Damascus - SANA
The stage of the Opera Theater at Dar Al-Assad for Culture and Arts hosted the “Musical” show “A Story from the East”, which tells the story of love and joy in a contemporary language in which the cultures of East and West blended through the perspective of musical comedy, according to a dramatic and showy character.
Between dancing, singing, “spoken” dialogue, and performance techniques, the creative experiences of Maestro Raad Khalaf, scriptwriter Mahmoud Idris, choreographer Moataz Mallat Lee, designer Dr. Nizar Bilal, and director of lighting and sound techniques Aghid Suleiman converged to weave a “story from the East.”
In a statement to SANA, Maestro Khalaf indicated that efforts are being devoted to presenting a youth work, led by students and graduates of the Higher Institutes of Music and Dramatic Arts, that simulates immediate social life, so that joy and love come from its human source.
He explained that the template of “The Musical” is the collective championship of the best distinguished talents in artistic disciplines such as dance, singing and music, as well as technical aspects such as clothing design, scenography and lighting included for this type of theatrical performance.
Writer and screenwriter Mahmoud Idris explained that Musical “A Story from the East” combined the experiences of the lyric poet with scriptwriting, as he replaced dialogue sentences with lyrical words, and combined them with dancing paintings based on keeping pace with global intellectual developments that prompted him to go through his first-of-its-kind experience.
The head of the dance department at the Higher Institute of Dramatic Arts, Moataz Mallat, explained to me that what distinguishes Musical “A Story from the East” most is the presentation of a performance experience to select 52 young men and women of distinguished talent who participated in the performance on stage, explaining that the musical experience is new at the level of Syria, and was limited to Three performances by Maestro Khalaf previously, to be an advanced step from the forms of theatrical performances that gathered in their details cumulative experiences to present multiple roles in dancing, singing and acting for each of the participating characters, and constitute a group tournament that mainly aims to develop talent experiences.
In explaining the term musical, the critic and journalist Saad Al-Qasim explained that it is a musical comedy for one of the Variety Theater shows, which has a dramatic and show-stopping nature, and falls within the framework of the musical theater.
Color, lighting, and decoration spoke in their own language about the story of the show, by choosing traditional oriental shapes and models whose image was imprinted in the living memory of the Syrians, this is what was explained by the director of lighting and sound technologies, Aghid Suleiman.
It is noteworthy that A Story from the East will continue until the 15th of this month on the stage of the Opera Theatre.
Amani Farouj-Mahasin Awad
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