THE ARTS | Reshaping ideas, expressing identity
24 March 2008
Kennedy Center to Showcase Artistic Traditions of Arab World
Three-week festival scheduled to open in Washington in February 2009
Washington -- “The best way to learn about other people,” says Michael Kaiser, president of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, “is through their culture.”
Kaiser practices what he preaches. In cooperation with the League of Arab States, Kaiser has spent the past four years shaping a major three-week festival highlighting the arts and culture of the Arab world. The festival will take place at Washington’s Kennedy Center early in 2009.
Called “Arabesque: Arts of the Arab World,” the event will be a panorama of creativity -- embracing dance, music and theater and encompassing such specialized presentations as oud (Arabic lute) music and the sacred 13th-century mystical art of the whirling dervishes.
An arabesque -- the term derives from the word “Arab” -- is a ninth-century Islamic decorative element utilizing intricate floral and geometric patterns. The term also commonly defines a ballet position, but more generally, it describes visual, dance, theater or musical styles that emerge from Arab culture or are influenced strongly by the Arab world.
“Arabesque” -- both in depth and breadth -- is the largest program of its kind to date in the United States.
As the program’s schedule reveals, the visiting artists and their presentations largely are specific to a particular culture or country, such as Lebanese composer Marcel Khalife’s original oud music, the Whirling Dervishes of Damascus (Syria), and Khamsoun (Fifty) -- an acclaimed contemporary stage drama focusing on a half-century of Tunisian history, from Tunisia’s independence in 1956 to 2006. Al Kasaba Theater, based in Ramallah on the West Bank, has created a dramatic oral history collage, Alive From Palestine: Stories Under Occupation. And there are collective tributes, as well -- including an evening of sacred music drawing on instrumentalists and choruses from across the Arab landscape, and Golden Age of Arab Music, an assemblage of leading singers from Egypt, Tunisia, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Syria.
Complementing these presentations are several cross-cultural productions that offer new insights and perspectives. One is Richard III: An Arab Tragedy, adapted from Shakespeare by Kuwaiti theater director Sulayman Al-Bassam. Originally commissioned by Britain’s Royal Shakespeare Company, the play explores tribal allegiances, family feuds, absolute power and questions of leadership, religion and foreign intervention within the context of the social customs, musical heritage and mystical rituals of the Gulf region.
Blending East and West, award-winning Broadway director/choreographer Debbie Allen is creating Dancing on the Sands of Time, a dance-driven work featuring original American and Arab music, performed by young artists from both the Arab world and Los Angeles and Washington.
“Arabesque” is a festival spanning the centuries. Contributions from the world of dance, for instance, will range from the traditional belly dances of the Ghawazee gypsies of southern Egypt (performed by Tunisia’s Leila Haddad) to Moroccan choreographer Khalid Benghrib’s cutting-edge work presented by his all-male contemporary dance company, and Lebanon’s Caracalla Dance Theatre, whose repertoire fuses Oriental tradition with the athletic properties of Western modern dance.
Even multimedia visuals and hip-hop, combined with North African movement and musical influences, will make appearances in the program of Compagnie La Baraka, founded by French native Abou Lagraa, who is of Algerian descent.
“Arabesque” -- which will also include a weeklong festival of films from across the Arab world -- is slated to unfold in virtually every performance space at the Kennedy Center, and even in a few unlikely spaces that are being repurposed. Throughout the three weeks of “Arabesque,” visitors are expected to flock to the roof-level corridors, converted for the occasion into a traditional souk (an Arab bazaar or market), where literary readings, photography exhibitions and standup comedy performances will take place.
Kaiser, speaking at a March 11 press briefing, said the arts “create peace and provide a window onto understanding people.” Now that “Arabesque” is poised to become a reality, said Kaiser, he hopes it will serve as “a catalyst toward achieving both [peace and understanding] between the Arab and Western worlds.”
“Arabesque: Arts of the Arab World” will run from February 25, 2009, to March 15, 2009.
For more information on “Arabesque” and the rest of the Kennedy Center’s 2008-2009 season, check for periodic updates to the Web site of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
See The Arts for more information on arts and culture in the United States.
