Focus on Wael Shawky | The Song of Roland: The Arabic Version

Arab musicians and singers narrate in their own language “The Song of Roland” (“La Chanson de Roland”) – a French, medieval epic poem of the eleventh century – with a wonderful set as a background. Consisting of hundreds of small pieces, the set looks like an enlarged miniature of the maps of Aleppo, Baghdad, and Istanbul. Drawing on the poem’s topic (that is, the battle between Christians and Saracens), which he recomposes, Wael Shawky comments on and subverts the stereotypical gaze of the West on the East. A large group of traditional musicians from Arab countries, along with four exceptional singers, sing this epic tale in the style of “fidjeri”, the music of the pearl fishers who are slowly disappearing. Costumes, instruments, and the musical language of the production transport us to the Arab countries of the Persian Gulf long before the discovery of oil, where people once lived on the commerce of pearls and sang in this way.

The attempt to rephrase the narrative of the West for the Arab world is at the crux of the work by this very accomplished, active, and internationally acclaimed Alexandrian artist. Through Shawky’s subversive and politically unorthodox position, the production attains historical depth with regard to Islamophobia and the extremism of both sides. Thus, he manages to create a deeply political work in the form of an attractive fairy tale. By fusing myth, history, and literature, borrowing from different cultures and techniques, and by leading our gaze and ears back in time, Wael Shawky composes an epic production about the many faces of truth that are barely visible, hidden behind the narratives of both West and East.