for audiences to comment on and interact with the piece. The live performance is slated to open in the Spring of 2003; the music video will also open at presenting venues in Spring 2003 and air on MTV-Asia; the Web site is slated to be up in February 2003.

Via these three platforms, Alladeen will examine the modern Silk Route, composed as it is of exchange of cultures, technologies, and stories. The collaboration itself couldn’t be taking place without these components – e-mail, cell phones, conference calls, air travel, the collaborators’ cultural and artistic experiences – and the desire to keep telling stories and analyzing the paths by which they reach us.

Over the past year, (ai) spoke with Weems, Khan, and Zaidi several times about the genesis of the project with the aid of many of these modern technologies. Here are some excerpts from these conversations.


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