ECC Arts Center Hosts World Premiere of Seven Realms of Attar

The Elgin Community College Arts Center will host the world premiere of Seven Realms of Attar, a landmark, multi-disciplinary stage production by internationally acclaimed, trailblazing music pioneers Niyaz, on Saturday, March 14 at 7:30 pm in the Blizzard Theatre.

This first-time performance fuses live music, poetry, dance, and stagecraft into a living, immersive cosmos with sweeping animation and 3D projection mapping.

Seven Realms of Attar takes audiences on a transcendent journey through the seven spiritual valleys explored in The Conference of Birds, with each realm embodying the trials, losses, and awakenings that define the human condition.

See them in action here.

At the heart of the production is the reclamation and celebration of Iranian heritage, presenting Iranian and regional artistic traditions not as relics of the past, but as a response to today’s global unrest and deepening division, unfolding as both a spiritual odyssey and a powerful affirmation of humanity’s shared longing for unity and freedom.

Tickets are $35 and can be purchased online at eccartscenter.org, by phone at 847-622-0300, or in person at the ECC Arts Center Box Office, 1700 Spartan Drive, Building H, Elgin.

About Niyaz:

Described by the Huffington Post as “an evolutionary force in contemporary Middle Eastern music, Niyaz (which means “yearning”) defies most standards of world music and makes a bold statement to a global audience. Founded in 2004 by Iranian-born, Indian raised vocalist and performer Azam Ali and Iranian multi-instrumentalist and composer Loga R. Torkian, Niyaz has created a 21st century global trance tradition by blending medieval Sufi poetry and ancient folk songs from their native Iran and its surrounding countries in the Persian Gulf with rich acoustic instrumentation and state-of-the-art modern electronics.

About Theron Pray:

Theron Pray is a digital artist and software developer from Los Angeles. His works are centered around the live experience. With a focus on real-time content and interactivity, he creates fun, immersive pieces that play with physical and organic systems found in the natural world.

He is the Founder & Developer of Synesthesia, an industry-standard, audio-reactive visual instrument used by VJs, musicians, and creative coders worldwide, and Alpha Channel, a company that builds holographic live music shows.

About Jody Sparling:

A New York City-based dancer-choreographer, Jody Sperling, is the founder and artistic director of Time Lapse Dance, a dance company that gives a postmodern twist to vintage genres. has created more than 50 works for stage, street, and screen. She is considered the world’s leading exponent of the style of early modern dancer and performance technologist Loïe Fuller (1862-1928). Sperling has expanded Fuller’s genre into the 21st century, deploying it in the context of contemporary and environmental performance forms. She is currently Eco-Artist-in-Residence at The New York Society for Ethical Culture.

Sperling earned a World Choreography Award nomination for her work on the French feature film “The Dancer” (Dir. Stephanie Di Giusto, 2016 Cannes Film Festival). The Paul Taylor Dance Company commissioned Sperling to develop Vive La Loïe, a solo expanding material created for “The Dancer,” for PTDC’s November 2024 Lincoln Center Season.