Sussan Deyhim

Singer Sussan Deyhim was born in Tehran and has had a full career as a dancer. From 1971 to 1975, she was a part of Pars National Ballet, affiliated with Persian National Television. In 1976, she received a scholarship to MUDRA (Maurice Bejart's School of Performing Arts). She then performed with Bejart's Ballet of the XX Century.

Since 1980, Deyhim has been based in New York and has performed internationally as a vocalist, performance artist, and composer. She has collaborated with composers Mickey Hart, Jerry Garcia, Peter Gabriel (The Last Temptation of Christ soundtrack), Jaron Lanier, Branford Marsalis, Peter Seherer, Naut Humon, and others. She has also appeared in many international productions, including Jean Claude Van Italie's The Tibetan Book of the Dead, directed by Assur Banipal Babilla, La Scala in Milan by Micha Van Heugh, and A Midsummer Night's Dream and Nijinksi with Lindsay Kemp's English Theatre Group in South America and Italy.

Her primary collaborator is composer and multi-instrumentalist Richard Horowitz. They began their collaboration in 1981 with Azaxattra: Desert Equations, and they have performed together since 1984. They have also created two media theatre pieces, ballets, and many feature and short film projects. In 1997, they released Majoun on the Sony Classical label. Deyhim can also be heard as a member of the improvising ensemble on Bobby McFerrin's Circlesongs.

from Wikipedia:

Sussan Deyhim is an Iranian singer, composer and dancer.

Born in Tehran, her career began as a dancer with Iran's Pars National Ballet company. Since 1980 she has lived in the United States, where she has collaborated with many musicians, including Arto Lindsay and Richard Horowitz.

Sussan Deyhim is a composer, vocalist and performance artist who has been at the forefront of experimental music internationally for over two decades. Deyhim's music combines extended vocal techniques, digital processing, and the ancient mysticism of Middle Eastern music to create a deeply moving fusion of East and West.

Born in Tehran, Sussan Deyhim began her career dancing with Iran's Pars National Ballet company (performing weekly on Iranian national television), and then with Maurice Bjart's Ballet of the 20th Century. She moved to New York City in 1980, embarking on a multifaceted career encompassing music, theater, dance and media, and wide-ranging collaborations with leading artists from across the spectrum of contemporary art.

Deyhim has performed and recorded widely as a solo artist. Her one-woman show Vocodeliks, commissioned by the Whitney Museum of Art, led Billboard Magazine to describe Deyhim as "an overpowering presence...[whose] wordless incantations are amplified in harmonized layers and recycled into sampled loops, beckoning you into this virtual desert ritual" while the New York Times said that her "thrilling music...sounds in the ear long after you've left the show." Deyhim's solo recordings include Madman of God: Divine Love Songs of the Persian Sufi Masters, Shy Angels (with Bill Laswell) for the visionary label Crammed Discs and Turbulent. Other recordings include Majoun (for Sony Classical) and Desert Equations (released on Crammed Discs), both with the composer Richard Horowitz, a frequent collaborator. With composer and director Heiner Goebbels, Deyhim recorded Shadows (for ECM), based on writings of Edgar Allan Poe and Heiner Mueller, and composed and performed music for Deepak Chopra's A Gift of Love, with narration by Martin Sheen, Madonna, Goldie Hawn, and Debra Winger. She was also a featured soloist on Hal Wilner's tribute to Kurt Weill, Lost in the Stars.

Deyhim's numerous collaborations with the renowned visual artist/filmmaker Shirin Neshat have received critical acclaim, including the video Turbulent, which won the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennial. Their multimedia performance Logic of the Birds was based on Farid ud-Din Attar's mystical book of poetry written in the 12th Century; produced by the Lincoln Center Summer Festival, the Walker Art Center, the Kitchen, and Artangel, Logic toured internationally.

Deyhim's previous work in the theater includes directing, co-composing, choreographing and performing a series of collaborations with Horowitz including: AZAX/ATTRA: Desert Equations (a one-woman multimedia performance piece produced by La Mama in New York City which toured internationally including Ars Electronica in Austria, Morocco, Paris, Berlin and Hong Kong)(; The Ghost of Ibn Sabbah (presented by the Brooklyn Academy of Music/New Music America, Central Park's Summerstage, and NYC's Town Hall); and X-Isle/Isle-X, commissioned by the Hong Kong Cotemporary Dance Company (which subsequently toured in Japan and Indonesia). As a performer, Deyhim has appeared in many international theater productions, including works by Elizabeth Swados, Jean Claude Van Italie, and Lindsay Kemp.

Deyhim has appeared on numerous film soundtracks including The Last Temptation of Christ, directed by Martin Scorsese, with music by Peter Gabriel), Any Given Sunday, (directed by Oliver Stone; soundtrack by Richard Horowitz) Unfaithful (directed by Adrian Lyne, with music by Jan Kaczmarek), and Sleeper Cell, Golden Globe-winning Showtime series with music by Paul Haslinger. Recent collaborations include The Kite Runner with music by Albert Iglesias, The Stoning of Soraya M. with music by John Debney and The Rise of the Argonauts with music by Tyler Bates. Her recent score for the Czech film, Tubruk, in collaboration with Richard Horowitz won them a Golden Lion (the Czech equivalent of the Academy Award) for 2008's best score. She has collaborated with many figures in contemporary music, including Branford Marsalis, Jerry Garcia, Jaron Lanier, Christian Marclay, Elliott Sharp, Arto Lindsay, Loren Rush and Winston Tong. She has also toured internationally with Bill Laswell, Bobby McFerrin, Ornette Coleman, Jah Wobble, Will Calhoun, Doug Wimbish and Adrian Sherwood, among others.

Deyhim has been a frequent participant at humanitarian events and benefits, including a performance at the gathering of the spiritual leaders of the world at the UN General Assembly in 2001; the first Gathering of Female Spiritual Leaders in Geneva at the United Nations; a 2004 performance for Nobel peace prize winner Shirin Ebadi's award ceremony organized by Interfaith Center; the Royal Hope Gala, Royal Albert Hall, London with Placido Domingo, The Royal Ballet and others, for medical aid to Iraqi children; and "Witness", a human rights benefit, sponsored by Peter Gabriel.