São Paulo – Over 150 free presentations among exhibitions, music concerts, cultural workshops are available for Arab culture lovers in the 5th South American Festival of Arab Culture (SACA), which starts next Thursday (18) in 17 cities in Brazil and abroad. The event is promoted by the Arab and South American Library and Research Center (Bibliaspa, in the Portuguese acronym), with support by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco). The festival is held since 2010, always between 18 and 31 March to commemorate Arab immigration to Brazil, celebrated on March 25.
Some of the activities from the festival are, however, running until May. Such is the case with the exhibition “The art of Arabic calligraphy” (A arte da caligrafia árabe, in Portuguese), that gathers works of several different kinds of Arabic calligraphy and “Graphic representations of Arab Poetry” (Representações Gráficas da Poesia Árabe, in Portuguese). In this exhibition, artists Janaina Elias and Moafak Dib Helaiel selected excerpts from contemporary Arab poems and transcribe it to the Arab alphabet. Both exhibitions will be held in Centro Cultural São Paulo between March 22 and May18. At the same address there will be a tent wherein traditional songs will be narrated by storyteller Rosita Flores and Cia. Duo Encantado’s sound engineer Giba Santana.
According to the Festival’s curator and director of Bibliaspa, Paulo Daniel Farah, the event represents “the strength” of the Arab language and culture in South America and in Brazil, where there are roughly 16 million Arab immigrants and descendants.
“We are promoting 150 actions to show the strength of Arab language and culture and to promote a feeling of Peace and closeness between the peoples, which are diverse. We want to show there is a historical link between Arab culture and Brazil and South-American countries, that manifests nowadays,” says Farah, who is also a language, history and Arab Culture professor at University of São Paulo (USP).
Other features include Arabic calligraphy workshops, storytelling and music presentations. One of the shows is Nibah Siqah, with Tunisian song presentation by the Center of Arab and Mediteranean Music Ennejma Ezzahrae. The group will present its repertoire with typical instruments from Arab music, such as the tar and the lute (both are string instrument similar to the guitar) in the National Museum (Museu Nacional) in Brasilia on the 20th, and in the São Paulo Cultural Center (Centro Cultural São Paulo), on the 23rd.
São Paulo’s library will also host lectures and movie exhibitions, among other events. Mário Schenberg Library, in Lapa, will feature lectures such as “Images and Islam: reflections on the image production in Islamic contexts” (Imagens e Islã: reflexões sobre a produção de imagens em contextos islâmicos, in Portuguese) and “Trajectory of Arabs on 25 de Março Street and throughout São Paulo” (Trajetórias de árabes na 25 de março e por São Paulo, in Portuguese). Libraries Viriato Corrêa, in Vila Mariana, and Roberto Santos, in Ipiranga, will show movies “Perfumed Ball”, which portrays Lebanese Benjamin Abrahão’s saga in search of images of outlaw Lampião, and “The secret of the grain”, directed by Tunisian Abdellatif Kechiche, which shows how a family man in financial difficulties finds the solution for his problems by opening a restaurant on a boat.
Florianopolis will host the lecture “Seething Middle East: reflection of a century of effective Western intervention” (Oriente Médio em ebulição: reflexo de um século de atuação efetiva do Ocidente, in Portuguese), organised by professors Liane Chipoillino Aseff, of Bibliaspa, and Aline Dias da Silveira, coordinator of the History course at the Federal University of Santa Catarina. Events are scheduled to happen in São Paulo, Santos, Campinas, Guarulhos, Diadema, São Bernardo do Campo and Ribeirão Preto, in the state of São Paulo; Rio de Janeiro; Olinda, in the state of Pernambuco; Brasília; Florianópolis, in the state of Santa Catarina; Curitiba, Maringá and Londrina; in the state of Paraná; Rivera, in Uruguay; Buenos Aires, in Argentina; and Tunis, in Tunísia.
Service
5th South American Festival of Arab Culture
March 18th to 31st
For further information and programme:
*Translated by Rodrigo Mendonça
