So long as you’ll be able to hear a beat or somebody singing, you’ll be able to dabke.
“The official definition, if there is one for dabke, is when a group of people dance together, usually in a synchronised way,” Tareq Halawa says.
Unofficially, the musician continues, the dabke is when a bunch of individuals bounce in no specific order, prompted by the sound of music. Generally the one beat is the sound of ft hitting the ground, with no drum.
“All the beat and rhythm that you need actually comes from the stomping,” he says. “It’s an expression of our culture. It can be an expression of our joy, frustration – a show of power.”
A celebration of the Levantine folks dance varieties a part of Dabke and Tatreez, an Artists for Peace occasion displaying on the Sydney Opera Home on Sunday.
There, Halawa will play the riq – one of many world’s oldest devices.
It’s “like a tambourine but it’s especially for Arabic music,” Palestinian musician Seraj Jelda says.
Jelda, who performed with the Edward Mentioned Nationwide Conservatory of Music in Gaza earlier than fleeing Israel’s bombardment for Australia a 12 months in the past, will play the riq and oud on Sunday.
He’s one among an ensemble of 10 artists performing on the occasion, which brings collectively musicians and dancers with Palestinian, Lebanese, Turkish, Indonesian and Cypriot heritage.
“It means a lot because we are delivering our culture, our songs,” Jelda says.
‘A window of understanding’
From the routine of harvest, joys of weddings and honouring of household matriarchs to being compelled to go away a homeland, the occasion’s repertoire is “a journey through people’s lives”, Halawa says.
Most items come from earlier than the 1948 Nakba – “how our grandfathers, and our ancient people, [were] singing their songs,” Jelda says.
“Once they want to collect vegetables and fruits and olives … they start singing these songs. Once they want to get married, they sing these songs for the groom and for the bride.
“Some songs will talk about the Nakba and how songs are transferred from cultural and happy songs to songs that talk about Palestine and how it was occupied and our land was stolen.”
Halawa says Sunday’s present is “a window of understanding” into the Levant tradition.
“What this means to me … is that I am seen and heard and accepted here in Australia, with the background and the culture that I bring with me,” the Palestinian, Syrian and Turkish musician says. He has lived in Australia for 12 years.
“The language of storytelling and music is so universal that it’s compelling, and having that as our medium of conversing with Australia is important.”
As Israel continues its bombardment of Gaza – which has destroyed cultural heritage websites throughout the strip – Halawa says the efficiency turns into “more than just sharing of culture and understanding and music”.
“It’s a plea for connection,” he says. “It also means that it’s part of our contribution as performers to lifting the injustice.”
It has made Halawa replicate on “what these songs actually mean”.
A music telling the story of an individual leaving dwelling, for instance, wields the that means “that it’s not about the taste of the food as much as the togetherness, the caring and connection with the land and with one another, endurance as a collective thing”.
“Now that I need to convey its content and its spirit, it led me to really rethink these stories and what they mean and what the original authors were thinking and experiencing that potentially led to them writing these stories.”
The Opera Home occasion is a piece of cultural preservation, Ayşe Göknur Shanal says.
Music is “one of the most important mediums in expressing culture and identity and heritage and tradition”.
“There are songs for celebration, for grief, lamenting,” the Turkish-Cypriot Australian curator and opera singer says. “You dance in anger, and you dance in love and passion and celebration.”
Shanal felt a way of urgency to carry out.
“I feel like the complacency of the arts industry and sector has propelled the urgency in me,” she says.
“The silence has propelled the urgency in me. We are proponents of arts and culture and heritage and history … and to see Palestinian music being absent from the musical vernacular and landscape frustrated me.
“So many mosques and churches [are] being bombed in Gaza and elsewhere – that’s destroying heritage and history and culture. We are trying to protect and preserve, as opposed to what’s happening, which is destroy, erase.”
Jelda says: “Sometimes it is sad for us to play music and do happy things [when] our families and friends [are] in Gaza facing a difficult time.
“But it is [also] like a happy moment, because we are delivering something for them, making people know what’s happening in Palestine and Gaza.”
