The Greatest Show on Earth — for Kids Who Need It Most | Sahba Aminikia | TED

Back in 2018, I was visiting the city of Nusaybin, which is close to the border of Syria, almost on the border. And this city has been the center of a lot of conflicts between the Turkish government and the Kurdish militia in north Syria. So we were visiting that area and suddenly, like 50 children, they gathered, and they saw me and they want to talk English. So I asked them one by one to sing a song, and I started recording it. And at first they were very shy and just hesitating. And then there was a fight over who's going to sing. And this got to a moment that there were like, literally tanks roaming around in the city. So I had to get in the car because I'm an American citizen and that could create a lot of issues.

And while we were driving away, I remember like 100 children were running after the car, and they were just saying, the one next to the window was shouting, "One more song, one more song." So I realized that I'm blessed in the West with all these beautiful friends and connections and the work that I'm doing. But it seems like this place needs me more, you know. My name is Sahba Aminikia, and I am an Iranian-American composer. I was born in the '80s in Iran, and this was the time that Islamic revolution just happened, and Iran was also engaged in an eight-year war with Iraq. It was a dark period of Iranian history because my family are followers of the Baha'i Faith. Relatives and family and friends were constantly being harassed, arrested and imprisoned by the Iranian government and were subjected to show trials and even executions. I remember these weekly gatherings at a friend’s house in north Tehran that we would all gather, people from all ages and Baha'is coming from all backgrounds, and this was a time that these people were going through really difficult times. But they were very artistically active, playing music, singing, dancing, creating theatrical experiences. It was all about creating a vital refuge for Baha'i community in Iran, because otherwise we wouldn't survive with all the dark experiences that was happening.

I know the significant effect of exposing children and communities who are suffering to extreme beauty, to something that is truly, truly beautiful and magical. Our Flying Carpet Festival is the first mobile festival for children living in difficult places and conflict zones. We mostly operate around the city of Mardin. We organize workshops, sometimes up to 20 a day: dance, circus arts, live music, visual projection. We have face painting, for example, a two-hour storytelling experience, and also a puppet performance. We go through the city with children and with the puppet, and people start to follow us. And we go back to the performing place, and now we have 2,000 people as audience. And we have established a system over six years that we can basically travel anywhere. We can go to small villages, we can go to gigantic cities. I love us to show up at places that there is less possibility, actually. So this includes a small community in the middle of some village in the middle of desert in Mesopotamia that has only 70 residents, you know, and so sometimes our own staff are more than the people living in that place. But also we have performances in cities that 2,000, 2,500 people is normal for attendance. I want to go to the most risky places, in fact, because those are the children who are stuck with the decisions that adults made in that community. Today, we are living in this world that obviously, politically is so divided. We were hoping that we can create something that people of different backgrounds, without being looked at as a certain -- a representative of a certain ethnicity or a certain race or a certain culture can come together, be looked at as one, regardless of the color of their skin, their religion, their background and would serve as one full soul. The ultimate power is in unity, and unity is what connects us all, and that's separate from what we think, what we think politics should be. I see human connection beyond that and above that. I strongly believe that arts and artists today can be the closest thing we have to spirituality, in fact. Because every other way has failed significantly. So I think art can still be relevant, and it can be extremely useful for social progress, for political progress. Because they envision and they show you a better version of ourselves. And either we accept it or not, it's up to us. So I like the kind of art that doesn't tell you what to do actually. I love the kind of art that just presents the issue in front of you and let you decide as a human which side you want to hear, and there is no good or bad side. In fact, people just have different opinions. And I don’t think there is any evil in this world. There is no evil in this world. It's just people being misinformed or not informed about certain things. And I think there is a huge responsibility for people who know things and they can improve things to be educational. And education can only come through love and no other way. So by shouting and cursing at people, people wouldn't learn anything. You just have to be lovely to them. (Laughs)