In the spring of 2010, Hora Est teamed up with a large group of musicians and actors to put on this special performance that mixed film, theatre, dance and live music. The performance was created especially for the Terug naar het begin Festival and set in a thirteenth century church in the scenic northern Dutch countryside that was filled with tons of sand to create a desert atmosphere. With a soundtrack that mixed modern electronic dance music with medieval Western and Arab sounds, a mesmerising experience was created that brought to life the world of thirteenth century Flemish mystic Hadewych and her Muslim contemporary Ibn 'Arabi. A dialogue was created from their writings about their visions of a union with the Beloved − God − together with fragments of the biblical Song of Songs and several of their poems were set to an original score.
Together with
the performance, we published a book with a scholarly introduction to mysticism
and the life and works of Hadewych and Ibn 'Arabi, a selection of Hadewych’s
and Ibn 'Arabi’s poetry and a comic based on the theatre text.
Performers
Karima el Fillali: Vocals, dancer
Kristin McGee: Musical director, compositions, saxophone
Suzanne Groothuis: Costume and stage design
Anne Kraster: Flamenco guitar
Sjoerd-Jeroen Moenandar: Concept, text
Bram Staats: Bass guitar, production, percussion
Martin Tietema: Director
Behsat Üvez: Saz
Lieselotte Volckaert: Vocals, dancer
Shishani Vranckx: Actor, dancer
Performed
Terug naar het begin festival 2010 (some great pictures of this performance can be seen at the website of the performance's designer Suzanne Groothuis)
Sample audio recordings from the performance:
Book
Thessa Lageman: Calligraphy and translations from Arabic
Sjoerd-Jeroen Moenandar: Concept, text and script
Sam Peeters: drawings
