Two Yellow Lights

Filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami also wrote poetry. Poetry for Kiarostami was a mode of expression that allowed him to bypass the technical and expensive burden that filmmaking created. Short in nature, Kiarostami's poems resemble Japanese haiku and illustrate fleeting images. The poems become short films in a way, or a glimpse of a shot. In Leslee Smucker’s composition-performance Two Yellow Lights she uses stanzas of Kiarostami’s poems as inspiration for audio vignettes, creating sonic environments for Kiarostami’s poetic imagery.
excerpts from Wind and Leaf by Abbas Kiarostami, translated by Ivan Tassovsky and Paul Cronin
Composition and performance by Leslee Smucker