If you had to talk to Syria, what would you say?
Is this the country that has been front and centre over the last decade, with news reports of the most horrid atrocities? Is this the old dream of amazing men and women who built teeming cities, born of the wildest encounters and desires? Or could it be the forgotten and neglected dream, a distant memory of civilizations that taught the world to read and write?
On this grand evening, a veritable musical and visual poem in the form of a true journey will take the audience across cities and regions, lands and eras, in a Syria at the crossroads of worlds, discovering its greatest jewels. Two outstanding Syrian singers, Waed Bouhassoun and Khaled Al Hafedh, will serve as guides on this journey in the great tradition of their heritage. With their clear and deep voices, together they will perform their country’s glittering repertory. Whether beneath the intoxicating firmament of tarab, the intimate whispering of muwashahat, the deep and penetrating augury of Sufi music or the ingenious inspirations of the passionate musicians scattered throughout its history, the same noble spirit lives on in the heart of this artistic Syria!
Topping off this ambitious narrative with its promise of song, movement and visual projections, dancer-choreographers Shahrokh Moshkin-Galam and Inka Strobl will incarnate a broad palette of traditional dances in new forms, turning the stage into a place where lives are led at once as city-dwellers, Bedouins, dervishes, Arabs, Syriacs or Kurds. Embellished with visual projections concocted with panache by multimedia creative director Hassan Aziz, the show will immerse the audience jubilantly in the various worlds of this land so often mentioned but so little known.
In this lyrical journey to areas of Palmyra, Aleppo, Damascus and other focal points of divine Syria, this production will take us to the ancient world that now appears as the sole source of inspiration for resistance against modern-day surges of ignorance and hypocrisy.
