Wael, can you give us an introduction to the piece?
The piece is a new translation of a historical European text from the 11th century called “The Song of Roland”. It is on the one hand referring to my upcoming project about the history of the Arab Gulf. And at the same time it is a continuation of my project “Cabaret Crusades”, a film trilogy dealing with the history of the crusades, but from the Arab point of view. In two of these films I already used parts of “The Song of Roland”, a text that was very famous during the time of the crusades - of course, for its celebration of a European hero by addressing Charlemagne and his nephew Roland.
The perspective, transmitted through this text, is clearly a Western one.
Yes. I realized there was no Arabic reference at all. We do add this through having the text sung in an Arabic translation by musicians from Bahrain and Sharjah, who represent a very old cultural heritage from this region.
Your stage design is based on refined miniature maps, painted by the Bosniak statesman Matrakçı Nasuh in the 16th century. You have chosen maps of Aleppo, Bagdad, Istanbul – three cities that played a role in the crusades, but are also in a political focus today.
Yes, exactly. I am interested in the relations between the West and the Arab region, both historical and of today. The time of the crusades a thousand years ago is linked to our contemporary history, starting in the 1930s with the oil discovery in Saudi Arabia and leading to a new relationship between the Gulf area and the West with its American and British oil companies. The musicians from Bahrain and the United Emirates I am now working with, also represent a link between these times.
Their music is called Fidjeri and reaches back hundreds of years.
Yes, Fidjeri is the music of the pearl fishermen. This whole area in the Arab Gulf used to live on pearl fishing before the rather recent oil discovery. This changed everything. Pearl fishing has vanished and even this tradition of music is disappearing. It is almost like there is nothing left. We’re trying to recall this history again by overlapping what was happening during the crusades and what is happening today.
In your work the musicians are now singing parts of the “Song of Roland” in a translation in classic Arabic – over Fidjeri-music with its specific percussion and melodies. How much of the music is pre-existing, and much is improvised?
About 95% is fixed. Improvisations only come in when one of the four lead singers, called Nahham, sing. Or even scream – this type of singing means a lot of screaming. But the melodies are traditional melodies called Haddadi, Adsani or Bahari, that everyone knows by heart. I then added the "Song of Roland" text to these melodies. As you mentioned, this music goes way back. There is no certainty where it is coming from. But it clearly has African roots, connecting it also to the Arab history of slavery.
Shortly before the premiere we are now sitting in the theater in front of 600 single pieces that will later be connected to a kind of mosaic showing three cities. Is this also a way for you to transfer a visual arts installation into a stage design?
In the end, it’s a way of mixing my background as a visual artist, as someone who is making films and paintings, with theatre for the first time. I see the stage, including its floor, as a whole image, made out of many details, like dots in a painting. And in terms of what’s happening on stage, I deal with it as one scene of the film – one long scene, stretched to almost one hour. And it’s also a step further from the “Cabaret Crusades” films, for which I have been working with marionettes – originating from theater! And now comes the shift to theater with real singers.
Interview by Andreas Siebold (Theater der Welt)