The Nashville ballet takes on one of the most retold stories in the Islamic world, this weekend: Layla and the Majnun. It’s something of a coincidence that the company is premiering a dance based on a Middle Eastern legend in a political season full of talk about Islam in schools and Syrian refugees.

It all started several years ago when Nashville Ballet artistic director Paul Vasterling met a Pulitzer-prize winning composer at a party. Richard Danielpour is of Persian descent; he grew up hearing the story of a man possessed by his love for a woman named Layla, and he’d always thought it would make a good ballet.

Vasterling was interested, but unsure, so he asked people in Nashville’s Kurdish community what they thought of the story. One after another reiterated how beloved the tale is in their homeland. Vasterling recalls a conversation with one woman who considers the story a touchstone to her roots. She told him of her family fleeing their home as Kurds were being persecuted. They left everything behind and took shelter in a cave, where her grandmother comforted the children by reciting the story of Layla.

Vasterling was convinced to go forward with the project, but the production had to be  postponed several times. He never could have predicted it would finally premiere just months after the Tennessee legislature debated over how Islam is taught in schools. But he’s pleased with the timing, and hopes his dance will trigger a deeper curiosity about the cultural underpinnings of the Islamic World.

About the ballet:

Vasterling mapped out an outline of the dance as a series of abstracted scenes. While there are many versions of the nearly 1500-year-old story, the ballet follows the rendition composer Danielpour prefers: A man named Quays falls in love with Layla but her family marries her to another man. Quays is driven crazy by his loss (earning the title Majnun, or madman), but then he has a spiritual transformation and ultimately sees the face of Layla in everyone around him.

Danielpour’s music for the ballet is full of the dense chords that often mark his work. Throughout, the composer uses a set of complex rhythms he likes to call “Persian tango,” often alternating between 5 and 3 beats per measure. Vasterling admits he found it a challenge to internalize the rhythms as he set motions to match the music. Portions of the ballet also feature a soprano singing a poem by Rumi in Farsi.

Every day and night I think and speak about this –

Why am I not aware of what my heart and soul is saying?

Where did I come from, and what is the purpose of my being?

Where am I going? I have no home…

To prepare for the production, Vasterling and costume designer Holly Hynes visited the Persian wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Both were particularly struck by the architecture and calligraphy. And the flowing, curvilinear shapes they saw there are reflected in both the clothing the dancers wear and the choreography itself.

Ultimately, Vasterling says he connected to the story of Layla and the Majnun because of the way it has been passed down from generation to generation in the Middle East. He thinks it dovetails well with the main show on this weekend’s program, Carmina Burana, which he has always seen as being about the way individuals are the products of their culture and the people who came before them.