São Paulo – On Friday, June 12th, São Paulo residents can celebrate Valentine’s Day listening to love stories. Love in Lebanon, love in Europe, love in Africa, love around the world, in a show featuring the French-Lebanese artist Chantal Mailhac and including storytelling, singing, music and cuisine. The performance’s focal point is a traditional Lebanese love story where three brothers vie for the hand of the beautiful Warda, played by Mailhac.
Espaço Tempo hall, in São Paulo’s Tucuruvi district, will be fitted with curtains, mattresses and cushions to create a typical Arab setting. There, the Lebanese artist will tell tales of love culled from different places she travelled to around the world. Not all of the stories will be about traditional man-woman relationships. She will also speak of the power of love in the spectacle Warda ou o amor aos mil perfumes (Warda or the love of 1,000 perfumes).
Chantal Mailhac was born and raised in Lebanon. Besides having spent time in France, her paternal grandfather’s homeland, as soon as she turned 18 she went out into the world. She has lived in countries like England, Mexico and Canada, and currently lives in Brazil for three years. The three stories from the world featured in the performance came from these travels. “I collected them during my trip; they were told by people who moved me, it was as if they [the stories] wanted to take them out into the world,” the artist told ANBA.
From Lebanon, besides the plot of the performance, she has brought two contemporary stories of people who lived during the Lebanese Civil War of 1975. She ascribes her choice of an African story to her love for the continent, and because she believes artists have a mission when it comes to the region. Mailhac also speaks very fondly of Europe, from where she also tells a story, because she has roots there.
The artist will sing Spanish and Arabic songs that touched her during her adventures around the world. She will also chant in onomatopoeias, with loose syllables and non-traditional words. Mailhac will be accompanied by a percussionist, Yurê Kuhlmann, who will also contribute highly unusual sound effects. Another musician, Alexandre Ribeiro, will play the theorbo, a 16th century string instrument that originated in 1.500 AD in Italy, from the lute, an Arab instrument. The theorba will provide a background to the stories.
The stories will be interspersed with food breaks. The audience will be served beverages such as tea and delicacies such as nuts. Mailhac says she took inspiration from the One Thousand and One Nights, where Scheherazade would stop telling her tales so the king could go about his daily chores. The performance ends with a wedding, and since it will be enacted on Valentine’s Day, the finale will be a typical Arab dinner.
Mailhac was born in Saida, in South Lebanon. Her paternal grandfather was a French general during France’s rule in Lebanon, in the 20th century. That was where he met his Lebanese wife. The artist’s father, their son, was born in France, but also relocated to Lebanon later on and married Mailhac’s mother. From an early age, the artist became involved with the arts. She took lyrical singing, acting and mime lessons in her country and elsewhere. Later on, she learned about storytelling, which became her primary focus.
Service:
Performance ‘Warda or the love of 1,000 perfumes’
June 12th, Friday, 8:30 pm
Place: Espaço Tempo, Rua Caranguejo, 106 – Tucuruvi – São Paulo – SP
Tickets: Until June 5th: R$ 140 (couple) R$ 75 (single). From June 6th: R$ 150 (couple) R$ 80 (single) – Limited seats – Tickets must be purchased ahead of time.
Information and tickets: espacotemposp@gmail.com
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
