concluded2011 — 2012

On and From Tarab

Revisiting Tarab draws on the archive of collector Kamal Kassar, a collection of early twentieth-century recordings of Tarab, the emotional ecstasy of classical Arab music. Rather than restoring or reproducing these recordings, Atoui invited musicians to listen to them and improvise new pieces, exploring how the intensity of Tarab can be carried into contemporary experimental music.

There is no word in English that accurately translates the word Tarab from Arabic to English, which makes it very difficult to define. Tarab is used in Arab culture to describe the emotional effect of music, but it is also associated with a traditional form of art-music. The word ‘Tarab' refers to an older repertoire, which is rooted in the pre World War I musical practice of Egypt and the East-Mediterranean Arab world and is directly associated with emotional evocation. Tarab sessions are known to last hours where both enchantment and ecstasy play an important role within the Tarab performance.

The starting point of this project is the private music collection of Kamal Kassar who owns the biggest library of Tarab and classical Arab music in the world. The project is about revisiting Tarab as musical genre and form as well as looking at it from a sound & performative perspectives.

Organizations: Sharjah Art Foundation · Nuit Blanche · Serpentine Gallery (Memory Marathon) · Performa 11
Places: Sharjah · Paris · London · New York
With: Kamal Kassar (AMAR Foundation)