Mukaddas MIJIT
ARTIST / FILMMAKER / ETHNOMUSICOLOGIST

A music / poetry / dance performance was proposed by Mukaddas and her friends after the film screening on the 21st of March, in Paris by Công Minh Pham Kamnoush Khosrovani Ilminur Yazi Nazim and Mukaddas Mijit captured by Meiirbek Sailanbek

The poet Abduqadir Jalalidin has been detained in an internment camp by the Chinese state since 2018. But he’s continued writing poems — including “No Road Back Home,” which reached a translator this summer. Mukaddas Mijit reads it in the original Uighur. The article about Abduqadir Jalalidin (New York Times) https://nyti.ms/33ldxtE

In 2012, the Chinese government celebrated Mo Yan, the 1st Chinese citizen to win a Nobel Prize in literature. In 2017, it threw his #Uyghur translator, poet Abduqadir Jüme, in an internment camp. He's still there. 3 years later, Abduqadir is still imprisoned. 3 years later, Nobel Prize-winning novelist Mo Yan has not said one word about the internment of his translator. 3 years later, one of Abduqadir's poems still echoes in my mind.

Vocal improvisation with Anthony C. Varalli and Fire

#UyghurDance BrooklynBridge "Our death is simple, but other's are unbearable "- Jean Cocteau This performance is dedicated to the disappearing friends and families form the Uyghur Region in western China. It is for those who are invisible and those who are in despair and cannot know where their loved ones are. It’s dedicated to the 56 professors from Xinjiang University who have disappeared this year. It is a modest way, but we will always tell their stories, even when there is no-one to listen. This is a glimpse of the work Mukaddas Mijit and I have been collaborating on and recently completed a 2 week self- imposed Bronx Residency. - Lisa Ross Depuis 15 ans, tous les jours, j'explique avec le même enthousiasme, qui sont les ouïghours, c'est même pour entendre cette phrase encore et encore "ah, je n'en ai jamais entendu parlé".... Je souris au monde avec l'envie de m'approcher d'eux, même si on ne me voit pas... #Uyghurdance Ce travail est dédié à tous ces invisibles du monde #Uyghurs ... Avec des artistes comme ma chère amie Lisa Ross, on continuera à raconter nos histoires, ceux de sans noms et de sans visages ... - Mukaddas Mijit

On a Tuesday evening in March, American and Uyghur dancers wheeled across the rough stone floor of the Seattle Asian Art Museum. They were moving to the rhythms and countermelodies of a Uyghur ecstatic tradition: the Dolan Muqam. Building slowly from an arrhythmic introduction, high and echoing around the room, gradually this form of traditional Uyghur music emerged into a full-formed twirling dance around a taut rhythm. The sound and tense rhythms that filled the room came from the voice and resonator guitar of a single man: the Uyghur rock star Perhat Khaliq. Of course the space was also filled by a sold-out crowd, people pressed close on carpets and chairs that surrounded the room. Uyghurs had come from all over the state. They came from Portland and Vancouver. They came to celebrate Uyghur music and dance. They came to see Khaliq and his role in the RISE collaboration – an experimental performance and video piece conceptualized by the American visual artist Lisa Ross in creative partnership with Uyghur ethnomusicologist, traditional dancer and choreographer Mukaddas Mijit. The creation of the work was made possible by a residency at the Watermill Center in rural Long Island, New York where the three artists came together from France and China. It was Khaliq’s first visit to the United States and after his longstanding friendship with Mijit, it was the first time the two had created a new work together. Working with the Indah Walsh Dance Company they created a stunning series of performances that culminated in the Seattle premiere of the work.