The Institute of Arab Culture presents this Tuesday, June 7, at 8 o’clock in the evening, the show DÀ®wân, of Arab music and poetry, at the Alliance Française Theatre in São Paulo, Brazil.
The spectacle was made by the Arab literature and Arabic professor at the University of São Paulo (USP), Michel Sleiman, and is divided in two parts. Entrance is free of charge.
In “Alchemy Flower”, the first module of the show, the work of actors is blended with audiovisual resources to tell excerpts from Arab works, or written by Arab descendants.
They are readings from parts of the book Lavoura Arcaica, by Raduan Nassar, and from the works of great poets of our time, such as the Syrian Adoní®s (Ali Ahmad Saí®d Esber), naturalized Lebanese, and the Moroccan Tahar Bem Jelloun, with excerpts of his book Non Identifiés (Not Identified).
“Jelloun is an author who uses elements of the Arab story tellers like the ones from Sharazad (from the book The Thousand and One Nights). He is also well involved with the Arab causes,” states Sleiman.
On the second part of the show, called “My Music, My Poetry”, instruments from Arab popular music will be presented.
The musician Samy Bordokan will play the lute, the ganun, a sort of table cithara, by Cláudio Kairouz, and the percussion instrument durbak by Willian Bordokan.
Together with them, at the guitar, will be Carlinhos Antunes. Bordokan and Antunes developed a research work about the Arab influences on Brazilian music.
During this second half of Dí®wân, the spectator will also hear the reading of poems by their authors and the translations made by them.
Alberto Mussa, who received the prize of the São Paulo Association of Art Critics and House of the Americas in 2005 for the book O Enigma de Qaf (The Enigma of Qaf), will be one of them.
Participating also are Sleiman himself and Lélia Romero. The poets and translators will also make a brief presentation of their research and translation works.
About Arab and Brazilian poetry, Sleiman emphasizes: “There are no oddities between theses two poetries, because Arab poetry is also related to the literature in the twentieth century. And Brazilian literature has Arab influence.
“First because of the Moor influence in the Iberian Peninsula, and later by the Muslim slaves that came here in the seventeenth century and today by the immigrants or their children who produce Brazilian literature, but who look at the Arab world.”
Dí®wân
Date: Tuesday, 7th of June
Venue: Alliance Française Theatre São Paulo
Address: R. General Jardim, 182 – Centro
Information: (55 11) 3188 4148
ANBA – Brazil-Arab News Agency – www.anba.com.br