Women, independent culture and Arab-African relations: Youssef Rakha meets with the usual suspects Click to view caption In contributing "five female performers from the Arab world" as an item on the programme of the Zanzibar International Festival (opening tomorrow), Tareq Abul-Fetouh's Young Arab Theatre Fund (YATF) -- an independent, international networking-oriented organisation that will be based in Brussels as of next year -- raises questions about (inter-)Arab identity and Africa's place in an Egypt- and increasingly Lebanon-centred cultural-artistic arena. Except for the Egyptian choreographer-dancer Karima Mansour, who had other commitments, the participants gathered at the Café Riche last Sunday to discuss the event -- three singers, Salma El-Asal, Sahar Khalifa and Dunya Abdalla (see "In progress" opposite) -- before moving on to the Townhouse Gallery where their rehearsals culminated in an open rehearsal at the gallery's newly acquired annex yesterday. His companions have barely been seated when Abul-Fetouh begins to hand out copies of the schedule. A former architect, stage costume- and set-designer, he is probably Egypt's most dedicated entrepreneur of the emerging "independent arts" sector, i.e. that part of the cultural arena that is neither government sponsored nor commercially focused. Energetically, authoritatively, he hands out the schedules, and as he does so he makes jokes and introduces people to each other. He is perfectly in control but one senses, as always, a slight hesitancy; a work- and self-related doubt that, were he to give in to it, would be the end of his increasingly expansive career as an independent "producer". The concept behind YAFT's programme item, he explains, is heritage-related: each of the five participants works on her own heritage in her own way particular way. "Mind you," he adds importantly, "this ranges from Dunya and Salma, who research and perform actual folklore numbers, to Karima, who rejects the very idea of heritage but finds inspiration for her Western-oriented contemporary dance in the traditional dancing of some African tribes -- it's African, not Arab, heritage in Karima's case." The "five female performers" scenario emerged during a recent conference of the Ford Foundation's four African offices held in the Ivory Coast. During the conference, which focused on Arab- African relations, YAFT was invited to contribute such an item. And here, as elsewhere, the multi- Arab dimension has thrown as many interesting differences as similarities into relief. "Egyptians have absolutely no knowledge of Sudanese music," the Khartoum-born El-Asal, avers. And the popular Sudanese singing sensation Jawaher, she adds, "has only made it worse by diluting both music and language." El-Asal, who has lived in Cairo since 1990, claims that she emigrated "for no particular reason" but stresses the inter-Arab dimension of her calling: "Definitely I see my national and artistic identity as a meeting of Africa and the Arab world." She laments not only official restrictions on the passage of Sudanese nationals through Arab and African (including Tanzanian) borders, but the indifference of Arab audiences and Sudanese performers alike regarding the authentic musical traditions of Sudan. "Even Tunisians, whose Arabic is said to be incomprehensible, sing in their own language for the Arab audience. Why should Jawaher or any Sudanese singer change their speech?" El-Asal sings popular folk numbers but her specialty is Haqiba, a classically oriented tradition that derives its name from an early aficionado's fear of extinction. "This man wanted to make sure his collection of Haqiba records wouldn't be lost or mislaid," El-Asal explains, "so he placed them all in a haqiba (briefcase) and carried them with him wherever he went." El-Asal nonetheless realises that it is on the continued (authentic) practice and geographical expansion of a tradition that its survival depends. While commending official platforms like the Sudanese radio's Friday programme, "The Art of Haqiba", she intuitively feels that the independent arts scene affords a more viable outlet for her music. Certainly, the success of her performance during the recent, YATF-organised "Sudan Week", held in the garage of the Jesuits Cultural Centre in Alexandria, for example, has served to confirm that intuition. "It was delightful," she recalls, beaming. "Lots of Sudanese people, yes. But lots of other Arabs too. You don't completely forsake commercial platforms -- I don't do video clips, but I've produced cassettes and CDs -- and if I haven't become 'pop' that's because there's a price to pay. I would be obliged to do work I'm unhappy with. I would have to give up that part of the music that makes it distinctly Sudanese and makes me the right person to perform it." Instead, she explains, she sings at weddings, informal celebrations and festivals; and the latter has on many occasions brought her in contact with both like- minded and "pop" performers from Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Somalia, Senegal -- including Cheb Khaled. "There is great rapport with African music because the Sudanese traditions originate in the depths of Africa," she says. The Egyptian story-teller Sherine El-Ansari is likewise interested in the African dimension. "I don't really pay any attention to concepts behind events," she says. "In the end a perfectly conceptualised event might prove to be a bad vehicle while an event with a seemingly ineffective concept might prove very successful. The only thing that matters is the feeling that you share with the audience, the electric current that is established between me and the audience, which allows me to take them somewhere. And then," El-Ansari adds, recalling the occasion of performing to an audience with absolutely no experience of the modern performing arts two months ago in the Atlas Mountains, in Morocco, "you might not get the response that you're expecting, because the audience is not in a position to make it, but you might actually be doing something far more important, at some level, than what you do when you get that response." When it comes to intercultural exchange, then, relativity is the name of the game. "But I was very intrigued and excited when this opportunity came up. It was a very good surprise. I'm very interested in Africa and I rarely have the chance to explore this interest. Egypt is part of Africa but we don't dwell on that. Either we pretend it's not true or we choose to ignore it completely. So you could say that exploring this link is part of the attraction, yes. Stories are our consciousness," El-Ansari asserts. "They are what connects us to the past and to other human beings across the world -- they are the chains that bind humanity. And in this sense, to go back to the idea of the concept, I think you could say that it is heritage yes. I don't like the idea of turath (which has classical, museum-exhibit connotations), but conveying a story is all about our roots as human beings. And exploring how to do that is all I do in my life. I don't do anything else. I don't have any other source of income. As much as it means exploring human roots through telling fellow human beings a story, and in Africa, performing in Zanzibar is about heritage, yes." Barring Mansour, whose most recent work was conceived in collaboration with an African dancer, others profess no direct connection with Africa. Abdalla, for one, is clearly more interested in the heritage dimension: "When I first worked with Fathi Salama -- and his entire project is based on the idea of combining Eastern and Western sounds -- neither of us could figure out how my singing would fit in. He made me sing solo, asking me to select one, then two, then three instruments to go with the lyrics. And I did. He would stop his band in the middle of the performance, I would come on with my tiny entourage, and then the band would resume. And this is how my band was eventually formed -- as accompaniment for folk numbers. Definitely my whole singing career has grown out of, and revolves around, this concept." For the Amman-based Palestinian-Jordanian Khalifa, neither Africa nor heritage are central. But the connection with the singing traditions of Palestine would seem to form an essential part of her identity. "There was much more heritage in Al- Jannouna, the band I used to be part of," Khalifa explains. "With Rumm," the three-year-old band she founded with Tareq El-Nasser, on the other hand, "the emphasis is on contemporary music in all shapes and sizes, as it were. But I still love Palestinian folk songs." For both Abdalla and Khalifa, it was a brief sojourn with El-Warsha Theatre that provided the platform for heritage-oriented work and for forging the Egyptian links that would drive YAFT to recruit them. "For a Palestinian," Khalifa continues, "the identity element is a very complex, very confusing aspect of life. Certainly, singing these songs is one way of paying homage to the shreds of ideas and feelings that my mind tries, again and again, to merge into an integrated Palestine. By virtue of the life I've lived, though, of course, I'm more of a Jordanian than a Palestinian. And so I don't generally seek the potentially national or ideological dimensions of my work; hence Rumm's upcoming CD... Which is not to say that I haven't always wanted to go to a place like Zanzibar, or that I am against Africa or heritage."
