Mira Hunter's Journal

>>Journal

Emine Mira Ava Hunter (née Burke) is a nomadic visual artist, originally from Vancouver Canada, currently in Istanbul, and on her way to New York. She is a second-generation whirling dervish, an environmentalist, a painter, a runner, a natural redhead and she loves music, knitting and her disaster stray calico, Burak. She has spent the last decade touring the world at large with Mercan Dede, and is one of the original members of his performance ensemble Secret Tribe. She graduated from the NSCAD University in Halifax, where she fell in love with her magnificent husband, fellow visual artist Derek Hunter. She was awarded the Ellen Battell Stoeckel fellowship to study at Yale University, where she met Mary Mattingly. She is preparing to relocate to New York in December to collaborate with Mattingly (and others) on Waterpod™ project.

------
01.09
Happy New Year.

------
12.08

The tour was wonderful. The last performance in Bab Al Shams for the Dubai International Film Festival at a site in the desert more than an hour outside the city, was magical. It was the night after Shebi-Arus and Mercan Dede played a third song during my final performance. I whirled for more than 30 minutes, and left the stage with a sense of elation I haven't experienced since I was young. I could have kept walking into the desert. It was hard leaving my new friends in Istanbul. I will greatly miss the time I spent cuddling Nilly, the feisty mosque garden calico, and I would have loved to have been their for Biggie Smalls, the large tabby who moved into our apartment hallway, when she had her litter, or to see Baklava, the neighbourhood puppy and gem of Cihangir, grow up. I will be back there soon. <top>

-The view from the house in Roberts Creek in the snow, Mira Hunter with her love Alexa Fábrega, Space Invader graffiti in Beyoglu, Biggie Smalls the pregnant street cat who lives in the apartment hallway in Istanbul. <top>

------
11.08

Basel is a beautiful city, dressed for Christmas. I have loved spending the evenings watching the strong current of the Rhein from my hotel window, illuminated by a nearby decorated stone bridge. Stimmhorn was incredible tonight. Balthasar with his massive and ecclectic collection of wood, animal horn and metal wind instruments that he designed including 2 large alpen horns, and Christian on a custom mandolin-like stringed instrument, a unique accordian and voice, yodeling and throat singing. The soundscape was magical and primordial. At the end of the concert, we received several standing ovations. I had the wonderful opportunity to see our Swiss booking agent, Yann Aubert, who came to the performance. He and his wife Jacquie have added a third bunny to their diverse family, named Pom Pom. Hopefully on Monday we will have the chance to visit their small house in the French countryside, near the Swiss border.

-Basel, Switzerland: Hotel Krafft, Mira Hunter backstage at a performance with Stimmhorn and Mercan Dede, Mira and Jarret finding Christmas in Switzerland, Mira with a golden carrot and the view of the Rhein River from her hotel room. <top>

------
11.08

WATERPOD™ UPDATE: WE HAVE A BARGE, thanks to the Pile Foundation, one of our gracious benefactors. Eve K. Tremblay is working from Berlin on the Seed Salon Scenario, Mira Hunter is meeting with the Istanbul MOMA to discuss a possible exhibition before heading out on a tour through Switzerland and the Middle East, while Mary Mattingly is in New York generating more architectural sketches, updated with the new barge proportions. It is currently docked in Queens and Cory Mervis says that it is almost as big as a football field. D is on his way to NY next week to begin transforming it into a sustainable floating world, an exhibition space and an exhibition about the future of the environment. For more on Waterpod™ >>

-The first photographs of the the Waterpod™ barge in Queens, New York. <top>

------
11.08

Thank you, Servet! The gift was so sweet and beautiful. And thank you to Burak, the magnificent ney player who is watching my street kitten Nilly while I am in Switzerland.<top>

Mira Hunter

------
11.08

>>Tonight I performed with Mercan Dede at the Koç University's small concert hall. The floor was flat and smooth and open, perfect for whirling. The show had sold out months in advance. It was a beautiful night. Everything felt uncomplicated. I felt effortlessly connected to the music. The backstage was flooded with people. Our magnificent ney player Burak gave me the sweetest compliment. He looked in his small Türkçe/Ingilizce dictionary, but couldn't pronounce the word so he wrote it down on a paper bag: Angel.<top>

------
11.08

>>Fatih Akin and Mira: You can watch award winning director Fatih Akin's acclaimed documentary on the musical culture of Istanbul, Crossing The Bridge: The Sounds Of Istanbul, which features a very short interview with yours truly. It streams from the google video website in Turkish and German with English subtitles. It is a gem of a film that follows some of Turkey's most influential musicians, hip hop artists and even street performers. Worth checking out.<top>

------
11.08

------
11.08

>>It is after 2 am in the morning in Istanbul. I can't sleep. The song is For The Time Being by Phonique featuring Erlend Øye. I did a private show at the Istanbul Modern earlier this evening, and we were going to celebrate by heading to Babylon for their Oldies But Goldies night (one of my favorite nights out in Istanbul), but due to a terrorist warning in our neighborhood we decided to spend the night painting at the apartment. We ordered fresh pomegranate juice, ayran and tost from Bambi.<top>

------
11.08

>>I am back on tour with Mercan Dede Secret Tribe, and perfectly homeless for the present. My entire life is in boxes and suitcases. Currently on a brief hiatus from performing, I am staying in an apartment in Cihangir, Istanbul. At the end of week we are doing a show at the Istanbul Modern Museum. I have a small studio set up, but am having difficulty getting any compelling work completed. I finished one small animation puppet, but have had little success painting. In lieu of any real art practice, I have been furiously knitting a midori lace scarf for a Christmas gift. After the tour D and I are on our way to Brooklyn, NY, to work with Mary on the Waterpod™ project, which is due to float May 01, 2009. We already have a barge.<top>

-Istanbul from L to R: root puppet, spice bazaar, fresh nar juice at Bambi, Nilly my current adopted street kitten in a mosque garden in Cihangir.

------
07.08

>>I have been helping D work on the first draft of his MFA thesis this week. I have just sent off an email to Dr. Oruç Güvenc, to request his approval to include an excerpt of the track Allah, Allah, Allah from his album with Tümata, Ocean of Remembrance (which can be listened to and purchased through iTunes), on the promotional DVD documenting the Time Machine project. Much like my intention to harness the inherent capacity for restorative healing through the meditative act of Mevlevi Whirling, Dr. Güvenc's album was designed to cure mental illness. Time Machine is coming down this week. I have been busy researching the next film installment currently dubbed Time Bomb. So far I want it to be viewed from inside an artificial cave, though I am also considering a nest or an igloo. We are planning to film in Nevada, the Badlands of Alberta and industrial wastelands around British Columbia. The plan is to illustrate a playful revenge by Mother Nature on the future humans of the world, complete with vindictive moss with a mind of its own and animals crafty enough to fashion guerrilla incendiary devices.<top>

Drumheller, Alberta, Canada.
-Photos (L to R) 1. By lovegreg, documenting the filming of Time Bomb in Nevada, 2008. 2. Film still from Fischli and Weiss' 1983 classic Der Rechte Weg. 3. Photo of the Badlands/Drumheller, Alberta, taken from the CBC website.

------
07.08

>>Time Machine, the end of something beautiful (it was all recycled):

------
07.08

>>The opening for Time Machine was exceptional, several people reported or witnessed tears as they watched the piece from inside the yurt. D, my father and I stayed up all night finishing the rounded central bench, cleaning the space and working on the details. It turned out to be a really wonderful space to simply be in. D managed to nap for half an hour inside the yurt before the opening, while I had the exquisite luxury of a true nap at our tiny red house after a great breakfast at Seb's. I made a tiny animation sequence called The Happiest Molecule of All, that could be viewed from the outside of the structure, as if you were peeking into a small Sema (the traditional Mevlevi whirling ceremony). The stop motion animation minatures were roughly crafted from packing tape, floral wire and paper. Several people, even established artists, mistook the animation for a film of a real Sema, which was surprising.<top>

Hunter Project
-Film stills from the Time Machine installation, 2008.

------
06.08

>>David Michalek's Slow Dance Project is touring (including the Venice Biennale). For information on the project, or to see profiles and images of the contributing artists (including Mira Hunter) go to www.slowdancefilms.com, the official website.<top>

-Film stills from David Michalek's Slow Dancing project, featuring Mira Hunter.

------
04.08

>>It was in the afternoon, D and I carried the camera arc into Stanley Park in Vancouver. We chose an area away from the public foot paths, that had been cleared by the catastrophic storms of 2006. The camera rail that the 65 cameras are attached to, was designed to separate into 4 sections. I walked ahead of D, balancing a section of the rig on each shoulder. I was already wearing my sikke (tall Mevlevi felt hat) and my tenure (traditional Mevlevi dress for whirling) under a grey jacket. We wanted to shoot in Stanley Park, as I thought it was a place in Vancouver that needed help. Time Machine relates to an earlier project that D and I worked on with her father, my whirling teacher, Raqib Brian Burke. The Public Whirling Project, was about bringing the restorative charactor of the practice of whirling to places in need of it. The original session took place in Vancouver's Lower East Side, a neighbourhood mired by human hardship. It was documented by my brother-in-law, photographer Jordan Junck. An original form of whirling in Turkey was thought to have been practiced by nomadic tribes as a healing ceremony. In the tradional whirling posture, both arms are raised, with the right palm facing up, while the left palm faces towards the ground. Divine energy is believed to cycle through the right palm, heart, exiting out the left palm into the physical universe. After the storms levelled much of the city's great park, both D and I had wanted to whirl there. I was born in Vancouver and spent much of her childhood exploring the duck ponds, rose gardens and seashore of Stanley Park. We chose a hidden place in the woods to set up the camera rig. The ground was uneven from all the degrading fallen branches, upturned trees and thriving underbrush, but I managed to whirl anyway, tearing holes in the soles of my traditional winter Muslim prayer slippers. My shoes filled with earth as I moved in a careful circle, surrounded by the cameras. A pond had formed where a large tree had been uprooted. Skunk lillies had started to bloom out of the mud. During our session, we saw two Canada Geese fly through the trees and perch on some high branches. We could see their long necks through the greenery. Then they were disturbed, and took to the air making a lot of noise. On a return pass over our clearing, we could see just 30 feet above our heads, that they were being pursued by a large bald eagle. An hour later, they returned alone to roost in the same tree.<top>

Open Secret School of Whirling
- Public Whirling Project, featuring Mira Hunter and her father and teacher Raqib Brian Burke, photos by Jordan Junck.

------
04.08

>>It was a warm, windy Sunday. D and I had decided to go down to the industrial park near the Neptune Coal Terminals on the North Shore of Vancouver. We had borrowed a truck. As the cameras are assembled in a circle, the locations have to be carefully chosen, as to provide some cover for D to hide while each shot is being taken. The sessions are often laborious, as each shot is just a fraction of a moment compared to the time that it takes to forward all of the 65 cameras to the next frame. We chose a location near a large series of grain elevators. There was also a slag pile great enough to conceal the truck, and a bundle of oil soaked track lumber that D could hide behind. Beautiful, green, wheat grass was sprouting along the train tracks, and had attracted hundreds of birds. Among them were several mating pairs of Canada geese. They would fly from down the train tracks, where they were grazing on the new grass, over where we had set up the camera rig, to a shallow pond of water that had formed in the uneven gravel of the industrial park. I was excited to try to get a shot with the great birds. I had meticulously pressed all my ceremonial clothes the night previous, which we didn't always have the chance to do. Everything was set up, everything ready, but nothing would work. We tried for hours to find which connection was faulty, but were eventually escorted out by the port security before we could take a single picture. It was weeks later when it had stopped raining that we could return to the location. This time D had gone over every electronic component to make certain it would work. My brother-in-law, Jordan Junck, came to help document and subsequently act as a magnificent bird wrangler. He took some incredible pictures of the shoot, and even managed to coax the bathing Canada geese to fly through the shot. There is one series where you can just see them flying behind my whirling silhouette.<top>

------
12.07

>>A piece I wrote for The Spiritual Significance of Music by Justin St. Vincent.

'Faith and music are both invisible. It is difficult to imagine two more potent influences. I feel that they both have the rare ability to force a cathartic opening of the human emotional senses. Music seems to play directly to my subconscious. The impulse to respond can feel irrepressible. There are some rhythms that demand my body to whirl, and there is some music that brings my humble act of whirling to places I don’t know how to talk about. I find it difficult to imagine a spiritual impulse without music inherent to it. I feel that spirituality is not specific to religious orders, but permeates all aspects of existence. I think it is more reliant on perception and awareness. In Sema (the ritual practiced by the Mevlevis or whirling dervishes), the musicians are not considered separate from the whirling, everyone wears the same tall felt hat that indicates their common spiritual identity. There is a communication between those whirling and those making the music. The length of the compositions can shift, or the spirit of the solos can take on another character. Though my father, Raqib Brian Burke, began studying Sema before I was born, it was his intention for my sister and I to be raised without any strong religious links so that when we were older we would be able to make our own decisions on faith without a nostalgic bias. Therefore my imagination, music and nature became outlets for my early spiritual experiences. My father made me my first mix tape when I was three years old. I had a dress that had been made just for dancing, with a large flower print skirt. I think then it was Paul Horn and his golden flute, the Penguin Café Orchestra, and the last track was a recording of my mirrored ballerina music box. By the time I was twelve, the mix tape included King Crimson, Led Zeppelin and Roxy Music. Every profound ecstatic experience of my life has been somehow connected to music.'<top>

-Photos of Mira Hunter at age 4 dancing in her first tennure made by Jinny Rhodes, one of her sufi moms from Murat Yagan's tekke.

------
06.07

>>I am in New York until tomorrow morning working on Waterpod™ Project with Mary Mattingly. Also for anyone in the Manhattan neighbour hood, I will be a small feature in David Michalek's Slow Dance project at the Lincoln Center starting Sunday July 10 - 29, 9 pm to 1 am nightly. The footage which was recorded earlier this year is stunning.<top>

'Lincoln Center Festival presents the world premiere of Slow Dancing, an outdoor, multi-channel video installation of hyper-slow-motion video portraits projected nightly on the facade of the New York State Theater. This free installation captures the beauty of the body in motion, depicting movement of dance icons that include Trisha Brown, Wu Hsing-Kuo, Wendy Whelan, Shen Wei, Eiko and Koma, William Forsythe, Judith Jamison, and Bill T. Jones, astonishingly captured at 1,000 frames per second. The installation consists of an ever-changing trio of dancers, each over 40 feet tall. Over each 10 minute cycle, what at first appears to be a series of “still” photographs unfolds, gesture by barely-perceptible gesture, into an elaborate choreography, with the viewer allowed to choose to focus on one dancer’s complete “performance” or observe the interplay between the three. This awe-inspiring digital installation will run nightly during the Lincoln Center Festival, from 9:00 pm until 1:00 am.'<top>