SOUND OF MECCA Opens at New york Arab Festival Tonight

 New York Arab Festival will present “Arab Performance Histories,” an exhibition looking at alternative, radical and traditional performance practices from the Arab world, curated by Adham Hafez and presented in partnership with La MaMa ETC at the Downstairs Theater gallery space (66 East 4th Street, NYC, 10003). While the history of performance in the Arab world is as diverse as the 22 countries that comprise the region, Arab performance is rarely seen through a nuanced lens. This exhibition is an opportunity to see the work of several artists who hail from diverse practices as a way to shed light on the complexity of the region's performance canon. It brings viewers to the contemporary dance world of the Egyptian dance duo nasa4nasa, where the lines between sports, dance, and social media are blurred. The exhibition offers a chance to explore Saudi performance and visual artists Balqis Alrashed and Nuur Taibah’s diverse work, which reflects on female histories and personal chronicles in and from Saudi and extends an invitation to play. The work of Farah Saleh, the seasoned Palestinian choreographer in the installation, encourages us to think of Palestinian bodies gesturing and signaling through thick layers of body politics. 

The exhibition opens on Thursday, April 25 at 6pm, with a lecture performance in La MaMa’s newly renovated 74A East 4th Street location by performance and multidisciplinary artist Ahmed Fakeih (Riyadh), entitled “Sound of Mecca.” This performance allows us to learn about the history of sound, music, and performance in a city closely tied to religious practice and pilgrimage. Ahmed Fakeih reveals other dimensions of Mecca, including migratory histories, folk dance and music. 

After Fakeih’s opening presentation, attendees will be directed to the exhibition at the Downstairs Theater gallery space (66 East 4th Street), where they can view “Arab Performance Histories” and stay for the opening night of LINES by Remote Theater Project/Roots Mbili Theatre at 8pm. The exhibition will be on view from April 25-May 9, Thursdays-Saturdays from 6-8pm and Sundays from 2-4pm at La MaMa ETC’s Downstairs Theater gallery space, running in tandem with LINES.

SOUND OF MECCA

Whether in the Muslim world or elsewhere in the West, Mecca, as a city (also spelled Makkah), is closely tied with the history of Islam and is the birthplace of Islamic pilgrimage. What many of us fail to often think of is the racial, cultural and artistic diversity of a city that has hosted an annual pilgrimage for the past millennium and a half. Outside of pilgrimage season, what are the songs and music scales of the people of Mecca, and what does Mecca sound or look like?

With over a thousand five hundred years of visitors flocking to Mecca for their yearly ritual pilgrimage, and with how perilous Hajj (Pilgrimage) used to be before the invention of modern sailing or aviation, many pilgrims, after their rituals conclude, would end up settling in the Western provinces in Saudi Arabia where Mecca is, culminating in a culturally and racially diverse population. Through the eyes of one of Mecca's natives, New York City will have a first-of-its-kind event, a lecture performance journeying us through Mecca's diverse music, sound and folk performance traditions and histories beyond the Hijaz music scale.