Syrian writer and theater director Samer Muhammad Ismail confirmed that the UAE is restoring theatre, through its support and various festivals, to its prestige, status and social role.
Ismail also highlighted in his interview with Al Bayan that the Sharjah Desert Theater constitutes an important addition to the role played by the UAE in this regard, and in terms of moving the theater into spacious spaces decorated with authenticity and values, which they transport the recipient to the worlds and stories of the Arab environment.
Samer Ismail highlighted the pioneering role that the UAE has always played in supporting theater and playwrights, providing all material and logistical capabilities for many theater and arts events in general, especially the Sharjah Desert Theater Festival.
He adds: The UAE has always been a pioneer and trailblazer in supporting theater and playwrights, and I believe the Emirate of Sharjah, led by His Highness Sheikh Dr. Sultan bin Muhammad Al Qasimi, Member of the Supreme Council and Ruler of Sharjah , plays an important enlightening role in this sense, and also provides all the material and logistical capabilities to many theatrical and artistic events in general.
At the forefront is the Sharjah Desert Theater Festival, which proved necessary to change the mechanisms of conception of the entire theater space and to move away from the Italian pits that have been dedicated as final places for theatrical performances.
And he continued: The desert is the cradle of the first dreams, and the cradle of history and stories, and from its sands and under its clear sky the caravans, the news, the commercial caravans depart, and with these caravans the poetic began the epic.
The first poets presented their immortal poems. Imru’ al-Qais, al-Nabigha al-Dhubyani, Ibn Hilza al-Yashkari, Antara, Omar ibn Rabi’ah and Urwa ibn al-Ward walked from this Arabian desert. The Silk Road passed through the dunes of this desert, and winter and summer travel flourished, and riders took it towards the Levant and Iraq. Therefore, I believe that the desert is a brilliant space for producing new creative forms of thought.
Pillars
Regarding the conditions that must be met in a theater/desert show for it to be successful and attractive to the recipient, Ismail states: Above all, there is no recipe for any artistic work, and those who believe that art has a recipe, or a ruler with which to measure success or an artistic model, are delusional, but on the other hand, the theatrical spectacle of the desert is delusional: – in my personal opinion – a spectacle freed from any confiscation of its space, its history and of his artistic form.
This is on the level of formal artistic treatment, but on the level of the story we are faced with thousands and thousands of stories and oral narrations, which are part of the intangible heritage of the Arab desert, and today we must work on recording the hadiths of its narrators and immerse ourselves in the discovery of its secrets, its documents and the exploits of its knights and poets.
Regarding the challenges in this field of inquiry, Samer Ismail explains that Italian stage theaters have always been generalized compared to Arab theaters, and Arab playwrights did not find their own space, and some believed that everything outside stage theaters were places alternatives, and what is true, according to him, is that the desert is the original place for theatrical performances because of the empty space it offers, the sense of space, of emptiness, of space and the type of relationship that theatrical space in desert offers. the public.
And he continues: In my opinion, all this creates great challenges in terms of writing, directing and performance, but it also creates tasks on the technical side of the show, especially in terms of scenography design.
I participated in the Sharjah Desert Theater Festival in its seventh session with the play “The Wolf”, written and directed, which is an attempt to formulate an epic whose story was borrowed from the Syrian desert, a place which unfortunately is not been adequately addressed, neither in theatre, nor in cinema, nor in television fiction, even if the desert is Al-Shamiya is a fascinating place, rich in narratives, stories and its lyrical, popular and musical heritage.
2023-12-29 22:03:21
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