“This project came from the question, why don’t Arabic theatremakers use Arabic tools and methods in performance art?” explains Bashar Murkus, co-founder and artistic director of the Haifa-based Palestinian company Khashabi Theatre. “Why are we using the European schools, which are beautiful, but why do we put aside a different heritage of dramaturgy structures and ways of understanding theatre?”
He’s talking about an Arab theatrical lineage which includes storytelling, puppetry, music and dance, all part of theatre’s cultural DNA in the region, yet which he says Arab theatremakers don’t tend to use.
“Of course it has something to do with the history of colonisation,” says Murkus. “At some point the artistic schools came with armies from Europe and replaced everything, and what was local became primitive and not good enough, we deal with it only as folklore. I found this question challenging in my process as a theatremaker, I thought it would be interesting to imagine how these methods could be improved if we decolonise them and imagine how they might evolve naturally into modern forms.”
Writer and director Murkus, his producer colleague Khulood Basel and others founded Khashabi Theatre 14 years ago, and while they research, create and perform their work in Palestine, it’s been seen around the world. Their latest project is Al-Sirah Al Hilaliyyah, or The Epic of Bani Hilal, which is based upon the epic 14th Century Middle Eastern poem. It will be their Edinburgh International Festival debut.
“Researchers have called it the Arabic Iliad,” says Murkus of this poem. “Once it was told by the whole of Arab creation at storytelling or singing events, a part of people’s lives in wedding celebrations and festivals. Researchers say poets needed something like 150 hours to tell the whole epic, so we’re talking about a massive amount of oral heritage, but today almost nobody is telling it. You can find some parts recorded from Egyptian radio, which was helpful in my research, and a small part was published as a Syrian version.”
Al-Sirah Al Hilaliyyah, then, is perfect for adaptation by Khashabi Theatre (thankfully in a three-hour rather than 150-hour version) as a revived piece of Arab culture which is in danger of dying out. Described by UNESCO as one of the ‘Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity’, it tells of the Bedouin Bani Hilal tribe’s 10th Century migration from the Arabian Peninsula to North Africa, where they ruled for a century before being wiped out by Moroccan rivals.
Incredibly, reciters of the poem underwent ten years of training in their youth to memorise it, but now contemporary entertainment and the demand only for short, tourist-friendly excerpts is causing memory of the full poem to fade. Murkus is interested in creating a Palestinian version where none readily exists, even though some Palestinian dialectic uses metaphors from the epic. The way he describes the poem, the contemporary parallels also seem clear.
Al-Sirah Al Hilaliyyah is a story of migration but also occupation, and in the way different cultures tell it, the emphasis shifts. In Tunisia, for example, the Bani Hilal are the occupiers and villains. “It’s a very dynamic epic,” says Murkus. “We chose to tell the story not only from the Palestinian perspective, but also by asking ourselves, what are our generation’s questions about this epic? We respect it, but it’s not untouchable. We ask, let’s say, what is our position against this epic?”
Amid all this, he promises a performance which fuses the contemporary and the modern. “It’s about celebration,” says Murkus. “We celebrate being together and we celebrate the story, even when it’s a sad story. It’s a real festival, very energetic with seven great performers, with musicians, singers, dancers, puppets, huge images and funny moments. It’s about feeling welcomed, about feeling part of a real celebration. It’s possible to celebrate the fact we’re in the same place and able to be in this event, and we built it around this understanding.”
Al-Sirah Al-Hilaliyyah (The Epic of Bani Hilal / السّيرة الهلاليّة), The Lyceum, 26-29 Aug, 7.30pm