AL GHARBIA // The question that had to be asked was, “Why walk all that distance?” Hamad bin Ramis al Minhali had what should have been the obvious answer.
“Why would we truck the camels over here?” he asked. “It’s not the Bedouin way. Our grandfathers trekked across all the deserts of Arabia. Our journey lasted only 22 days but their journeys often lasted for months or simply never ended as they trekked from one oasis to another to trade and sell goods with other tribes.”
His answer was one that reflected the spirit of the Al Dhafra Camel Festival, meant to celebrate and preserve the culture, heritage and tradition of the Arab desert nomad.
For Mr al Minhali, 25, and his father, Ramis bin Saleh, an Emirati, the trek to the event in the Al Gharbia town saw them drive the 1,000km at camel speed from the Saudi city of Al Kharj.
Yesterday afternoon they, along with an entourage consisting of 50 Majaheem camels, family members, and dozens of members of their tribe, had only 3km to go to reach their encampment.
The scene was a spectacular one as the camels made their way from paved roads across rust-coloured sand dunes, followed by more than 30 4x4 vehicles and a dozen men and boys on foot.
Inside the vehicles traditional Arabian music was blaring over the stereo speakers as both men and young girls danced in their seats to it.
They were in a celebratory mood as they approached the normally sleepy town, which had once again come to life with the start of the third annual festival.
For the past week, camels have been the spectacle as they slowly strolled through the town’s central district, making their way to Madinat Zayed.
The 50 camels had cost the al Minhali family Dh11 million (US$3m) to purchase. With some pride, Mr al Minhali the younger said: “One of them my father bought for Dh5m. He is a stud and is worth so much because he is a purebred and has fathered several calves.
“He won’t be up for sale during the festival but we brought him to show him. But, then again, if someone makes an extremely generous offer, my father might consider it.”
Continue reading The National: Camel fair’s trek into the past
Showing posts with label Festival. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Festival. Show all posts
Friday, 29 January 2010
Friday, 8 May 2009
The sands of time
The Emirati actors playing Sir Wilfred Thesiger’s Bedouin guides have a problem.
Abdullah al Shamsi has the right long flowing hair to play the part of Salim bin Ghabaisha, the famous Bedouin guide from 60 years ago, but modern haircare regimes have rendered it too neat to pass for the head of someone who has just made an epic crossing of the dunes of the Empty Quarter. With the help of fellow actor Khaled al Farsi, who plays Salim bin Kabina, they scruff it into a messier and more authentic style.
Beside them Dylan Dolan, a Dubai-based corporate trainer who bears an uncanny physical resemblance to Thesiger, is finding the rough rocks of Jebel Hafeet are playing havoc with his bare feet, just as they did in the late 1940s for the English adventurer he is portraying.
Al Shamsi and al Farsi, both students from nearby Al Ain, are suffering similarly. Unlike the guides, whose feet were hardened by a lifetime of living barefoot in the desert, the headlong modernisation that is the focus of the dramatised documentary in which they are acting means this pair were born into an easier way of life far removed from their Bedouin ancestors.
The story of Thesiger’s group forms about a third of Changing Sands, a 60-minute television documentary being produced by Abu Dhabi-based Pyramovies which will cover an 85-year span from the camel age through to the culmination of the Abu Dhabi 2030 city plan.
The Dh2.2 million production has just finished its four-week shoot and is in negotiations for a worldwide distribution deal after its planned debut at the Middle East International Film Festival in October. But the British-Yemeni director Bader Ben Hirsi says one of the goals is to introduce young Emiratis to their own history as well as the global audience.
Grand Hyatt Doha now open - click for more information
Al Shamsi and al Farsi are an example of that. Before they were recruited to be in the documentary, they had never heard of the characters they are playing, or the story of how bin Kabina and bin Ghabaisha guided Thesiger – known to them as Mubarak bin London, which translates as the Blessed, son of London – on what has been called the last and greatest expedition of Arabian travel.
Hirsi has also interviewed bin Kabina and bin Ghabaisha, now in their eighties, for Changing Sands, with the aim of using their example to explain the implications of Abu Dhabi’s rapid development. “Really the focus is on the fastest developed nation in recent history, and it’s about how they can create a balance between modernity and keep hold of the customs and traditions and national identity, especially since Emiratis are in the minority,” he says.
“It starts in the 1940s with the guys meeting the late Sheikh Zayed and then it goes to the formation of the UAE and Sheikh Zayed’s involvement, the discovery of oil and then the sudden rapid changes in the 1970s through three decades. Now there’s an MTV, McDonald’s and Coca Cola culture. How can they cope with that rapid change and also maintain their identity of who they are and where they come from?
“We’ve interviewed a historian who remembers walking around barefoot, and now (Emiratis) go to malls where they’ve got Dior and Gucci and diamond-studded shoes.
“Some of the Emirati actors knew of the Wilfred Thesiger story, and some didn’t, but they were fascinated and learnt some more, and they realised that Wilfred Thesiger and bin Kabina and bin Ghabaisha are very important to their national identity. They’ve realised it’s important and they’ve loved the experience.
“I think this is very, very important, more important than I perhaps anticipated.”
On the filming location beside the road ascending Jebel Hafeet, the actors playing Thesiger, bin Ghabaisha and bin Kabina switch with remarkable ease from new to old.
Pristine white dishdashas, blindingly bright on a scorching late April afternoon, are swapped for the deliberately threadbare and dirty ones more in keeping with the kind they would have worn on the crossing.
Dolan slips on his own grimy dishdash to hide his modern jeans, enlists Emirati expertise to tie his ghutra and reluctantly surrenders his trainers for bare feet when filming begins.
The rifle used by Thesiger on his crossing has been borrowed from a museum in
Al Ain for the day, and the actors vary between being impressed by its history
and impressed by its weight.
Shortly before filming begins, al Shamsi is dressed just like bin Ghabaisha but beside the khanjar on his belt is his mobile phone, on which he is chatting via an earpiece. Al Farsi puts on an ammunition belt while other Emiratis playing bit parts mess around with the old rifles and blink at the glare when they have to give up their designer sunglasses in preparation for the camera rolling.
The month-long process of filming, all three lead actors admit with varying degrees of candour, has been arduous.
Their feet have not just been assailed by the sharp rocks of Jebel Hafeet but also by the burning sands of the dunes while filming beside the Al Ain motorway.
Dolan remembers the first day of filming in the dunes, when he spent a few hours walking barefoot through the sand just as Thesiger had during his years of aspiring to live exactly the same way as his Bedouin companions.
“It was so hot I got blisters on my feet,” he says. “We were out in the desert for eight to 10 hours a day, and if we didn’t get water within 10 minutes of going ‘I need water’, we were freaking out. Between shoots, we got to sit down in the shade. But we’re just getting a taste of what they went through. I’m not walking through the middle of the Empty Quarter like Thesiger did.”
Al Farsi says he had grown up in cities and had little experience of the traditional ways or the physical hardiness required by Bedouin life.
“I haven’t really experienced true Bedouin life, (but) my grandfather lived like this. We all used to live like this,” he says.
“The sand was hot in the beginning but I managed to get used to it. At the beginning of the shoot, it was difficult for me but now I can walk over these rocks.”
Even al Shamsi coyly accepts the acting “has been a little hard on my feet” but says the greater impression on him was the appreciation of what life had been like a few generations ago.
The film set features the usual mix of fleeting domestic dramas behind the camera – someone has forgotten to charge some crucial batteries, a 1940s-era stills camera has gone missing shortly before it’s needed for a scene in which Thesiger photographs bin Kabina and bin Ghabaisha, and another person loses his temper and launches into a brief tirade before apologising for the disruption. All of this Hirsi works through with an almost transcendent equanimity, speaking quietly as he orchestrates a scene that he knows will take half a day to film but is likely to contribute less than half a minute to the 60-minute documentary.
All this is part of his goal to bring Arab culture to a wider audience. As someone
born and raised in Britain but of Yemeni heritage – his father left because of the civil war in the 1960s – he has always tried to bridge the gulf between the Arab world
and the West with his films.
One year after the release of his first major documentary – The English Sheik And The Yemeni Gentleman, about being reintroduced to his ancestral culture by Tim Mackintosh-Smith, a longtime English resident of Sana’a – the September 11 terror attacks dramatically widened the gap between the West and the Arab world and correspondingly increased the need for those who understood both worlds.
“I’ve got a responsibility really to educate, having been brought up in the UK and born and bred there,” he says. “In the UK, I find myself defending the Arab world and in the Middle East I find myself defending the West. Especially after 9/11, my focus became trying to show the Arab and Islamic world.”
He also directed a film called 9/11 Through Saudi Eyes, based on exclusive access to the hijackers’ families and friends, to provide a different view of what led to the attacks in New York and Washington, and another film about the pilgrimage to Mecca.
His 2005 feature film based in Yemen, A New Day In Old Sana’a, won the award as the best Arab film at the Cairo Film Festival, which helped him land the job of producing Million’s Poet for Pyramedia in Abu Dhabi two years ago. That in turn led to the opportunity to create a documentary on the Arabian oryx and then the chance to make Changing Sands.
Wilfred Thesiger died in 2003, aged 93, but Hirsi was fortunate that both bin Kabina and bin Ghabaisha remain alive and alert, if frail. Neither of the two knows his birthday but they were teenagers when they joined Thesiger’s crossings of the Empty Quarter soon after the war and the general agreement is they must be in their eighties now.
When Al Ain’s Jahili Fort reopened last December, bin Kabina and bin Ghabaisha were among the VIPs invited to revisit the place where they met and were hosted by Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan, the future founder of the UAE but then the Abu Dhabi royal family’s representative in the emirate’s eastern region, after their crossing of the Empty Quarter.
Hirsi says he initially wanted to focus on bin Kabina and bin Ghabaisha to anchor the tale of the UAE’s history but later broadened the scope to include Thesiger’s role as well, which helped to incorporate Sheikh Zayed and his role in the formation of what became the UAE in 1971.
He then had to cast the Thesiger role, a task he expected to be a challenge but found unexpectedly simple when it came to the attention of a friend of Dolan’s, who took one look at the photographs of Thesiger and forwarded it to him.
Dolan says he was aware of Thesiger but knew few details about him. “I’d heard of him vaguely. When you go into a bookshop in the Emirates, you always see his book but I hadn’t seen a picture of him,” he says. “When I got a photo, I showed my wife and she said ‘They’ve got to have you,’ so I sent my CV with photos to Ben.”
Hirsi was on location in the dunes at Liwa when the email from Dolan arrived. At the time, he was not banking on finding an actor who looked like Thesiger and was willing to settle on someone who could act the part. “You could hunt for months and months and months, if you had that luxury. We had two or three other hopefuls who didn’t look anything like Thesiger,” he says. “As soon as I saw [Dolan’s] photo on my BlackBerry, I nearly dropped the phone. It doesn’t happen like this.”
Dolan not only had a striking physical resemblance to Thesiger but also is an amateur actor who lives in the Emirates and, at 37, is the same age as the Englishman at the time of his crossings of the Empty Quarter.
Finding the Emirati actors proved to be a tougher task, but after a lot of networking, Hirsi found al Shamsi and al Farsi for the roles of bin Kabina and bin Ghabaisha, as well as others for the lesser roles, from two amateur dramatic groups in Al Ain.
Dolan says the reaction of Emiratis when he disclosed he was going to play Mubarak bin London in the documentary varied depending on age. “For the locals, there was instant recognition, although it was definitely the more senior guys, people of my age or older, who recognised the name,” he says.
“Most of the younger guys on the shoot hadn’t known about it but that’s the value of these things. It only takes one movie for them to learn about it. I think that’s really important, especially in the times we’re now in where there’s so much focus on ensuring there is an understanding of Emirati heritage culture and language.
“It shows people where they’re coming from, rather than driving around highways in a 4x4. They’ve got a lot of stuff to be proud of – look how far they’ve come. This doesn’t happen overnight. A lot of blood, sweat and tears goes into making this happen, but you can’t step away from culture and heritage.”
Both al Shamsi and al Farsi say they had been impressed by learning the story of the crossings of the Empty Quarter by Thesiger and his companions.
“It’s the first time I’ve understood about them but it’s been a good experience,” al Farsi says. “I’ve learnt about how the Bedouin lived before and how they’ve managed to transfer from that time to the present. I’ve been able to understand the changes better and how Sheikh Zayed led and his vision to this point.”
Al Shamsi says his grandfather lived like
a Bedouin and his family tried to keep that spirit alive, but it took the experience of playing bin Ghabaisha to fully appreciate
the traditional way of life.
“I didn’t know anything about them but I learnt, as part of this movie, I read some books,” he says. “They have a strong heart, really. Who wants to go through cold weather and hot weather? Who wants to live in the desert and eat like they did, where it takes three hours and first he has to hunt some animals?”
The experience has also enhanced his knowledge about the UAE’s founder. “Sheikh Zayed said if you don’t understand your past, you don’t know anything about your future,” al Shamsi adds.
“Put that first. Out of all this,” he adds, gesturing at my page of shorthand notes from our conversation to where I had just written that line, “put that first”.
Middle East Film Festival
Abdullah al Shamsi has the right long flowing hair to play the part of Salim bin Ghabaisha, the famous Bedouin guide from 60 years ago, but modern haircare regimes have rendered it too neat to pass for the head of someone who has just made an epic crossing of the dunes of the Empty Quarter. With the help of fellow actor Khaled al Farsi, who plays Salim bin Kabina, they scruff it into a messier and more authentic style.
Beside them Dylan Dolan, a Dubai-based corporate trainer who bears an uncanny physical resemblance to Thesiger, is finding the rough rocks of Jebel Hafeet are playing havoc with his bare feet, just as they did in the late 1940s for the English adventurer he is portraying.
Al Shamsi and al Farsi, both students from nearby Al Ain, are suffering similarly. Unlike the guides, whose feet were hardened by a lifetime of living barefoot in the desert, the headlong modernisation that is the focus of the dramatised documentary in which they are acting means this pair were born into an easier way of life far removed from their Bedouin ancestors.
The story of Thesiger’s group forms about a third of Changing Sands, a 60-minute television documentary being produced by Abu Dhabi-based Pyramovies which will cover an 85-year span from the camel age through to the culmination of the Abu Dhabi 2030 city plan.
The Dh2.2 million production has just finished its four-week shoot and is in negotiations for a worldwide distribution deal after its planned debut at the Middle East International Film Festival in October. But the British-Yemeni director Bader Ben Hirsi says one of the goals is to introduce young Emiratis to their own history as well as the global audience.
Grand Hyatt Doha now open - click for more information
Al Shamsi and al Farsi are an example of that. Before they were recruited to be in the documentary, they had never heard of the characters they are playing, or the story of how bin Kabina and bin Ghabaisha guided Thesiger – known to them as Mubarak bin London, which translates as the Blessed, son of London – on what has been called the last and greatest expedition of Arabian travel.
Hirsi has also interviewed bin Kabina and bin Ghabaisha, now in their eighties, for Changing Sands, with the aim of using their example to explain the implications of Abu Dhabi’s rapid development. “Really the focus is on the fastest developed nation in recent history, and it’s about how they can create a balance between modernity and keep hold of the customs and traditions and national identity, especially since Emiratis are in the minority,” he says.
“It starts in the 1940s with the guys meeting the late Sheikh Zayed and then it goes to the formation of the UAE and Sheikh Zayed’s involvement, the discovery of oil and then the sudden rapid changes in the 1970s through three decades. Now there’s an MTV, McDonald’s and Coca Cola culture. How can they cope with that rapid change and also maintain their identity of who they are and where they come from?
“We’ve interviewed a historian who remembers walking around barefoot, and now (Emiratis) go to malls where they’ve got Dior and Gucci and diamond-studded shoes.
“Some of the Emirati actors knew of the Wilfred Thesiger story, and some didn’t, but they were fascinated and learnt some more, and they realised that Wilfred Thesiger and bin Kabina and bin Ghabaisha are very important to their national identity. They’ve realised it’s important and they’ve loved the experience.
“I think this is very, very important, more important than I perhaps anticipated.”
On the filming location beside the road ascending Jebel Hafeet, the actors playing Thesiger, bin Ghabaisha and bin Kabina switch with remarkable ease from new to old.
Pristine white dishdashas, blindingly bright on a scorching late April afternoon, are swapped for the deliberately threadbare and dirty ones more in keeping with the kind they would have worn on the crossing.
Dolan slips on his own grimy dishdash to hide his modern jeans, enlists Emirati expertise to tie his ghutra and reluctantly surrenders his trainers for bare feet when filming begins.
The rifle used by Thesiger on his crossing has been borrowed from a museum in
Al Ain for the day, and the actors vary between being impressed by its history
and impressed by its weight.
Shortly before filming begins, al Shamsi is dressed just like bin Ghabaisha but beside the khanjar on his belt is his mobile phone, on which he is chatting via an earpiece. Al Farsi puts on an ammunition belt while other Emiratis playing bit parts mess around with the old rifles and blink at the glare when they have to give up their designer sunglasses in preparation for the camera rolling.
The month-long process of filming, all three lead actors admit with varying degrees of candour, has been arduous.
Their feet have not just been assailed by the sharp rocks of Jebel Hafeet but also by the burning sands of the dunes while filming beside the Al Ain motorway.
Dolan remembers the first day of filming in the dunes, when he spent a few hours walking barefoot through the sand just as Thesiger had during his years of aspiring to live exactly the same way as his Bedouin companions.
“It was so hot I got blisters on my feet,” he says. “We were out in the desert for eight to 10 hours a day, and if we didn’t get water within 10 minutes of going ‘I need water’, we were freaking out. Between shoots, we got to sit down in the shade. But we’re just getting a taste of what they went through. I’m not walking through the middle of the Empty Quarter like Thesiger did.”
Al Farsi says he had grown up in cities and had little experience of the traditional ways or the physical hardiness required by Bedouin life.
“I haven’t really experienced true Bedouin life, (but) my grandfather lived like this. We all used to live like this,” he says.
“The sand was hot in the beginning but I managed to get used to it. At the beginning of the shoot, it was difficult for me but now I can walk over these rocks.”
Even al Shamsi coyly accepts the acting “has been a little hard on my feet” but says the greater impression on him was the appreciation of what life had been like a few generations ago.
The film set features the usual mix of fleeting domestic dramas behind the camera – someone has forgotten to charge some crucial batteries, a 1940s-era stills camera has gone missing shortly before it’s needed for a scene in which Thesiger photographs bin Kabina and bin Ghabaisha, and another person loses his temper and launches into a brief tirade before apologising for the disruption. All of this Hirsi works through with an almost transcendent equanimity, speaking quietly as he orchestrates a scene that he knows will take half a day to film but is likely to contribute less than half a minute to the 60-minute documentary.
All this is part of his goal to bring Arab culture to a wider audience. As someone
born and raised in Britain but of Yemeni heritage – his father left because of the civil war in the 1960s – he has always tried to bridge the gulf between the Arab world
and the West with his films.
One year after the release of his first major documentary – The English Sheik And The Yemeni Gentleman, about being reintroduced to his ancestral culture by Tim Mackintosh-Smith, a longtime English resident of Sana’a – the September 11 terror attacks dramatically widened the gap between the West and the Arab world and correspondingly increased the need for those who understood both worlds.
“I’ve got a responsibility really to educate, having been brought up in the UK and born and bred there,” he says. “In the UK, I find myself defending the Arab world and in the Middle East I find myself defending the West. Especially after 9/11, my focus became trying to show the Arab and Islamic world.”
He also directed a film called 9/11 Through Saudi Eyes, based on exclusive access to the hijackers’ families and friends, to provide a different view of what led to the attacks in New York and Washington, and another film about the pilgrimage to Mecca.
His 2005 feature film based in Yemen, A New Day In Old Sana’a, won the award as the best Arab film at the Cairo Film Festival, which helped him land the job of producing Million’s Poet for Pyramedia in Abu Dhabi two years ago. That in turn led to the opportunity to create a documentary on the Arabian oryx and then the chance to make Changing Sands.
Wilfred Thesiger died in 2003, aged 93, but Hirsi was fortunate that both bin Kabina and bin Ghabaisha remain alive and alert, if frail. Neither of the two knows his birthday but they were teenagers when they joined Thesiger’s crossings of the Empty Quarter soon after the war and the general agreement is they must be in their eighties now.
When Al Ain’s Jahili Fort reopened last December, bin Kabina and bin Ghabaisha were among the VIPs invited to revisit the place where they met and were hosted by Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan, the future founder of the UAE but then the Abu Dhabi royal family’s representative in the emirate’s eastern region, after their crossing of the Empty Quarter.
Hirsi says he initially wanted to focus on bin Kabina and bin Ghabaisha to anchor the tale of the UAE’s history but later broadened the scope to include Thesiger’s role as well, which helped to incorporate Sheikh Zayed and his role in the formation of what became the UAE in 1971.
He then had to cast the Thesiger role, a task he expected to be a challenge but found unexpectedly simple when it came to the attention of a friend of Dolan’s, who took one look at the photographs of Thesiger and forwarded it to him.
Dolan says he was aware of Thesiger but knew few details about him. “I’d heard of him vaguely. When you go into a bookshop in the Emirates, you always see his book but I hadn’t seen a picture of him,” he says. “When I got a photo, I showed my wife and she said ‘They’ve got to have you,’ so I sent my CV with photos to Ben.”
Hirsi was on location in the dunes at Liwa when the email from Dolan arrived. At the time, he was not banking on finding an actor who looked like Thesiger and was willing to settle on someone who could act the part. “You could hunt for months and months and months, if you had that luxury. We had two or three other hopefuls who didn’t look anything like Thesiger,” he says. “As soon as I saw [Dolan’s] photo on my BlackBerry, I nearly dropped the phone. It doesn’t happen like this.”
Dolan not only had a striking physical resemblance to Thesiger but also is an amateur actor who lives in the Emirates and, at 37, is the same age as the Englishman at the time of his crossings of the Empty Quarter.
Finding the Emirati actors proved to be a tougher task, but after a lot of networking, Hirsi found al Shamsi and al Farsi for the roles of bin Kabina and bin Ghabaisha, as well as others for the lesser roles, from two amateur dramatic groups in Al Ain.
Dolan says the reaction of Emiratis when he disclosed he was going to play Mubarak bin London in the documentary varied depending on age. “For the locals, there was instant recognition, although it was definitely the more senior guys, people of my age or older, who recognised the name,” he says.
“Most of the younger guys on the shoot hadn’t known about it but that’s the value of these things. It only takes one movie for them to learn about it. I think that’s really important, especially in the times we’re now in where there’s so much focus on ensuring there is an understanding of Emirati heritage culture and language.
“It shows people where they’re coming from, rather than driving around highways in a 4x4. They’ve got a lot of stuff to be proud of – look how far they’ve come. This doesn’t happen overnight. A lot of blood, sweat and tears goes into making this happen, but you can’t step away from culture and heritage.”
Both al Shamsi and al Farsi say they had been impressed by learning the story of the crossings of the Empty Quarter by Thesiger and his companions.
“It’s the first time I’ve understood about them but it’s been a good experience,” al Farsi says. “I’ve learnt about how the Bedouin lived before and how they’ve managed to transfer from that time to the present. I’ve been able to understand the changes better and how Sheikh Zayed led and his vision to this point.”
Al Shamsi says his grandfather lived like
a Bedouin and his family tried to keep that spirit alive, but it took the experience of playing bin Ghabaisha to fully appreciate
the traditional way of life.
“I didn’t know anything about them but I learnt, as part of this movie, I read some books,” he says. “They have a strong heart, really. Who wants to go through cold weather and hot weather? Who wants to live in the desert and eat like they did, where it takes three hours and first he has to hunt some animals?”
The experience has also enhanced his knowledge about the UAE’s founder. “Sheikh Zayed said if you don’t understand your past, you don’t know anything about your future,” al Shamsi adds.
“Put that first. Out of all this,” he adds, gesturing at my page of shorthand notes from our conversation to where I had just written that line, “put that first”.
Middle East Film Festival
Wednesday, 12 November 2008
Festival of literature to tackle illiteracy
DUBAI // The inaugural Emirates Airline International Festival of Literature next year aims to encourage young people to read and write more.
Organisers yesterday spoke of widespread illiteracy in the Arab world.
“The statistics regarding illiteracy in the Middle East are frightening and the first thing we need to do is admit that there is an issue,” said Saeed Al Nabouda, the chief projects officer of the Dubai Culture and Arts Authority.
“What we need to do is educate children and their parents on the beauty of reading, because at the moment many people do not understand the importance of it.
“According to the Arab League, there are 100 million Arabs who still do not know how to read and write. We want to use this initiative to help improve this statistic.”
The festival has been scheduled for Feb 26 to Mar 1, and would be attended by more than 60 international and Arab authors.
Among the international writers who have committed to attend are Anthony Horowitz, Margaret Atwood, Ranulph Fiennes and Wilbur Smith.
Arab authors including Turki al Dakhil, Khaled al Khamissi and Ibrahim Nasrallah have agreed to come.
The festival is to include discussions, debates, readings, book signings, workshops and an education day for students.
Organisers said they would try to reach every student in Dubai on that day. If students could not attend the festival, authors would go to the schools and universities.
“We are working with all educational institutions across Dubai where the whole purpose is, ‘If you can’t make it, don’t worry, we’ll come to you’,” said Isobel Abulhoul, director of the festival and Magrudy’s book shops.
“We want to touch thousands of children on the same day... The festival is a celebration of literature and we want children to enjoy it and see its benefits, as they are our future.”
The Saudi-based children’s writer and publisher Nahed al Shawa, who will attend the festival, said: “It is estimated on average that every Arab child reads one page a year, in comparison to European children who read 10 books a year.”
Shawa began reading at the age of 10 when her father gave her the classics. “There were no children’s books available then,” she said.
So she started writing books for her own children. “It is so important for children to read. Every household must have books, and every parent should take 10 minutes out of their day to read with their children.”
Shawa said illiteracy among Arab youth was caused by lack of good books available; lack of encouragement from parents; and the lack of reading libraries.
“There is a lack of authors too,” she said. “We want to use the festival to encourage young writers to come out. My personal mission is to spread awareness.”
Shawa said lack of organisation in the Arab world’s literary market made it hard for authors to be heard and make a name for themselves.
Horowitz, who wrote the Alex Rider book series, as well as screenplays for Midsomer Murders, Murder in Mind and Foyle’s War, was also at yesterday’s launch.
He said literary festivals were an important opportunity to encourage children to read and write through meeting their favourite authors. “It is important to have that human contact.”
Horowitz said UK studies have shown there seemed to be a link between children who do not read from an early age and delinquency.
“It is vitally important for children to be reading at an early age and this festival provides that opportunity and that interest,” he said.
nsamaha@thenational.ae
Organisers yesterday spoke of widespread illiteracy in the Arab world.
“The statistics regarding illiteracy in the Middle East are frightening and the first thing we need to do is admit that there is an issue,” said Saeed Al Nabouda, the chief projects officer of the Dubai Culture and Arts Authority.
“What we need to do is educate children and their parents on the beauty of reading, because at the moment many people do not understand the importance of it.
“According to the Arab League, there are 100 million Arabs who still do not know how to read and write. We want to use this initiative to help improve this statistic.”
The festival has been scheduled for Feb 26 to Mar 1, and would be attended by more than 60 international and Arab authors.
Among the international writers who have committed to attend are Anthony Horowitz, Margaret Atwood, Ranulph Fiennes and Wilbur Smith.
Arab authors including Turki al Dakhil, Khaled al Khamissi and Ibrahim Nasrallah have agreed to come.
The festival is to include discussions, debates, readings, book signings, workshops and an education day for students.
Organisers said they would try to reach every student in Dubai on that day. If students could not attend the festival, authors would go to the schools and universities.
“We are working with all educational institutions across Dubai where the whole purpose is, ‘If you can’t make it, don’t worry, we’ll come to you’,” said Isobel Abulhoul, director of the festival and Magrudy’s book shops.
“We want to touch thousands of children on the same day... The festival is a celebration of literature and we want children to enjoy it and see its benefits, as they are our future.”
The Saudi-based children’s writer and publisher Nahed al Shawa, who will attend the festival, said: “It is estimated on average that every Arab child reads one page a year, in comparison to European children who read 10 books a year.”
Shawa began reading at the age of 10 when her father gave her the classics. “There were no children’s books available then,” she said.
So she started writing books for her own children. “It is so important for children to read. Every household must have books, and every parent should take 10 minutes out of their day to read with their children.”
Shawa said illiteracy among Arab youth was caused by lack of good books available; lack of encouragement from parents; and the lack of reading libraries.
“There is a lack of authors too,” she said. “We want to use the festival to encourage young writers to come out. My personal mission is to spread awareness.”
Shawa said lack of organisation in the Arab world’s literary market made it hard for authors to be heard and make a name for themselves.
Horowitz, who wrote the Alex Rider book series, as well as screenplays for Midsomer Murders, Murder in Mind and Foyle’s War, was also at yesterday’s launch.
He said literary festivals were an important opportunity to encourage children to read and write through meeting their favourite authors. “It is important to have that human contact.”
Horowitz said UK studies have shown there seemed to be a link between children who do not read from an early age and delinquency.
“It is vitally important for children to be reading at an early age and this festival provides that opportunity and that interest,” he said.
nsamaha@thenational.ae
Saturday, 11 October 2008
Our film festivals thrive – but our filmmakers struggle
The chairman and CEO of Fox Filmed Entertainment, James Gianopoulos, eloquently summed up the reality of the film industry in his keynote speech at The Circle conference in Abu Dhabi last week. He described making films as an “economic opportunity and a cultural imperative”.
There is no doubt that the creation of film festivals has been a successful economic manoeuvre in the UAE. Through Dubai’s thriving International Film Festival and Abu Dhabi’s budding MEIFF, the country has embarked on a brilliant public relations strategy that has brought both cities to the forefront of the world’s entertainment press. Now the UAE is attracting big names like Spike Lee, Antonio Banderas and Gianopoulos himself, while adding a new cultural dimension to a country that was viewed until recently as solely an economic hub.
But the creation of film festivals is presenting a tough challenge to the UAE’s cultural identity and to local filmmakers in general. All major film festivals (Cannes, Toronto, Venice…) were born when an indigenous film industry required a platform for its output. In the UAE, festivals have preceded the industry – rather similar to throwing a “sweet 16” party for a 12-year-old.
Both UAE festivals have been conscientious about promoting local cinema by creating Emirati sections in their programmes, but that, if anything, has highlighted the gap in production values between international selections and the passionate yet under-funded attempts of young Emiratis and UAE-based filmmakers who are making cinema out of pocket.
Unlike painting, composing, or writing, cinema has rarely made notable achievements that were not tied to substantial national funding. Filmmaking is an expensive enterprise that requires the involvement of a multitude of skill sets. Time and money is required for research, scriptwriting, script-doctoring, location scouting, casting, lighting, filming, editing, etc. When all of these are attempted from a personal bank account, the outcome is usually a testimony to willpower, but rarely creates a production of high enough value to compete with the films of Europe and North America at our festivals.
It is true that filmmakers can seek money abroad, but the basics of financial partnerships apply to films, too: unless a filmmaker comes to the table with equity in hand, co-producers are unlikely to invest in the project. Egypt’s once glorious film industry, characterised by local stories that touched hearts around the world, was only made possible by national subsidies. Spike Lee rightfully asked at The Circle: “Why should Hollywood produce your films and your stories?”
There are only a few international funds open to Arabs with no local subsidies required, but those are minimal and fraught with restrictions. None of them is likely to support a period film about, say, an Emirati family early in the last century who try to survive in the desert after the father perishes on a pearl diving trip. Not enough international appeal for major revenues; but definitely a pearl in this country’s history.
Like Canada and the UK, the UAE can only become a true film contributor by creating a national film fund and international co-production agreements. Unlike mere cash, which has often been extended to local filmmakers by benefactors, a film fund also includes the supervision of film professionals who can advise on what is viable and what is not. The team behind a film fund is also entrusted with outlining the cultural vision of a country, the kind of rhetoric it needs to voice to the rest of world, making the film industry a major contributor to a nation’s discourse.
Co-production treaties enable various countries to contribute to a project, thereby promising a higher budget and wider distribution. These have been the initiatives behind the glory of much of world cinema. I moved back to the UAE in 2005 when my documentary Being Osama came to the Dubai International Film Festival and I was motivated to stay by its success. The film was commissioned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the Canadian Telefilm Fund, who both agreed that a film on the tribulations of six men called Osama might alter public opinion and make life for Arab-Canadians easier.
Since 2005, I have become friends with driven Emiratis who want to make films. Each year we meet at festivals, with the same old scripts under our arms, hoping that some of the country’s wealth will be directed towards indigenous filmmaking. But that never seems to happen.
We were all pleased hearing Jim Gianopoulos speak in Abu Dhabi, but nothing was more impressive than his expression a few silent seconds after he asked the audience how many local feature films are released here annually. My fellow filmmaker Ali Mustafa sought the floating microphone and solemnly whispered: “Zero.”
Mahmoud Kaabour is an award-winning filmmaker and lecturer. He is also the managing director of the Dubai-based Veritas Films
There is no doubt that the creation of film festivals has been a successful economic manoeuvre in the UAE. Through Dubai’s thriving International Film Festival and Abu Dhabi’s budding MEIFF, the country has embarked on a brilliant public relations strategy that has brought both cities to the forefront of the world’s entertainment press. Now the UAE is attracting big names like Spike Lee, Antonio Banderas and Gianopoulos himself, while adding a new cultural dimension to a country that was viewed until recently as solely an economic hub.
But the creation of film festivals is presenting a tough challenge to the UAE’s cultural identity and to local filmmakers in general. All major film festivals (Cannes, Toronto, Venice…) were born when an indigenous film industry required a platform for its output. In the UAE, festivals have preceded the industry – rather similar to throwing a “sweet 16” party for a 12-year-old.
Both UAE festivals have been conscientious about promoting local cinema by creating Emirati sections in their programmes, but that, if anything, has highlighted the gap in production values between international selections and the passionate yet under-funded attempts of young Emiratis and UAE-based filmmakers who are making cinema out of pocket.
Unlike painting, composing, or writing, cinema has rarely made notable achievements that were not tied to substantial national funding. Filmmaking is an expensive enterprise that requires the involvement of a multitude of skill sets. Time and money is required for research, scriptwriting, script-doctoring, location scouting, casting, lighting, filming, editing, etc. When all of these are attempted from a personal bank account, the outcome is usually a testimony to willpower, but rarely creates a production of high enough value to compete with the films of Europe and North America at our festivals.
It is true that filmmakers can seek money abroad, but the basics of financial partnerships apply to films, too: unless a filmmaker comes to the table with equity in hand, co-producers are unlikely to invest in the project. Egypt’s once glorious film industry, characterised by local stories that touched hearts around the world, was only made possible by national subsidies. Spike Lee rightfully asked at The Circle: “Why should Hollywood produce your films and your stories?”
There are only a few international funds open to Arabs with no local subsidies required, but those are minimal and fraught with restrictions. None of them is likely to support a period film about, say, an Emirati family early in the last century who try to survive in the desert after the father perishes on a pearl diving trip. Not enough international appeal for major revenues; but definitely a pearl in this country’s history.
Like Canada and the UK, the UAE can only become a true film contributor by creating a national film fund and international co-production agreements. Unlike mere cash, which has often been extended to local filmmakers by benefactors, a film fund also includes the supervision of film professionals who can advise on what is viable and what is not. The team behind a film fund is also entrusted with outlining the cultural vision of a country, the kind of rhetoric it needs to voice to the rest of world, making the film industry a major contributor to a nation’s discourse.
Co-production treaties enable various countries to contribute to a project, thereby promising a higher budget and wider distribution. These have been the initiatives behind the glory of much of world cinema. I moved back to the UAE in 2005 when my documentary Being Osama came to the Dubai International Film Festival and I was motivated to stay by its success. The film was commissioned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the Canadian Telefilm Fund, who both agreed that a film on the tribulations of six men called Osama might alter public opinion and make life for Arab-Canadians easier.
Since 2005, I have become friends with driven Emiratis who want to make films. Each year we meet at festivals, with the same old scripts under our arms, hoping that some of the country’s wealth will be directed towards indigenous filmmaking. But that never seems to happen.
We were all pleased hearing Jim Gianopoulos speak in Abu Dhabi, but nothing was more impressive than his expression a few silent seconds after he asked the audience how many local feature films are released here annually. My fellow filmmaker Ali Mustafa sought the floating microphone and solemnly whispered: “Zero.”
Mahmoud Kaabour is an award-winning filmmaker and lecturer. He is also the managing director of the Dubai-based Veritas Films
Tuesday, 22 July 2008
Carthage jazz festival 2008
Carthage jazz festival 2008.(MOSAIC)
Stevenson, John
1027 words
1 July 2008
The Middle East
62
ISSN: 0305-0734; Issue 391
English
THE ECONOMICS OF jazz festivals make for the strangest of bedfellows. The occasional rap artist's bling often collides with swing. From an organiser's standpoint, it's about the juxtaposition of genres in order to put bums on seats and make a buck or two. Unsurprisingly, despite howls of protest from the so-called cognoscenti and the ubiquitous jazz police, the mix'n'match approach to festival programming does manage to hit high notes of appreciation.
Jazz a Carthage by Tunisiana is a great example of melody in diversity, dicing up a broad range of moods and metiers. The festival has become one of the must-go fixtures on the North African cultural calendar. It was staged at the Barcelo Thalasso Hotel in the smart Tunis suburb of Gammarth, on the picturesque Carthage coast. The music mix included jazz and world acts from Africa, the Americas and Europe as well as acclaimed locals like singer Miriam Labidi.
There was more of the world's music quotient on opening night, with the curtain raising on the Lisbon-based avant-garde duo of singer Maria Joao and pianist Mario Laginha. With their rich melange of melancholic Fado, Japanese Kabuki, traditional Mozambican harmonies, and furious Keith Jarrett-like piano improvisation, Joao and Laginha were an acquired taste, at times causing the audience to become restless and distracted. Dressed in a voluminous multicoloured woolly skirt, the lithe Portuguese singer's set included the poignant Cair do Ceu, and Parrots and Lions--which was well suited to her garish get-up.
Next up, was the headlining Brazilian singer/guitarist Gilberto Gil, accompanied by his son and fellow plectrist Bem, in an intimate unplugged duo. It's not every day that you attend a jazz festival featuring a Brazilian and world-music legend, who also happens to be his country's current minister of culture.
Almost 2,000 tightly packed patrons clearly enjoyed every moment of the Gils' set. Still wiry and youthful at 65, Gil's onstage charisma and ability to whip up his fans remains undiminished. Charmingly, and by way of fractured French, Gilberto Gil explained that Bahia was the birthplace of the samba of which there are many varieties. However, the Tropicalismo star was clearly not in his best voice for his first two selections, Maguino de Ritmo and Andar comfe. Indeed, he has recently announced that he will be having surgery to remove a growth on one of his vocal chords. One of the highlights of the Gilberto Gil set was a very personalised rendition of Bob Marley's Three Little Birds which went down very well indeed.
If you thought the Fado-jazz strains and reggaefied sambas were too much of a shoe-horned shove-in for a jazz festival programme, the following night was gospel and flamenco night.
Accompanied by supporting guitarist Juan Carlos Gomez on second guitar and percussionist Roberto Vozmediano, flamenco star Canizares romped through a selection of pieces from his most recent CD, Suite Iberia, such as Isaac Albeniz's Malaga and El Puerto, and originals such as Lejana and Lluvia De Cometas. All pieces featured great on-stage interaction and musical chemistry. Canizares, a cross between Paco de Lucia and Andres Segovia, betrayed his roots in flamenco and classical guitar, dipping into a formidable bag of technical skills
The defining act of the evening however was France-based Liz McComb whose 70-minute set left a strong impression on her enraptured Tunisian audience. It takes great gumption to present a 100% gospel repertoire to a largely Muslim audience, but courage and fortitude are among this special singer-pianist's many charms. Evidently influenced by the field hollers and chants of the Mississippi delta and the haunting lyricism of New Orleans' own Mahalia Jackson, McComb's opening number Sit Down Servant, found her ensconced at the 9ft Steinway grand piano where she produced evocative chords which buoyed a sonorous, incantatory vocal authority. Accompanied by drummer Larry Crockett, Larry Young-influenced organist Bertrand Richard, bassist Eric Vinceno, and percussionist Philippe Makaiya, McComb went on to minister to her audience with selections such as You can't hurry God, Don't let the devil ride and an excerpt from Duke Ellington's poignant Black, Brown and Beige suite.
Perhaps hitting the jazziest registers of the festival programme was the stirring performance of William Parker's Raining on the Moon sextet. Primarily performing on acoustic bass, William Parker has been widely touted as the heir-apparent to the legendary Charles Mingus, with his harddriving and intense walking bass style and his yen for thematic long-form compositions that embrace poetry and dramatic presentation.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Parker's self-styled avant-jazz compositions, such as Sliver of sun, James Baldwin to the rescue and Window man featuring an eclectic mix of rhythms and melodies, proved to be a great hit with the audience.
Parker led a very cohesive sextet that included the front-line horns of Black Rock Coalition trumpeter Lewis 'Flip' Barnes, and alto saxophonist Robert Brown, vocalist/dancer Leena Conquest, pianist Eri Yamamoto and the extraordinary talents of percussionist/drummer Hamid Drake.
Robert Brown's alto sax lines were intensely lyrical, worthy in fact, of an epic poet, while Flip's Woody Shaw-like trumpeting acumen and reggae skank-and-chant provided great evidence of his versatility, apart from being infectiously entertaining. Conquest's ethereal contralto, which seemed to just hover above the heads of her audience, was the sixth instrument, a noteworthy talent among many. Her improvised dance steps and shimmies never failed to catch the attention of the appreciative crowd on hand. One of the many high points of the William Parker set was when the bassist put down his outsized instrument and placed his shenai into his mouth, accompanied only by Hamid Drake.
Parker's mastery of this shrill horn wove a magical spell, evoking Magrebi melodies, and demonstrating that a night in Tunisia doesn't necessarily have to be marked by bebop for it to be enjoyed by all and sundry.
Stevenson, John
1027 words
1 July 2008
The Middle East
62
ISSN: 0305-0734; Issue 391
English
THE ECONOMICS OF jazz festivals make for the strangest of bedfellows. The occasional rap artist's bling often collides with swing. From an organiser's standpoint, it's about the juxtaposition of genres in order to put bums on seats and make a buck or two. Unsurprisingly, despite howls of protest from the so-called cognoscenti and the ubiquitous jazz police, the mix'n'match approach to festival programming does manage to hit high notes of appreciation.
Jazz a Carthage by Tunisiana is a great example of melody in diversity, dicing up a broad range of moods and metiers. The festival has become one of the must-go fixtures on the North African cultural calendar. It was staged at the Barcelo Thalasso Hotel in the smart Tunis suburb of Gammarth, on the picturesque Carthage coast. The music mix included jazz and world acts from Africa, the Americas and Europe as well as acclaimed locals like singer Miriam Labidi.
There was more of the world's music quotient on opening night, with the curtain raising on the Lisbon-based avant-garde duo of singer Maria Joao and pianist Mario Laginha. With their rich melange of melancholic Fado, Japanese Kabuki, traditional Mozambican harmonies, and furious Keith Jarrett-like piano improvisation, Joao and Laginha were an acquired taste, at times causing the audience to become restless and distracted. Dressed in a voluminous multicoloured woolly skirt, the lithe Portuguese singer's set included the poignant Cair do Ceu, and Parrots and Lions--which was well suited to her garish get-up.
Next up, was the headlining Brazilian singer/guitarist Gilberto Gil, accompanied by his son and fellow plectrist Bem, in an intimate unplugged duo. It's not every day that you attend a jazz festival featuring a Brazilian and world-music legend, who also happens to be his country's current minister of culture.
Almost 2,000 tightly packed patrons clearly enjoyed every moment of the Gils' set. Still wiry and youthful at 65, Gil's onstage charisma and ability to whip up his fans remains undiminished. Charmingly, and by way of fractured French, Gilberto Gil explained that Bahia was the birthplace of the samba of which there are many varieties. However, the Tropicalismo star was clearly not in his best voice for his first two selections, Maguino de Ritmo and Andar comfe. Indeed, he has recently announced that he will be having surgery to remove a growth on one of his vocal chords. One of the highlights of the Gilberto Gil set was a very personalised rendition of Bob Marley's Three Little Birds which went down very well indeed.
If you thought the Fado-jazz strains and reggaefied sambas were too much of a shoe-horned shove-in for a jazz festival programme, the following night was gospel and flamenco night.
Accompanied by supporting guitarist Juan Carlos Gomez on second guitar and percussionist Roberto Vozmediano, flamenco star Canizares romped through a selection of pieces from his most recent CD, Suite Iberia, such as Isaac Albeniz's Malaga and El Puerto, and originals such as Lejana and Lluvia De Cometas. All pieces featured great on-stage interaction and musical chemistry. Canizares, a cross between Paco de Lucia and Andres Segovia, betrayed his roots in flamenco and classical guitar, dipping into a formidable bag of technical skills
The defining act of the evening however was France-based Liz McComb whose 70-minute set left a strong impression on her enraptured Tunisian audience. It takes great gumption to present a 100% gospel repertoire to a largely Muslim audience, but courage and fortitude are among this special singer-pianist's many charms. Evidently influenced by the field hollers and chants of the Mississippi delta and the haunting lyricism of New Orleans' own Mahalia Jackson, McComb's opening number Sit Down Servant, found her ensconced at the 9ft Steinway grand piano where she produced evocative chords which buoyed a sonorous, incantatory vocal authority. Accompanied by drummer Larry Crockett, Larry Young-influenced organist Bertrand Richard, bassist Eric Vinceno, and percussionist Philippe Makaiya, McComb went on to minister to her audience with selections such as You can't hurry God, Don't let the devil ride and an excerpt from Duke Ellington's poignant Black, Brown and Beige suite.
Perhaps hitting the jazziest registers of the festival programme was the stirring performance of William Parker's Raining on the Moon sextet. Primarily performing on acoustic bass, William Parker has been widely touted as the heir-apparent to the legendary Charles Mingus, with his harddriving and intense walking bass style and his yen for thematic long-form compositions that embrace poetry and dramatic presentation.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Parker's self-styled avant-jazz compositions, such as Sliver of sun, James Baldwin to the rescue and Window man featuring an eclectic mix of rhythms and melodies, proved to be a great hit with the audience.
Parker led a very cohesive sextet that included the front-line horns of Black Rock Coalition trumpeter Lewis 'Flip' Barnes, and alto saxophonist Robert Brown, vocalist/dancer Leena Conquest, pianist Eri Yamamoto and the extraordinary talents of percussionist/drummer Hamid Drake.
Robert Brown's alto sax lines were intensely lyrical, worthy in fact, of an epic poet, while Flip's Woody Shaw-like trumpeting acumen and reggae skank-and-chant provided great evidence of his versatility, apart from being infectiously entertaining. Conquest's ethereal contralto, which seemed to just hover above the heads of her audience, was the sixth instrument, a noteworthy talent among many. Her improvised dance steps and shimmies never failed to catch the attention of the appreciative crowd on hand. One of the many high points of the William Parker set was when the bassist put down his outsized instrument and placed his shenai into his mouth, accompanied only by Hamid Drake.
Parker's mastery of this shrill horn wove a magical spell, evoking Magrebi melodies, and demonstrating that a night in Tunisia doesn't necessarily have to be marked by bebop for it to be enjoyed by all and sundry.
Tuesday, 8 July 2008
Baalbek Festival returns from a two-year hiatus
Lebanon's esteemed summer extravaganza returns with a six-concert program, starting in Beirut
BEIRUT:
After a two-year hiatus due to political unrest, aerial bombardment and the like, the Baalbek International Festival returns this year with a program of six weekly, one-off performances from July 27 to August 23. As usual, the event will offer a variety of genres, from pop and "World Music" to opera and jazz to oriental and Western classical music.
With big names like pop sensation Mika, Mexican diva Astrid Hadad, opera singer Hasmik Papian, Brazilian jazz artist Tania Maria, oriental songstress Warda al-Jazayria, and Lebanese classical pianist Abdel Rahman al-Bacha, Baalbek's organizers expect to draw in more than 20,000 festival-goers this season.
The Baalbek Festival has a venerable history reinforced by its choice of venue. The ruins of Baalbek that host the concerts are the site of the Hellenistic-Roman city of Heliopolis - Baalbek taking its name from the Canaanite sun god, Baal.
Lebanese President Camille Chamoun founded the Baalbek Festival in 1956. Since then, the event has hosted a wide range of international, regional and Lebanese talent, from jazz icon Miles Davis and flamenco innovator Paco De Lucia to Lebanon's Caracalla Dance Theater. It has thus played a crucial role in promoting and celebrating trans-cultural performing arts in Lebanon and the region.
Pop sensation Mika will kick off this year's festivities with a concert on Sunday, July 27. Organizers have decided to break with tradition this year, teaming up with their erstwhile rivals at the Beiteddine Festival and events organizer 2U2C to host the opening concert at Beirut's Martyrs Square. Organizers say they're moving their opening night to Beirut to accommodate the large number of expected fans, though obviously the venue (the epicenter of the 2005 "Independence Uprising") reverberates on other pop-cultural levels as well.
A self-taught piano virtuoso with a four-octave vocal range, Mika, 23, is often compared with Robbie Williams, Scissor Sisters and Queen's late vocalist, Freddy Mercury. Lebanese-born but nowadays living and working in London the singer, songwriter and producer's debut album "Life in Cartoon Motion," set records in the US and Europe.
"My music is all about transitions," Mika explains. "Transitions are important, because everything gets destabilized, and that makes you question and re-evaluate everything. For songwriting, that's an endless source of inspiration."
In addition to the Martyrs Square show, Baalbek will this year feature five performances at the Temple of Bacchus . Complementing these shows, the ancient Roman Acropolis - estimated to have been completed near 2,000 years ago - provides the perfect milieu for Lebanese cultural nights.
Mexico's flamboyant Astrid Hadad is an emblematic cabaret performer. Known as a "traveling museum of popular culture," Hadad will enthrall audiences when she struts her stuff on August 2. The lure of her enigmatic voice and wild music, which range from rock, rumba and cumbia, to pure Mexican ranchero, have captivated audiences worldwide.
Her unique style is a blend of eccentric theater, Mexican imagery, plastic and popular art. With bawdy mockery, she pokes fun at the traditions, stereotypes, symbols, and political fundamentalism of Mexican and Latin culture. The costumes and settings are so surreal and outlandish, critics have described her performance "as the most provocative stage act since the Weimar Republic was in bloom."
On August 9, internationally acclaimed Armenian soprano Hasmik Papian will perform a mixed programmed of ranging from the German baroque to Italian romantic arias, accompanied by pianist Avo Kouyoumdjian. Papian has graced such prestigious operatic stages as New York's Metropolitan Opera House, Paris' National Opera, La Scala in Milan, and the Vienna State Opera.
Her repertoire ranges from Bellini's Norma, Mozart's Donna Anna, Rossini's Mathilde, Halevy's Rachel and Bizet's Micaela, to Puccini's Mimi, Tosca, Madame Butterfly, Boito's Margareta/Elena, and Tchaikovsky's Lisa.
Brazil's Tania Maria Quartet will perform on August 16. Renowned for her intoxicating vocals and keyboard artistry, singer, pianist, and composer Tania Maria, drives this funky, grooving foursome. Her music is an eclectic fusion of Afro Latin pop; brimming with funk and native Brazilian beats like Choro and Samba.
Maria's deep and sultry voice, spontaneity, daring improvisations, and twisting melodies have made her one of the most widely admired jazz musicians worldwide. Her latest album "Intimidade" ("Intimacy"), is her 26th release.
"There is nothing sexual about it," Tania says of the album's title track. "It's just sensual! All artists have a very intimate relationship with their instruments; for musicians, intimacy is the moment of composition when you question yourself and are filled with wonderment. Intimidade also means opening yourself up to others and conveying your passion."
After her immense popularity and success in Baalbek at the 2005 festival, Arab diva Warda al-Jazayria will be back at the Temple of Bacchus to woo listeners on August 21. She will be accompanied by the Khaled Fouad Orchestra.
The Algerian War of Independence saw Warda, otherwise known as the "Algerian Rose," seek refuge in Beirut in 1958. She achieved widespread critical acclaim when she moved to Cairo, becoming one of the most famous and popular singers of the Arab world.
Warda has performed at venues like London's Royal Albert Hall, New York's Madison Square Garden, Las Vegas' MGM Grand, and Paris' Palais des Congres, and has played several film, television and theatrical roles.
The festival will end with a performance by Lebanese pianist Abdel Rahman al-Bacha on August 23. Bacha has distinguished himself as one of the Middle East's leading classical pianists.
His program will include: Bach's "Prelude and Fugue" in C-Sharp Minor, Beethoven's "Sonata No. 14," Chopin's "Impromptu No. 3" in G Flat-Major op. 51 and "Sonata No. 2" in B-Flat Minor ("Funeral March"), Ravel's "Pavane Jeux d'eau," T. Bacha's "Oriental Rondo Nostalgia," and Albeniz's "El Albaicin," "Evocacion," and "Triana."
BEIRUT:
After a two-year hiatus due to political unrest, aerial bombardment and the like, the Baalbek International Festival returns this year with a program of six weekly, one-off performances from July 27 to August 23. As usual, the event will offer a variety of genres, from pop and "World Music" to opera and jazz to oriental and Western classical music.
With big names like pop sensation Mika, Mexican diva Astrid Hadad, opera singer Hasmik Papian, Brazilian jazz artist Tania Maria, oriental songstress Warda al-Jazayria, and Lebanese classical pianist Abdel Rahman al-Bacha, Baalbek's organizers expect to draw in more than 20,000 festival-goers this season.
The Baalbek Festival has a venerable history reinforced by its choice of venue. The ruins of Baalbek that host the concerts are the site of the Hellenistic-Roman city of Heliopolis - Baalbek taking its name from the Canaanite sun god, Baal.
Lebanese President Camille Chamoun founded the Baalbek Festival in 1956. Since then, the event has hosted a wide range of international, regional and Lebanese talent, from jazz icon Miles Davis and flamenco innovator Paco De Lucia to Lebanon's Caracalla Dance Theater. It has thus played a crucial role in promoting and celebrating trans-cultural performing arts in Lebanon and the region.
Pop sensation Mika will kick off this year's festivities with a concert on Sunday, July 27. Organizers have decided to break with tradition this year, teaming up with their erstwhile rivals at the Beiteddine Festival and events organizer 2U2C to host the opening concert at Beirut's Martyrs Square. Organizers say they're moving their opening night to Beirut to accommodate the large number of expected fans, though obviously the venue (the epicenter of the 2005 "Independence Uprising") reverberates on other pop-cultural levels as well.
A self-taught piano virtuoso with a four-octave vocal range, Mika, 23, is often compared with Robbie Williams, Scissor Sisters and Queen's late vocalist, Freddy Mercury. Lebanese-born but nowadays living and working in London the singer, songwriter and producer's debut album "Life in Cartoon Motion," set records in the US and Europe.
"My music is all about transitions," Mika explains. "Transitions are important, because everything gets destabilized, and that makes you question and re-evaluate everything. For songwriting, that's an endless source of inspiration."
In addition to the Martyrs Square show, Baalbek will this year feature five performances at the Temple of Bacchus . Complementing these shows, the ancient Roman Acropolis - estimated to have been completed near 2,000 years ago - provides the perfect milieu for Lebanese cultural nights.
Mexico's flamboyant Astrid Hadad is an emblematic cabaret performer. Known as a "traveling museum of popular culture," Hadad will enthrall audiences when she struts her stuff on August 2. The lure of her enigmatic voice and wild music, which range from rock, rumba and cumbia, to pure Mexican ranchero, have captivated audiences worldwide.
Her unique style is a blend of eccentric theater, Mexican imagery, plastic and popular art. With bawdy mockery, she pokes fun at the traditions, stereotypes, symbols, and political fundamentalism of Mexican and Latin culture. The costumes and settings are so surreal and outlandish, critics have described her performance "as the most provocative stage act since the Weimar Republic was in bloom."
On August 9, internationally acclaimed Armenian soprano Hasmik Papian will perform a mixed programmed of ranging from the German baroque to Italian romantic arias, accompanied by pianist Avo Kouyoumdjian. Papian has graced such prestigious operatic stages as New York's Metropolitan Opera House, Paris' National Opera, La Scala in Milan, and the Vienna State Opera.
Her repertoire ranges from Bellini's Norma, Mozart's Donna Anna, Rossini's Mathilde, Halevy's Rachel and Bizet's Micaela, to Puccini's Mimi, Tosca, Madame Butterfly, Boito's Margareta/Elena, and Tchaikovsky's Lisa.
Brazil's Tania Maria Quartet will perform on August 16. Renowned for her intoxicating vocals and keyboard artistry, singer, pianist, and composer Tania Maria, drives this funky, grooving foursome. Her music is an eclectic fusion of Afro Latin pop; brimming with funk and native Brazilian beats like Choro and Samba.
Maria's deep and sultry voice, spontaneity, daring improvisations, and twisting melodies have made her one of the most widely admired jazz musicians worldwide. Her latest album "Intimidade" ("Intimacy"), is her 26th release.
"There is nothing sexual about it," Tania says of the album's title track. "It's just sensual! All artists have a very intimate relationship with their instruments; for musicians, intimacy is the moment of composition when you question yourself and are filled with wonderment. Intimidade also means opening yourself up to others and conveying your passion."
After her immense popularity and success in Baalbek at the 2005 festival, Arab diva Warda al-Jazayria will be back at the Temple of Bacchus to woo listeners on August 21. She will be accompanied by the Khaled Fouad Orchestra.
The Algerian War of Independence saw Warda, otherwise known as the "Algerian Rose," seek refuge in Beirut in 1958. She achieved widespread critical acclaim when she moved to Cairo, becoming one of the most famous and popular singers of the Arab world.
Warda has performed at venues like London's Royal Albert Hall, New York's Madison Square Garden, Las Vegas' MGM Grand, and Paris' Palais des Congres, and has played several film, television and theatrical roles.
The festival will end with a performance by Lebanese pianist Abdel Rahman al-Bacha on August 23. Bacha has distinguished himself as one of the Middle East's leading classical pianists.
His program will include: Bach's "Prelude and Fugue" in C-Sharp Minor, Beethoven's "Sonata No. 14," Chopin's "Impromptu No. 3" in G Flat-Major op. 51 and "Sonata No. 2" in B-Flat Minor ("Funeral March"), Ravel's "Pavane Jeux d'eau," T. Bacha's "Oriental Rondo Nostalgia," and Albeniz's "El Albaicin," "Evocacion," and "Triana."
Tuesday, 3 June 2008
Decline of Arabic science needs another explanation
Thursday January 31, 2008The Guardian
Jim Al-Khalili claims the post-medieval decline of science and academic inquiry in the Islamic countries was due to "the gradual fragmentation of the Abbasid empire and the indifference shown by weaker rulers toward science" (It's time to herald the Arabic science that prefigured Darwin and Newton, January 30).
Oliver Volckart
London School of Economics
This argument does not convince me, given that, historically, political fragmentation was often correlated with advances in academic thought and in other cultural fields. Thus, western philosophy originated in the politically highly fragmented world of pre-classical Greece, ancient engineering advanced under conditions of political diversity during the Hellenistic age, and it was arguably competition between the states of early modern Europe that triggered discoveries, technological innovations and sustained economic growth.
At the very least, political fragmentation allows academics who have fallen foul of political authorities to evade repression. It is perhaps not a necessary, but in the long run a sufficient condition for the freedom of inquiry that is fundamental to scientific progress. The decline of Arabic science needs to be explained in other terms than those used by Professor Al-Khalili.Oliver Volckart
London School of Economics
It is extraordinary that even today Arab and Islamic contributions to science, philosophy, maths, medicine and the like are still ignored or glossed over.
At best, the Arab and Islamic era is credited as acting as a deep freeze for Greco-Roman thought, whereas of course Arab and Islamic thinkers borrowed from a huge range of civilisations, not to preserve for future generations but to use and develop themselves, which they did to great effect. Like any successful civilisation, it built on previous ideas. Indeed in many cases Arab and Islamic thinkers refuted or revised Greek thinking.
Perhaps the lesson for the modern Arab and Islamic world is to recreate that brilliance through developing their human resources, and recreating the climate of thirst for knowledge and thinking which fuelled that extraordinary era.
Chris Doyle
Director, Council for Arab-British Understanding
How could science flower under dictatorial, fundamentalist regimes where scholarship and pursuit of knowledge are being actively curbed? According to Unesco, the lowest number of books in science and technology are being translated in the Middle East. The only Muslim to receive the Nobel prize in science, the late Professor Abdus Salam, lived and worked in the UK; and Pakistan, his native country, didn't even consider him a Muslim because he belonged to the Khadiani sect. Jim Al-Khalili should realise that the atmosphere in any Arab or Muslim country today is not conducive to the development of science.
M Riaz Hasan
Pinner, Middlesex
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