By Salah Orfali
Damascus – Albawaba.com
The Syrian ballet troupe Inana will stage its magnificent show Hawajes Al Sham 880 in Tunisia next Friday as part of the Tunisian Hammamat Festival, before heading to Sousah to stage the event at the city’s festivals.
The troupe has offered its performances at Jerash festival in Jordan and in Dubai, where large audiences were captivated with this highly refined art.
“It is a Syrian ballet troupe characterized by a high standard of art and the spirit of Damascus. When there wasn’t any dancing academy in Syria, we had to travel abroad seeking modern dancing schools, and selecting what suited our society in order to establish a dancing theater,” the troupe manager and number one dancer Jihad Mifleh told Albawaba.com.
“Then we aimed at establishing a dancing theater in a different style than the prevailing show styles, and to create a high standard of art that would become international, but with its original eastern privacy,” he added,
“A number of enthusiastic young men got together and continued preparations for 10 years because learning the body language requires a long time training.”
Writer Mohammed Omar said that the show depicted a past historical era, adding “I used some statements from our heritage which added to it something from our history, similar to what the Germans used in the play Al Tariq Ela Dimashq (Road to Damascus).
“In future we will prepare better work by decreasing the amount of dialogue and depending more on body movements and music. The name Inana comes from the name which old Syrians used to call art, literature and the moon.”
The composer of the troupe, Mohammed Habash, said: “Our objective to excel has prompted us to prepare a distinctive work for Syria. We have introduced this troupe to the world so that it will recognize that there is a high-standard Syrian Arab troupe. There isn’t any troupe in the Arab world that reaches our troupe’s high standard and creativity.”
“We have been delighted with the audience’s welcome and interaction with us. Our audience has a very special taste. I performed with Karkalla troupe at many world theaters for seven years, and my most beautiful moments were when I appeared before the Syrian audience,” said the troupe’s star, Iman Kayyali.
The Russian show star, who is married to a Syrian and graduated from the higher institute in Russia as a designer, said, “I joined the troupe as a trainer of jazz dancing for many years. When I recognized the troupe’s high standard I agreed to dance with its dancers. The difference between the Syrian and Russian artists is that the former perform with more warmth and sincerity. The Russian dancers may have better tactics but their performance is less warm. I expect the troupe to achieve more success.”
The most recent work for the troupe is Abnaa Al Shams (Sun’s Sons) for which it trained for one whole year. The show will be staged at the art festival of Damascus international fair starting this August 21.
