creation March 30th, 2023
Théâtre Choisy-le-Roi (Fr)
April 4th 2023 - France
Amiens / Maison de la Culture sn
May 11th 2023 - France
Orléans / scène nationale
May 13th 2023 - Swiss
La Chaux-de-Fonds / TPR
Mishwâr
reading / concert
with Lulu Rafat (poems in Arabic) and Sophie Agnel (cordophone)
English subtitles
Mishwâr (Arabic: journey/walk) is an Arabic storytelling and musical show.
Mishwâr is a long narrative poem written in the first person. It is a life story: the life of a young woman in search of herself, who is separated from her family and her culture, and faces a serious psychic and existential crisis in a foreign land.
The ordeals endured by this young Palestinian woman are described in the poem with a raw frankness that gives it great affirmative force. Using language as a powerful healing tool, Lulu Rafat moves forward "On this road where there is no one but you and the road", giving the story of her journey (Mishwâr in Arabic) the authentic colors of a true testimony.
Lulu Rafat is a prodigious interpreter of her own poem. Her stage presence is intense and vibrant, and her passionate performance generates a strong emotional swell. Alongside her on stage, the exceptional musician Sophie Agnel creates an equally eloquent and truly unheard-of counterpoint on the Cordophone, an instrument of her own invention.
Mishwâr is performed in Arabic with French surtitles.
My little house in Canada
(from Mishwâr)
The Mailman has no troubles finding
my little
house
in Canada.
And he, out of all people,
matters to me the most!
Why?
Because he has a vehicle
And I,
everything I
love,
is so
far
away
In my little house
in Canada
hangs a clock on the wall.
It doesn’t really work - nor do I want it to;
it only reminds me of
my failure
in synchronising
my mind, my heart
and my body
– to each their own timing.
So when I immigrated across the globe
I made sure to masterfully learn
– and I still do –
how to calculate time difference.
Every item of furniture
in my little house
will have me on it
a drawing
or a line of poetry
to personalise what is meant for the masses
to feel like I conquered
the god-like machine
that wants us to
all be
the same;
while History has fiercely taught me
to be wary
of crowds.
And since I get bored easily,
I keep moving around
my plants, my furniture,
and my boundaries
On my wall there is a drawing of a faceless woman,
and the words “the mishwar begins”
I sign underneath it
my name;
for when the road thinks
me dead
my heart’s beating? – slow,
my breathing? – heavy,
my power? – non-existent,
and my mind?
my soul, my body? – returning to
dust,
so I bid
farewell.
My letters? still
carry Life.
Sophie Agnel is a French improviser (prepared piano) of international renown, moving from the demanding exercise of the solo to multiple encounters in situ with the greatest masters of contemporary improvisation (Michel Doneda, Daunik Lazro, Olivier Benoît, Catherine Jauniaux, ErikM, Roger Turner, Phil Minton, John Butcher, Jean François Pauvros, Thurston Moore, Joke Lanz).
In 2014, she joined the Orchestre National de Jazz (ONJ) for 4 years under the direction of Olivier Benoît.
She regularly participates in the creation of text/music performances based on major and demanding works: Testimony by Charles Reznikoff, La passion selon G.H. by Clarice Lispector.
She has also designed an astonishing experimental electroacoustic instrument, the cordophone / nOpiano, a combination of a small piano frame and an electric bass neck.
