With the wide and great feedback from both inside the country and overseas, and based on many E-mails and messages O-Hum.com received, it seems one of the reasons behind this huge popularity is the appearance of a Darvish in video along the animating one, whom was being hit by fallen stones from the sky and went through the meditation into a crazy head banging! Arash Bigdeli who appeared and played in video as Darvish is an Iranian Artist and Designer who immigrated to Canada some years ago, now living there being active in different artistic projects and programs. Arash's look and appearance of course has changed these days, but it's not that far to see him acting in another O-Hum video clip some day, with a completely different look...

Who is Arash Bigdeli?
I'm 35 and I live in Vancouver city of Canada. I'm bachelor at this moment and my major activities are in field of Space and Form design, mostly Artistic and Industrial architectural design. of course like anybody else beside my profession I have my own side activities and projects like Poetry, Philosophy and Spiritualism, Cinema and Theatre.

What's your favorite music style?
I used to like and listen to Hard Rock and Heavy metal music, the bands like Deep Purple, Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden. I can say maybe I was a metal head. but these days I'm not that heavy and aggressive and can't take that stuff anymore. I'm listening to Rock music most of the time.

When and how you heard of O-Hum and how come you played as 'Darvish' in video clip?
Shahram, Shahrokh [O-Hum's original guitar player who left the band in 2002] and Zartosht [Animator\Designer who created O-Hum.com and all O-Hum's visual material] are my old good buddies. In fact, I've been hanging around with these guys from 10 or 12 years ago since they had started to play music together, next to when O-Hum was born. Though I'm not a musician myself, but I've always been searching and listening to good kind of music; and that was why i was interested on them, keeping the track of their work. I was always encouraging them to make and play what their hearts command them to do; no matter how hard and miserable it could be to do because I believed and still do that they are different, unique and so creative, and most important they have something so fresh and new to offer. regarding how I acted in video, i should say it was one of the times i was back in Tehran for a vacation when Zartosht talked to me about his idea, making a clip around Darvish song. He offered me to play as Darvish and based on my trust over many good experiences I had with him in previous projects [like stage design and theatre] I stepped in.

Your appearance in video with that Meditative mood and then head bangings made a big difference, helping the clip to be more interesting and alive. When the video clip was released at O-Hum.com we received many encouraging e-mails from people, being curious and asking who's this Darvish. Do you have any experiences in field of acting?
First I would like to thank all of them for their positive feedback, I'm really happy they have been satisfied with what I did in this clip. Totally I love Theatre so much and also have had researches regarding this matter, but not much acting experience. From the theory side, I've been doing researches for some TV programs. I was involved in a program called 'The Soul of Actor' [Broadcasted from IRIB channel four] as the researcher and artistic consultant, where they were covering the history of acting in different nations from the ancient days till today in 14 episodes. I've also been involved in some other projects as Director assistant and scene manager. My serious acting experience goes back to 'Sheykh-e Mofid' TV series [Broadcasted on IRIB channel two] where I acted as 'Seyed-e Razy' and had the chance to be partnered with some great actors of Iran such as Darioush Arjemand,Amin Tarokh and also Ali Dehkordi.

You wear a wonderful outfit in video clip which does not look much like the ordinary outfit of Darvishs [Mystiques]...
This outfit, which is a traditional and original fashion from old ancient days of Mud generation, was recreated with the design and work of my dear friend Sirous Gorjizad. It was my initial plan for my outfit, and I wore it with Zartosht's confirmation.

How did you manage your acting over? seems you're deeply into the music...
My casting in this clip was a mix of on-the-scene decoupage, and improvised movements. As I said, Zartosht and me have had lots of experiences in different artistic projects so we understand each other so quick and there was no need to have lengthy discussions about every little thing, and it made everything easier. We chatted for a while before starting to shoot the scene and he explained to me what he's looking after, which view points he wants, how many shots from which angles we would have, and generally what kind of movements he is expecting me to do. Then I entered the Darvish and we started...

Were you listening to 'Darvish' song while you were playing?
I had been living with this song for a while when we began to shoot the video [O-Hum guys had given me a demo version of Darvish some time ago] so this helped me organize and manage my rhythm much better. If you noticed, you could see the little headphones in my ears in some shots. I was listening to the track with my pocket MP3 player so loud while being shot in video!

How long did it take to shoot your parts?
The whole process of photography ,from the early chats with zartosht on location to the last laughs in the end of the work, didn't get longer than maybe three hours. I should also confess that we were enjoying having a professional camera man and also a good friend Mehrdad Daftari beside us whom was making things happening much more better and faster.

Where did you shoot your sequences?
A new house was being built next to Ali's place [Zartosht's brother] and there was this big pile of woods and construction stuff in the site. It seemed a cool place to us, some kind of a destroyed home where this Darvish is fallen apart waiting for his love to come and save his soul. They brought those construction things over to a corner and placed them that way and i sat in the middle...

Yeah, where those stones fall from the sky over you!
Yeah! I just acted that way and those objects later were added to the video with computer.

How you see and critic the final result now?
Obviously Zartosht is a genius, no matter how he uses his talent It could be either painting and graphic design or going further and doing Animation and Video. Personally I believe that Zartosht will push the boundaries much further and create other excellent pieces of art. The Philosophy and the idea he develops in this clip is something so deep and unique that requires more time to be understood and digested by viewers. This also applies to O-Hum and it music itself too and we saw that indeed it took some time till people realized O-Hum's genius music and the importance of their work. I think this is the way it happens everywhere around the world: Avant-garde and new ideas always suffer from the resistance and dogma of society. About Zartosht's Animation work I should say that by using the Nostalgic style of Japanese cartoons [Which the children of our generations used to watch on national TV during decades] and mixing them with Iranian original signs and symbols, he creates and offers some complex topics. The joint of these pictures with O-Hum's music, which is doing the same thing in another way, recalls the other side of Hafez poetry which is so interesting, I mean his own paradox of literature... In my opinion topics like Mystique, Darvish, Love, Saghi, Wine and so on, are pictured in this video clip so beautiful and smartly.

What are doing these days, any plans for future?...
Nowadays I'm busy doing some projects in field of Architectural design in Vancouver. Usually I do three to four major projects [mostly architecting related] per year and spend the rest of my time with my personal artistic projects. Sometimes, If I'm on good mood, I happen to criminate some poetry! The nature and wild life of Vancouver is another thing I enjoy the most.