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You spin me 'round like a record
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Techno-Sufi Arkin Allen opens the door to enlightenment at the Jazz Fest's main outdoor event
by RUPERT BOTTENBERG
Many Montrealers will be familiar with the name Arkin Allen, a Turkish-born, locally based DJ/producer whose lush and lightly mystical efforts have graced CDs from Interchill and dancefloors at Sona's Free Bamboo Butterfly events. His alter ego, taking the Sufi name Mercan Dede, may not be so well known among partygoers. That'll change, though, at the Jazz Fest's main event, the free outdoor Turkish jam session with Groove Alla Turca (blending jazz and Turkish classical), the Istanbul Oriental Ensemble (working the Gypsy angle) and Allen's own Mercan Dede Trio and Sacred Dance Group.
The last sees Allen joined not only by shit-hot Canadian electric violinist Hugh Marsh and local percussion whiz Scott "Bucket Boy" Russell, but by a trio of genuine whirling dervishes, acolytes of Sufism, that most abstract of Islamic mysticism.
Following the main event, which ends at 11 p.m., the doors of the Spectrum will be opened for something of an extension of the event, as the Montreal Tribal Trio--Marsh, Russell, and Allen trading the ney flute for decks--present a contemporary e-dance varitaion on the theme, until right around last call. Both events, of course, are absolutely free of charge.
The Mirror sat down with Allen in his Old Montreal loft to discuss how Medieval Moslem philosophy and space-age digital dance culture can be connected.
Mirror: The whirling dervishes are one of the most iconic images of Islam. Show anyone a picture of the spinning men in the tall hats and hoop skirts, and they'll recognize them as dervishes. Ask what the dervishes are doing, though, and most people, at least in Western society, wouldn't know. They don't understand that they're moving toward the trance state, the crossing of the threshold.
Arkin Allen: Precisely. Actually, before I started to play any Sufi instrument, I was raised to be a dervish--this was 16, 17 years ago. And I grew up part of that belief, if you want to call it that.
M: Was this from your family?
AA: No, I come from a working-class family. But when I started university in Turkey, I was very influenced by the teachings of Rumi, when I read the books he'd written in the 13th century. He founded that specific Sufi sect. Strangely enough, or maybe not that strangely, his books are the most translated Eastern books in North America right now. There's an incredible number of followers, literally millions are reading him right now. The reason is simple--what he said was timeless and abstract, not really attached to a specific time or location. So it connects to people from very different cultures, geographies and beliefs. Also, Sufism is a very wide word, because there are many Sufis, from Iran, Pakistan or wherever, with different characteristics. But the specific Sufism from which the whirling dervishes originated, which is Turkish, is as simple as this. We believe that all the answers are in our hearts, inside us. Nobody can give us the answers, but they can help us develop this discipline, a certain structure to reach ourselves. Each person can develop this by their own means.
What goes around...
M: Tell me specifically what function the whirling serves.
AA: Physically speaking, everything turns--the world, the galaxies, the electrons of the atoms we're made of. So spinning means being in harmony with the whole physical environment. But it's a thing that, unless you've experienced, you can't really get what it's about. Almost like a dream--you know how sometimes you remember a dream, but the moment you try to tell it to someone else, it sounds flat and two-dimensional? Or like a drug experience--when you're stoned, everything is three-dimensional and you're the centre of everything. But again, try to tell someone else later--
M: They'll say you were just stoned.
AA: Exactly. The whirling is like that. When you whirl, you are at first at the centre of everything, but then eventually everything starts to melt away, physically. The colours of the room, for instance, turn to cream and then white. And sound also changes. After a certain time, you don't really remember who you are, or remember anything, but right in that moment, you really get that sense of how we are simply a part of what you can call the universe. I prefer to call it the puzzle, and in it, every single piece is equally important. It's then that you understand what Rumi meant by "unifying." That's why there's no separation. We don't, for example, like titles. Rumi offered a very good analogy for that--from a single match, you light a candle. From that candle, you light another. Then you look around the room and there are thousands of candles burning. Rumi says that, in essence, there is only one flame. What you see as separate is in fact from one source. That's related to the way that, when I started DJing--especially internationally, five or six years ago--I'd often see the dancefloor full of people from different races and backgrounds, gays and straights, blacks, whites, Orientals, rich people and suburban kids, all found on one dancefloor. Right in that moment, they could feel that energy.
...Comes around
M: So enlightenment, in a way, can be found on the dancefloor.
AA: The two things connected for me. On one side, I grew up as a Sufi musician and dervish, and on the other, I'd started DJing. Then I realized that, looking at the turntable, it was exactly like the skirt of the whirling dervish. I realized that the materials and instruments are just a bridge. What you do with them is what gives the meaning. It doesn't matter whether you use an electronic computer or the reed flute called a ney. What really matters is what you want to say. The moment the two are connected, we begin to progress. In the last 11 months, I've done a tour of more than 400,000 kilometres--that's quite long. It really reminded of the dervishes because I have one of my feet in Montreal, and with the other I travel around the world. Even if you repeat the same thing, when you come back to the same spot, you are not the same person. You have progressed, gone in a different direction. That's what I want to reflect with the specific piece, of about a half-hour long, I've composed for the Jazz Festival's main event. We never rehearse, because I don't consider myself a musician in that sense. We just create a vibe, which works like a mirror for the audience. We just try to show them themselves, rather than tell them anything. If you can create, even for half a second, a meditative space that people can feel something about themselves in, then I consider it successful.
M: This is what I was thinking--I didn't want to completely separate Arkin Allen, the electronic musician, and Mercan Dede, the Sufi musician. There's a lot of connection between the two. But if I was to try to explain the difference, I would say that Mercan Dede is the artist seeking out an evolution in traditional Sufi musical element, while Arkin Allen is the artist trying to show a glimpse of that. You can't explain the transcendental experience, and the vast teachings of Rumi, on a dancefloor with a turntable. You can, however, give people a glimpse of that moment, when the hairs stand up your arm and there's a rush in your chest, when you feel that sense of wonder. It's so exciting yet so calm at the same time. It only lasts a moment, and then the lights go on, you're thirsty, your friends are talking to you and the moment is over. When people are first exposed to that moment, whether through dancing, mountain climbing, whatever--there's many ways to reach it--the door is open to seek it out again.
AA: That's so correct. The word "dervish," a Persian word, actually means "footstep," the last step at the threshold. In a way, as you said, Arkin Allen is that. To give people a glimpse of that door, to let them know it's there. If you want to go inside that door, it simply opens to yourself--there's no mosque or temple, we don't believe in that sort of thing. Really, the door opens to yourself, who you are and what your aim is. We believe those things are universal. It doesn't matter who you are or what you are, in essence we all carry the same powerful feeling. I believe that, big time.
The FIJM's main event, with Groove Alla Turca, Istanbul Oriental Ensemble and Mercan Dede Trio, is at the GM Stage (Ste-Catherine W. and Jeanne-Mance) on Tuesday, July 3, 9pm, free. The Montreal Tribal Trio are at the Spectrum the same night at 11pm, also free
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