The Syrian dance company Ornina’s “The Jasmine Collar brought Syria’s history to life at the Main Theater of the Cairo Opera House last week. But the choreography of the politicized performance that carries a message of peace failed to impress.
Ornina is one of Syria s leading dance companies. Established in 1993, the company has been home to some of Syria’s most established dancers, performing dozens of shows across the Arab world. It has choreographed more than 500 works for different Arabic TV stations. Their latest performance is conceived and directed by choreographer and director Ibrahim Nasser.
The show is comprised of several segments outlining the history of Syria, dating back as far as the conversion of St Paul to Christianity on the Road to Damascus. Each sketch depicts a particular phase in Syrian history.
The set design is the sole contemporary element of the show. The decor is composed of a group of placards splattered all around the stage, setting one geometric pattern of traditional Islamic architecture against a black backdrop.
The show opens with a prehistoric sketch, with performers dressed in leopard skin costumes, dancing to what sounds like archaic music. A senior figure representing time – or perhaps fate – appears, surrounded by a few dancers representing some kind of dark force. Both parties debate how they can create the light of the world, the beautiful maiden that will teach the world the meaning of love. The maiden is namely Syria, or in that case, the Levant (Al-Sham).
It’s a dramatic strategy to anthropomorphize Syria and to portray it – or Al-Sham – as a single coherent entity that can holistically chronicle its “story.
After Al-Sham is created, the next scene shows St. Paul standing at the top of the stairs while Al-Sham, personified as a young, fair maiden, tells him to let the entire world know that Syria is the birthplace of love. The advent of Islam preoccupies the next sketch, along with the heroism of Khaled Ibn Al-Walid and his battle against the Byzantine Roman Empire. The scene suddenly breaks into a decadent Roman feast, more of a sensational depiction of life under the Romans.
After the advent of Islam, the next sketches portray a typical Ummayid court, again with a poet and court dance at center stage. From then on, the sketches gloss over the rest of Syria’s history, passing through the Mongol Invasions, Ottoman rule, the establishment of the first Syrian theater, etc. A subplot develops, at the very end of a Romeo and Juliet kind of story, as the final scene concludes with Al-Sham, still represented as the beautiful maiden, saving the two lovers and announcing that Syrians never knew hate or enmity, only love and acceptance.
The message of the performance seems to be that Syria, with everything it represents, is against Western encroachment on the Arab and the Muslim world and that the only way Syria would open up to the outside world is if the “other offers the same peace and love principle it champions.
While there might be a noble motive to this objective, albeit not without naïveté, the performance hardly did any justice to either Syria or what values it represents.
“Collar is a rather hasty assemblage of unrehearsed choreographic segments with barely any dramaturgy at all. The costumes are kitschy and overdone while the complete lack of any dramatic structure destroyed the attempt to create a story.
Even the one sketch containing Sufi whirling and ecstatic dancing, the movement seemed more catatonic than rapturous. It isn’t a dance of joy and transcendence, rather erratic, contrived movement.
In pursuing its primary target of showcasing Syria’s glorious past, the show adhered to the basic choreographic elements of ballet and Opera.
The performance was clearly under-rehearsed and lacking in technicality.
Furthermore, and at several points, the dancers lacked complete coordination in executing their moves.
While the music tried to faithfully capture the spirit of the many eras and places of the show, it eventually failed in numerous intervals. Using hip hop in the background of the Mongol Invasions of Syria sequence, for example, made the whole scene look absurd. Choreography remained a serious obstacle. It’s quite difficult to imagine that at the Ummayyid court girls were hopping around in battements or pirouettes.
Dance can be political. Martha Graham’s masterpiece “Lamentations, for example, captured the lonely, solemn condition of the modern American citizen. Dance-theater can be political as well, even in the Broadway sense such as “The Color Purple, a serious story presented in the form of entertainment.
Despite a rich history and an even a richer social and cultural heritage, “The Jasmine Collar is more of a nationalist exaltation TV commercial rather than a testimony or a tribute to a country of a unique history.
“The Jasmine Collar is showing tonight, 9 pm, at the Sayed Darwish Theater of the Alexandria Opera House. 22 El Horreya Rd., Raml Station. Tel: (03) 486 5106, (03) 4800 138.
