Biography

Semyani Perizade is a woman who dares to go beyond the ordinary, tries the untried, pushes the limits from time to time to open new ways, make a difference and add dimension, can’t help herself from portraying opposing discourses and attitudes, and sometimes screams, disturbs comfort and prods.

“What’s wrong with this woman?” you may ask; which you should ask. You are faced with a woman who, by following her, will get new answers in every production, sometimes you will find a lot of yourself, and sometimes you will be angry because she messed up the game and re-established it and disrupted your comfort zone, but you will see that she paved the way for you in the long run. Even if you are angry with this woman, you will secretly love and respect her.

Early life

Semyani Perizade was born on May 20, 1981 in Muş as the youngest child of a Kurdish family with 11 children. Her family is originally from Diyarbakır and they settled in Muş before she was born, as her father worked as the Fire Chief at the Muş Sugar Factory. Her mother’s family of origin is from Yazidi Kurds, and it is a Kurdish family from Shengal which is a part of the Bekiran Tribe. Her father’s family of origin is from Muslim Kurds and it belongs to the Xiyan Tribe. The situation of her father’s family of origin is somewhat mixed; some tribal elders claimed that they were Arabs by saying that they were descended from Iranian Kurds and even Abbasids. Some tribesmen, that share the same family of origin with her father, also argue that they are Iraqi Kurds. This shows that the father’s side also has the possibility of being Yazidi or Alevi. The famous Kurdologist Roger Lescot emphasized on the efforts of some Kurdish tribes to appear Muslim in his work titled “The Yesidis”; He stated that “some of the tribes of Diyarbakir and Botan region express themselves as Arabs or Seyit in order to be respected even though they are not Arabs, in fact, most of these tribes settled here because Halid Bin Velid conquered the city of Kulp and the Kurds converted to Islam and they are not Arabs,” And he supports this view by including it in his book based on his research.

Semyani Perizade got married in 2006 – divorced in 2017. Since 2018, she has declared her Bisexual orientation as an open LGBTIQA+ individual. Since then, she has been in a relationship with a woman and she openly announces it. Perizade, who wants to marry her lover and have children, says that they are stuck with the obstacles of the patriarchal system. Naturally, she acts as an activist against it.

In response to the questions posed to her, she says: “Heterosexuality is an orientation just like any other sexual orientation. In fact, Queer concept correspond all sexual orientations. Unfortunately, the patriarchal system does not want this to be known. The existence of alternative family models scares them because it is not to their benefit. Because nation states base heterosexual relationships as the most suitable form of family for them, thus; there is a mathematics there that will meet the needs of soldiers, workers and citizens. Of course, this is a system that exploits the potential of women. Like unpaid female labor, sexuality focused on production, not on pleasure and desire. The main thing they are uncomfortable with is seeing family forms other than the family form they are accustomed to. They have no tolerance for that.

In the state of being hetero, there are many different states of relations. Moreover, in such a feudal and traditional society, men are also oppressed under the inflated state of “masculinity” and many of them are struggling with sexual dysfunction and declaring women guilty while seeking a solution. Because in this society, this is very normal and the easiest way is to accept that “dish on woman, everyone will accept it”… If I wanted, I could make my productions with the appearance of a cishet woman and earn my money in a comfortable space and live my orientation in private. But that would be hypocrisy and treason. Moreover, due to my image and anarchist attitude, I was exposed to homophobia even though I am not gay, and transphobia even though I am not trans. Naturally, these experiences made these topics even more sensitive for me. I said, ‘If I suffer this much, it means that life must be much more difficult for my friends.’

I believe we need to be more courageous. With my Kurdish identity as well as my identity as women and LGBTIQA+ individuals, I realized that I believe that social acceptance/patterns need to be deconstructed individually, and that we need to take responsibility and work harder for this. I try to do it myself.”

Education and career

When Semyani was still a child, she settled in Mersin in 1992-93 due to the forced migration from the region where her family lived. Perizade, who could not continue her education as a result of the conditions of the period and her family’s struggle with immigration, was able to complete high school from distant education in 2001. She acted in the Merhaba Sanat Theater Group for a while (1999-2000) when she lived in Mersin. She received acting training from Yaşar Eskin, one of the founders and chief director of Mersin State Opera and Ballet in 2002-2003. With the dream of taking herself to the next level, she settled in Istanbul in 2009 and received acting training from Zeliha Berksoy at the Semiha Berksoy Opera Foundation, as well as her vocal training from Carmen Yeşiltepe. Perizade, who successfully completed her acting training, continues her vocal training again after taking a long break. She got into the 2011-2018 Sociology and Cinema TV departments and after a while, she left her education due to the conditions. With the dream of doing useful educational projects in the future, Perizade completed Creative Drama Leadership training from Contemporary Drama Association in 2013-2017 and Yoga instructor training at Vivekananda University through Istanbul Yoga Center in 2018-2019.

She produced various TV projects between 2009-2015. She undertook the project creation, editing, presenting, coordination and producing of some of them. She played the leading role in the short film “Peşk” directed by Volkan Uludağ and Perizade was the Dramaturgist and Art Director. In 2020, she participated in the London Kurdish Film Festival with the movie “Peşk” online due to the pandemic.

Semyani is one of the new generation Kurdish artists and is a musician, singer, songwriter, self-art designer and actor who desires to fulfill the spirit and needs of the period. Even though she worked as an actor, TV producer/editor and presenter for a while, she seems to have preferred to continue her career with music. She has two singles that she has produced and presented to the music industry so far. The lyrics of her song “Xewna Berevaji”, whose first single was released in 2020, contains R&B, Hip-Hop, Rap and partly arabesque inspirations, belongs to her, and its backing track belongs to Japanese-American citizen Eljapo. She expresses her desire to capture the spirit of the period while expressing her feelings in her own language in her work “Xewna Berevajî” and adds; “I think that there is a need to develop the relationship between the modern Kurdish woman and the Kurdish man in parallel with the variables of the age and to give references to express her feelings in order for the Kurdish man to perceive and read the modernized Kurdish woman. There are very cool, sympathetic and emotional approaches to the Kurdish woman’s stance in Kurdish productions. But their emotions, love, passion, desires, libido are avoided. Xewna Berevaji is as melancholic and romantic as it is daring. Of course, I may have been a little bit of a male persona.” Perizade has reflected this attitude and the spirit of the song on the metaphorical cover design.

His second single “ALO” is sung in a rhythmically powerful groove-funk style, with lyrics and composition by the artist himself.

On his second single ALO, Fatih Tan’s article “Everyday genre in Kurdish music: Semyanî Perîzade” on her second single ALO; “[…] This colorful situation in Perîzade’s music is a positive expression of a multiple identity. The musician has performed her lyrics in the ordinary flow of her habitat, without paralyzing them with politics. The feminist and bisexual-queer in this vocalization is in fact her own normative simplicity. While listening to the sentence “kezeba min shewitî” in the song, we experience, perhaps for the first time, a sense of alienation – phonetically against our own language. When the harmonic rhythm of the phrase combines with the figure of the dance, the heavy burden of the phrase becomes lighter, and strangely, this pushes the limits of unaccustomed perception. Because the social memory of this sentence is related to the traumas of historical events. Perîzade, on the other hand, deconstructs and eroticizes the sentence with a simple touch, detaching it from the social and articulating it to the everyday pleasure of the personal. In fact, this approach alone summarizes Perîzade’s entire aesthetic entropy. […] Perîzade, who shoots a music video for her song at the international standards of today’s pop music, opens a new space for consumption in Kurdish music. This sphere of consumption includes visual imagery and especially the everyday use of language. I find this situation of the Kurdish language for consumption very important because the reality is that the Kurdish language is aging. Therefore, this popular role of the everyday use of language in art strengthens the communicative function of language fluency. If language experiences popular conflicts and contrasts in everyday life, it brings with it the ease of a certain meaning. Likewise, it becomes fluid through the consumption of the every day and the ordinary. […] It is not the tonal, harmonic, melodic, or rhythmic infrastructure of Semianî Perîzade’s music. While performing his music, Perîzade’s combination of the banality and mediocrity of everyday life with his snobbish personality is the natural expression of the language he creates. In doing so, he does not resort to a political, epic, or mythological pattern but rather displays it in the most amorphous and marginal state of mind, “far from idealism.” More importantly, in my opinion, it goes beyond the “Kurdish authentic musical genre.” Of course, the key context here is the relationality of Kurdish artists with the political ethos. […] The close coexistence between art and politics is not the result of an ideological overlap but rather a distribution within a ground of disagreement. Perîzade positions his native language outside political jargon, academic terminology, mimetic social ethics, and aesthetic mythology. This positioning is the “mediocrity” of every day.”[…] The correspondence between Kurdish politics and art is that art comes from behind politics. Of course, there have been those who have broken this from time to time, and I think Semyanî Perîzade is one of them today, and at least he easily gives that impression going forward.”[…]

*Yazının tamamına burdan ulaşabilirsiniz: https://www.gazeteduvar.com.tr/kurt-muziginde-gundelik-janr-semyani-perizade-haber-1549298

On March 20, 2023, she applied for the Green Left Party candidacy. She describes the process as follows; “my brief attempt at a political career was mainly to confront ourselves and our reality and to see how inclusive we can be because after this election, a new era will begin, and we will have to deal with our problems. When I saw that I was not on the candidate list, I can say that it was the only time in my life when I felt relieved and happy when I was rejected. Because I am a deconstructionist and anarchist artist, my political practice would be in this perspective. I would not be the classic politician that society is used to. It was good that I was not nominated in this critical period. Because if I had been, I would have first opposed the masculine mentality within my party and their political attitude towards the Kurdish language, which is far below our expectations. And I would not have compromised my protest attitude in parliament. They must have understood that they did not include me on the candidate list… I got what I wanted; now I can return to my main job; my art. But my experience here will have a more protest and anarchist reflection on my art. Building democracy should not be left only to politicians. I believe that we must stop being passive and become active and participatory in the reconstruction of democracy. The Kurdish language needs to be the language of education and commerce, which needs to be reflected in the Kurdish social structure, but I cannot wait. Because what we call life is short…Time is important. I may have some surprises for you in the future…[…]”

She released his third and last single, ‘Biryarekî’ (A Decision), on Sunday, May 7, to appeal to undecided voters in the May 14, 2023 elections. A week before the elections, she stated that he dedicated the song BIRYAREKÎ (A Decision), which is suitable for the spirit of the current period, to everyone who will feel it in their hearts. And in an interview, she stated, “The theme of the song BIRYAREKÎ is about a critical and fateful decision. Starting with the lyrics ‘Biryarekî dibe qedera gelekî, Gelekî gelek rindî! Gelekî gelek rindî’, the song evolved into the most crucial issue for us; the Kurdish language…And in this song, we are at the last turning point for our identity, our language. If we cannot create a more democratic and free ground, we will lose our language and freedom. Therefore, we will also lose our identity. We are a resilient nation, but how can a language that has not even entered schools yet maintain its novelty and be functional in the “age of speed consumption” imposed by the era created by the capitalist system? If we win this election, as each Kurdish individual, we will have things to ask from the government, especially our party. We no longer want to be ignored. They should be open to the needs of the people and be solution-oriented.”

Semyani Perizade has now decided to focus on her music career. She continues to produce mainly in her native language. She is currently studying and researching Music Production in order to develop in Electronic Music and take her experimental work to the next level.

Semyani explains the reason for producing his music career mainly in his mother tongue as follows; “I feel that I compensate for the disconnect and gap created by forced migration, radical Islam and institutional racism with my family of origin by producing in my own language. While the relationship between language and existence is an issue that thinkers have discussed, it has become the most fundamental problem of Kurds. For this reason, while it is difficult for Kurds to learn a language and strengthen communication through language, their songs and dances (Govend) have great communication skills, intensity of emotion, and state of being! Therefore, I prefer to base my existence as an artist on this.”

Discography
1 -Xewna Berevaji
2 -ALO
3 -BIRYAREKÎ

Filmography
London Kurdish Film Festival 2021Peşk/The Sprinkle 

External Sources

T24

https://youtu.be/PaipGXiXD5A

nupel.tv

https://www.nupel.tv/semyani-perizade-kurt-hareketinin-bu-donemecinde-inanarak-sorumluluk-aldim-273507.html

Evrensel Gazetesi
https://www.evrensel.net/haber/488441/lgbti-adaylardan-iktidara-yanit-haklarimizi-mecliste-de-sokakta-da-savunacagiz

Kaos Gl
https://kaosgl.org/haber/kurt-lgbtqa-larin-gorunurlugu-size-zarar-degila

Gazete Perperik
https://www.gazeteperperik.com/tum-haberler/semyani-perizade-bu-nefret-niye-yahu/9754/2023/03/29/

Gazete Duvar
https://www.gazeteduvar.com.tr/kurt-muziginde-gundelik-janr-semyani-perizade-haber-1549298
https://www.gazeteduvar.com.tr/semyani-perizade-qibleya-min-prenses-leyla-bedirxan-e-haber-1546734
https://www.gazeteduvar.com.tr/kultur-sanat/2020/05/08/amazon-kurt-kadini-semyani-hedef-kitlem-demet-akalinlar-ve-turevlerine-kaptirdigimiz-genclerimiz

Demokrat Haber
https://www.demokrathaber.org/kurt-muziginde-aykiri-bir-ses-semyani-perizade