AVA KOOHBOR Sound Enactor

The specific backgammon board I used was made by my father during the Iran-Iraq war. We played on it often. Unlike traditional boards adorned with ornate patterns, his design was stripped of embellishment—a modernist gesture shaped by necessity and intention. Years later, as I immersed myself in the craft of instrument-making, I became acutely aware of the absence of women from its historical narrative—especially in the Western canon, where instrument makers have been overwhelmingly white and male.

Instrument-making, for me, became a form of resistance. A refusal of the dominant narratives of craft, sound, and authorship. My practice moved from inspiration into a practical, embodied defiance—where sound, history, and identity converge.

Korkori transforms that personal and historical object into an electroacoustic backgammon board—built by an Iranian woman and played by two Middle Eastern women. With support from the San Francisco Arts Commission, I was able to realize the full scope of the project.

This wasn’t simply a question of composing sound. I had to consider how the rules of the game would generate sound: how much control would reside with the players, how much with the dice and the checkers? What roles would strategy and chance play in the sonic outcome?

I initially considered incorporating recordings of women’s voices in playful banter—but decided it didn’t fit the tone of this piece. Perhaps for a future backgammon.

Backgammon is a game of strategy (the movement of checkers) and chance (the roll of the dice). In my compositions, I often build complex textures from minimal waveforms. The board became my score.