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Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, May-June 2009, pages 60-61 Music & Arts “Arabesque”: Art at the Crossroads
FOR THREE weeks—Feb. 22 to March 15—the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC hosted “Arabesque: Arts of the Arab World.” It was a spectacular event, showcasing music, dance, poetry, and theater from the 22 nations of the Arabic-speaking world, as well as art exhibits, lectures, a marketplace, a walk-in kaleidoscope, and displays of traditional wedding gowns. But “Arabesque” wasn’t like the Smithsonian Institution’s annual Folklife Festival, with its displays of folk art and traditional music. It was all about contemporary high art and its inspiration. It was more about challenging and rethinking traditions than repeating them. Take, for example, Amine and Hamza M’Hraihi, two Tunisian brothers who appeared on the Millennium Stage with an oud and a qanun (zither), two of the major instruments of classical Arab music. What you saw, however, is not what you heard. Thoroughly trained in traditional Arab music, they are just as thoroughly trained in European classical music and American jazz. Rather than delicately plucking the oud, Amine M’Raihi’s approach is much more physical. His aggressive neckwork is more commonly associated with electric guitar. Similarly, anyone used to the metallic tintinabulation of the qanun was in for a surprise as brother Hamza attacked his instrument with relish. But throughout, there was perfect control, the music clearly growing out of a classical Tunisian tradition—but radically re-envisioned. Similarly, choreographer Abou Lagraa has his roots in North Africa, but his classical training was at France’s Conservatoire de la Danse de Lyons. The dancers of his company, Cie la Baraka, dress simply; their costumes are not elaborate. Yet their movements function as a thousand tiny mirrors that glint recognizable gestures from ballet in the concert hall, belly dance in the smoky bar, and the defiant machismo of hip hop performed on the streets of New York. Syrian clarinetist Kinan Azmeh maneuvers between New York and Damascus, living part of the year on the Upper West Side, other times in Syria. His music is definitely a product of full-on American jazz, and it’s clearly also a product of the Middle East. All but one of the musicians—who play percussion, viola, bass, oud, clarinet, and piano—with whom he appeared are from the Levant. In an Azmeh composition titled “November 22” (as in the day after Thanksgiving, not the Kennedy assassination), the music rolls out from the stage like an autumn fog, then is suddenly cut short by a melancholy oud. To introduce “Airports,” Azmeh described landing at JFK Airport, where there is one lane for citizens and another for visitors. If you come from an Arab or Muslim country, he said, “There is yet a third lane that takes you to a room in the back of the airport where you can wait for hours” for a special interview. Azmeh used those hours to write “Airports,” which he dedicated to his brothers from Syria, Iran, Iraq, Sudan and all the people at the back of the airport. The crowd went wild.
Beirut-born Rami Khalifé (whose famous father, Marcel, also performed) and Francesco Schlimé appeared together on grand pianos. Their music joined modern Western classical, classical Arab music, and jazz. Their set ended with a prolonged crescendo for two, each delicately urging on the other. Only moments before, they had grabbed those grand pianos like massive basses, then transformed them into percussive instruments, playing the keys while flailing the wires inside. More than 80 artists performed during the three-week period. Performances by Marcel Khalifé were sold out almost immediately. In fact, all ticketed performances, including the Caracalla Dance Theatre, “Richard III: An Arab Tragedy,” Tunisia’s “Khamsoun,”and the Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra, were all sold out and left people scrambling for the excellent free performances on the Millennium Stage. Visual artists, too, explored cultural cross-pollination. Lara Baladi whimsically examined Arab fascination with patterns by creating a “walk-in” kaleidoscope that incorporated images from pop culture, then shattered them in constantly changing geometries. The arts presented in “Arabesque,” especially the performing arts, did not depict Arab culture as a backwater. To the contrary, they presented Arab culture in its historical role as a crossroads. The performers in “Arabesque” relished the crosscurrents and delighted in new combinations and permutations. The Arab world shown in this program reached out to Africa, both to the indigenous cultures of the Maghreb and to those cultures beyond the trade routes in sub-Saharan Africa. The Arab culture portrayed in “Arabesque” swallows with curiosity the cultures of Persia and India, and looks westward, too, incorporating into its sophisticated patterns, rhythms, and themes the disciplines of classical European music, American jazz, the blues, and hip hop. At all times, the music is alert, fresh and daring—a melting pot, a laboratory and an alchemist’s crucible. —Michael Keating |
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