San Francisco Comes Together in Sahba Aminikia's The Language of the Birds

In the 12th-century Persian poem The Language of the Birds (also known as The Conference of the Birds), the parallels between birds and humans are obvious, says composer Sahba Aminikia, who has been in residency at the North Beach nonprofit arts organization 836M for the past five months, working on a multimedia adaptation of the poem. Now, Aminikia’s piece is set for its world premiere, May 31 – June 1 at 836M. (Both performances are currently listed as sold out.)

About 4,500 lines, The Language of the Birds is by the mystic Attar of Nishapur, a mentor of Rumi’s, whom Aminikia deeply admires. He loves what the poem says about unity.

“It tells the story of a large number of birds, and they represent humanity and us,” the composer says. “They have everything — they have beauty, they have power, but they’re deeply dissatisfied with something, and there is some sort of gap inside that they’re all trying to fill in.”

A prophet, a hoopoe, guides the other birds toward Simurgh, a legendary bird. At the end of the story, only 30 birds are left. The word for 30 birds in Farsi is, in fact, the name of that legendary bird.

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Rumi’s favorite 12th century epic comes to musical life in ‘The Language of the Birds’

When nonprofit arts organization 836M announced Sahba Aminikia as its first composer-in-residence last December, a centuries-spanning collaboration began to take shape. The Iranian-born composer brought with him The Language of the Birds (May 31 and June 1), a project inspired by the 12th century poem bearing the same title by Farid ud-din Attar, a Persian mystic revered by the 13th century poet Rumi and many others.

After hundreds of years and with the support of 836M, which was co-founded by Julie & Sébastien Lépinard and Agnès Faure and named for its gallery at 836 Montgomery Street. A remarkable lineage, extending from Attar to Rumi to Aminikia to 2024 audiences, will give birth to a new work of art.

Such durability suggests that these mere words, written on a page or spoken, chanted, or sung aloud, must have heft. Not necessarily complexity, but weight, eternal truth, universality. The ideas they express must offer a kind of timelessness that has left hundreds of years of witnesses saying, “This is so now.”

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Meet the 2024 class of TED Fellows

In this complex world, it’s easy to believe that the future is out of our hands. But there are some who understand that the future doesn’t just happen — it’s made. Among these are the TED Fellows: innovators, activists, artists, inventors and dreamers. The TED Fellows program, now celebrating its fifteenth year, provides communication training, professional tools, network-building opportunities and amplification on the global stage to early-stage innovators working across multiple disciplines in over 100 countries.  

We are thrilled to announce the 2024 cohort of TED Fellows, whose work spans five continents and represents 11 countries — including, for the first time, Georgia. This year’s TED Fellows include an entrepreneur who is reshaping health care in conflict zones, an engineer who created a cold chain solution saving lives in rural African communities and a scientist pioneering new, safer AI technologies — to name just a few. 

Each TED Fellow was selected for their remarkable achievements, the potential impact of their work and their commitment to community building. TED is honored to welcome these new Fellows into this dynamic global network of 500+ Fellows creating meaningful change in their communities and the world.

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