Um Kulthum, conosciuta anche come Umm Kulthum o Om Kalthoum, è una figura leggendaria della musica araba, la cui eredità e influenza perdurano ben oltre la sua morte nel 1975. Nata in Egitto nel 1898 (o 1904, secondo alcune fonti), la sua vita e la sua carriera riflettono l’evoluzione culturale e sociale del mondo arabo nel ventesimo secolo. Con una voce potente e profondamente emotiva, Kulthum…
Ghalia Benali & Spiritual Wisdom for Artists: The Path Begins Inside Us
Translated by Weyam Ghadbian
Off Tunes (Lubna Juqqa): In this episode of Off-Tunes, we have with us the incredible artist, Ghalia Benali. Ghalia is a multi-talented artist: a singer, a dancer, an actress, a graphic designer, and a writer. Welcome Ghalia Benali you’ve brightened our studio!
Ghalia Benali: Thank you for having me and for the warm welcome.
OT: We’re lucky to have you with us today because you’re in Amman for the premier of the film Ala Hallet Aini (As I Open My Eyes/A Peine L'ouvre Les Yeux). Ala Hallet Aini is the third film you’ve acted in, after La Saison des Hommes, directed by Moufida Tlatli with music by the brilliant Anwar Barahem, and the film Swing, which came out in 2001, in which you played a dancer. Ala Hallet Aini is directed by Leila Abu Zaid, with music by the brilliant Khyam Allami, and has received numerous awards from the Dubai International Film Festival, the Carthage Film Festival, and from Italian and Belgian film festivals. You also have experience acting in television, for the Egyptian series Farah Leila, in 2013. Let’s begin by talking about your experience with acting. Did you find in acting something that you couldn’t find in singing? How has your experience as an actor enriched your experience as a singer?
GB: Acting was–each time–a surprise, an accident. (Laughs) I wasn’t planning on acting. I had viewed acting as pretending – or even, lying. So I sort of believed that every time you acted, you were lying. In Swing, it was different because the director had me with musicians and I was playing music and singing and dancing and had no idea what they were capturing on film, so it was a wonderful experience. I had a harder time with the next film. But Ala Hallet Aini really helped me come into acting because I discovered it wasn’t lying – but an evocation. For instance, evoking something that happened in my life before. So I may have not been able to act in Ala Hallet Aini a year or two ago, but it came at the right time. And I learned a lot, and had fun. I was challenged a lot personally by it.
OT: What did it add for you as an artist that’s different from singing for instance?
GB: So it’s a state that I either express by singing or dancing or acting. In acting, it’s a bit different because you may need to repeat a scene several times to get it right. It’s a bit grueling and sometimes you lose the original state you’re trying to portray, and it’s a struggle to hold on to it as you repeat the scene over and over. In acting there’s more of an awareness of the space around you. In singing, you’re just sing the notes on the stage, but in acting, there’s more – there’s a story and packaging. Although in singing there’s a story too, I don’t say I’m a singer I say I’m a story teller.
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OT: Let’s return to music and singing. Some would say that contemporary Arab “commercial” music these days is trying to keep pace with the zeitgeist of our rapidly changing world. And at the same time, others would say that this kind of music is a reversal of the backwardness of our current social and political situations. What are your thoughts on this issue?
GB: Of course I don’t like this kind of fast paced music. I feel it is distant from our spirits. The spirit isn’t fast. It’s just here and that’s it; it doesn’t concern itself with time. I have a famous hashtag that is #spiritswhoseconnectionsareunbreakable. Our spirits have been here for a long time, and they are ever-present. My music is very slow and I think it’s desired in this fast paced era. Audiences like what’s new and entertaining, but…
OT: Do you really think audiences have become used to this “fast food.”
GB: Sure they have and yet in my recent experience – after the revolutions – my music reached the Arab world after the revolutions, I felt as if the “fast food” left people hungry for more. So when I release something that’s slow paced, gentle, and original, people always jump on it and drop the hamburger. You don’t hear much of that commercial music on the radio these days. You’re hearing more and more Ghalia Benali on the radio, and on TV too. But it’s not just me. Though it’s very particular what I’m doing – it’s not “easy” music. I went back to the music of our grandparents – that’s my background. But I find that even the young people are connected with it. I got a letter from a sixteen-year-old fan in Egypt who said “At first I didn’t understand the lyrics but I’ve been listening to your music for two years now and I found myself feeling this sense of security and warmth as if I was being held in my mother’s lap.” So there’s something beautiful about it. I think there’s a soul-connection people are having to it. I think what happened after the revolutions is that people began to ensure that their voices would reach and their voices would have an impact, even if after the political situation got complicated. I’m not waiting on any politician to give me my freedom. I will get free by my own hands. So that experience of having your voice reach something, have an impact on something. Something shifted. And this experience is so important.
OT: So when you sing classics like Oum Kulthoum, Abdel Halim Hafez, Mohamed Abdel Wahab, etc. what do you feel you add to these well known classic songs?
GB: I treat these musical giants as if they are my grandparents. For instance, Oum Kulthoum I really feel she is my grandma. Her photograph was in my parents’ bedroom! So of course, I figured she was a relative. (Laughs) So I treated her music as if she was my grandmother, and I, as her granddaughter – didn’t have to sound the way she sounded. My voice didn’t have to be loud like hers and my knowledge didn’t have to be like hers. I didn’t try to imitate her, like Oh, Oum Kulthoum eats this and drinks this and so should I. That’s why I didn’t try to sing her music with a big orchestra like her, no, I tried to embody the spirit of Oum Kulthoum. How did Oum Kulthoum’s music reach me, what did it make me feel when I listened to her? It all gets portrayed in my music. When I sing Oum Kulthoum it’s like I’m speaking to Oum Koulthoum, rather than I’m singing Oum Kolthoum.
My biggest influence is Sheikh Adib El Dayekh. I used to listen to him when I was young. Though in Tunis, he wasn’t well known (he is Syrian). I would go and buy his cassettes, the shopkeeper would be like “Who is this Adib El Dayekh guy?” (laughs) He used to think it was very strange, he was unfamiliar with it. But Adib el Dayekh is my big teacher. He is the one who taught me. His improvisations and maqamat on the nay or qanun. And of course, Sabah Fakhri. See, I studied in these two “schools,” the first—Syrian classical music (of which some came from Iraq via Nathem Al Ghazali) and the second—Egyptian classical music, aka the school of Oum Kulthoum. And Wadi’ Al Safi also was an influence. In terms of poetry: Raba’a al Adawia “3shq” was an inspiration, and I looked for other poems that Oum Kulthoum hadn’t sung before. “Dana Da’iman,” “Ka2see wa Khamri,” “Aina Minka Rajaii,” and "Kultu ani Ina Ba3atu Thani,” I worked on these in a new way with Indian instruments. It was a lot of improvisation, again. In order to meet in the middle, we need to improvise. Listen to each other and respond. This is a really respectful mode of honoring the music—to listen to it, and then improvise a response in our own unique way. The thought isn’t for us to do something that isn’t us, but to meet in a new collaborative space in the middle.
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OT: Tell us a little bit about your experience singing Sufi poetry. How is it connected to your personality, background and the future direction of your art?
GB: I really never intended to sing Sufi music. But the texts called to me. I don’t see myself as just a singer—like I can’t sing something I don’t feel a strong connection to. You could give me the most highly regarded poetry and music to sing and I won’t be able to do it. I am a composer, and unless I connect with the music, the singing won’t happen. I also can’t sing something another composer composed because he’ll have composed it in a way that’s aligned with his point of view, and with all respect to him, I probably won’t be able to sing it. Also I find that composers are focused on composition – they’re focused on the ups and downs of the music and changes in maqam, but not really on the text they’re working with. I have my own ups and downs and limits and boundaries with my voice and I know them and know how I’d like it to come out. People call what I’m doing “singing Sufi,” but I’m not singing Sufi poetry, but I’m singing with a Sufi spirit. Because I’m sort of walking a Sufi path – everyone is walking their own sufi path because it’s about the original breath. There are Sufis who speak about their own paths – but what’s nice about Sufism that’s different than religion is that it’s an individual path, a free spiritual path. Depending on when I was born, in what era, the path will be different. I may travel to India, China, Spain, etc. and my spiritual path will of course be different than someone who is living in India, or Iran, or on a mountain alone somewhere. The road looks different, but in the end we reach the same destination. Because the divine source is one, and it breathed in us all the same breath of spirit. So at the end of the day, all of these spiritual journeys reach this original source.
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OT: Beautiful. Let’s move on to a different medium entirely – your book Romeo and Leila. I’ve seen the book and it’s gorgeous, it’s comprised of your writing, illustrations, and design. It’s a beautiful book, really evocative and imaginative and enjoyable to read. Can you tell us about your book projects like this one?
GB: Romeo and Leila is an autobiography. Before Romeo and Leila the book was Romeo and Leila the musical project. I had been working on the music project “Timnaa” which had reached an end because I felt I had gone as far as I could go with it. So I stopped. What should I do next? I decided: I want to draw, return to drawing. I began drawing these images and felt a story emerging. It was the story of me—Ghalia in Europe, Ghalia who had loved a European, Ghalia had left Tunisia as Leila and become Romeo in Europe. It speaks about the soul. There was something I wanted to express that was between the east and the west. I called it Romeo and Leila because two characters emerged, a boy and a girl, and it’s a fictional story but each story is tied to something that happened to me in real life. It was a marriage of east and west. And of course, big problems emerged between Romeo and Leila (as opposed to Qais and Juliet) (Laughs) So I had to express what these problems were. What were the conditions that would allow these two to reach each other? The drawings were what spoke to me. Drawing is like prayer for me. I speak to them, and then I discovered what they’re saying. So I finished the story and it came out in 2008 – this is probably the book you saw. And I returned to the text and my friend Abir translated it into Arabic and English, and each time it developed. In the meantime, I did a play, a one-woman show, and I did all the decorations and costumes, and it was called Romeo and Leila. I discovered that when we love each other, when two people love each other, each person sees the other as if they will complete them, like they are the ideal, and I’m not complete, but they are. So the story is that we each try to complete each other and when we reach completion we reach god. Because everyone wants to feel complete. So as the play unfolds, Leila begins heavy with clothing and traditions and constraints and at each insight she sheds an item of clothing, a layer, until at the end she is light and she spins and spins and spins. It was recorded but in low quality, so I hope to do it again in a better way. There were three shows in Belgium and Holland, the last in Amsterdam.
OT: Hopefully you’ll do it in the Arab world too.
GB: Yes, Romeo and Leila is a big project, that’s still evolving. I’m looking for partners to help it be the big production it needs to be. It’s still not finished. I knew when I began that it would be a lifelong project.
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OT: There are so many more questions I have about your projects but because of time I’ll have to ask you just one more. With all of your wonderful and rich experiences and insights in the art and music world, what wisdom would you impart on our young generation of indie artists?
GB: It’s so important for every person to express what they know – and just what they know. And what we know is deep and vast and rich. Like I said, from a drawing I did in 2002 the whole course of my life changed – a whole life project emerged. I was looking for inner freedom, freedom from the constraints that held back Leila. And no one freed me. I freed myself. And even so, there’s a long way to go. There are rest breaks but the path continues. I think of the Romany (Gypsies), who never intended to settle down anywhere. They rest in a place, and then move on, they are always moving. I think I have a nomadic spirit. And I love to travel – travel doesn’t have to be boarding an airplane and going to a new city. Travel can happen while you’re sitting inside your house. You journey inside yourself. You search inside yourself. The big secrets lie there. My music project “Al Paina” tells the story of a man who went the whole wide world in search of treasure. He didn’t find it and returned dejected to his house, only to find the treasure right outside his home. As soon as we open our eyes and look at what’s in front of us and around us, and don’t lie to ourselves, stay truthful, look inside ourselves, we’ll find tons. Everything that is outside, we’ll find inside. Inside you’ll find what you want to express. I’m going to finish with this song that I’m going to sing for you.
(Sings)
Love is the religion
Love is the path
The Beloved is the path
Beauty is Sunna
Truth is Sharia
And longing,
Longing is Faith
And you have walked the paths
And you walk the paths,
I am one, always
OT: Wow, this was the most beautiful end to an interview! Thank you so much for your presence and time and beautiful spirit. We wish you the best in life and art and all your endeavors! Listen to our full Arabic interview here!
Mideast Tunes Radio’s original podcast, Off-Tunes, is hosted and produced by Abir Ghattas and Lubna Juqqa. Listen to the full podcast in Arabic and check out more episodes here.
