At the Baalbek International Festivals: Lebanese Folklore Comes to the Fore for the First Time in a Grand Setting

Lebanese folklore comes to the fore for the first time in a grand setting

The past has more than the cold pages of history... The past has keys of gold in small pockets and in shy, obscure mouths... The past has the tableaux of folklore... and most of ours are hidden things, shrouded by an indifferent aversion and an ignorant neglect — God forgive me!

In our popular heritage are glimpses, winks, and signs that must endure, so that there may endure what is massed behind them of spiritual edifices for our lives and our beings.

To return to folklore is guidance... and today I carry glad tidings that remain joyous even once they are known...

The mantle of Lebanese popular art will ripple at the Baalbek Festivals in a new weave in which melody, song, and acted dance become brothers!...

And the truth must be told... the Baalbek Festivals are, all of them, the strides of a giant that will not turn back. This is what was suggested to me by my conversation with Ustad Samir al-Suqi, secretary of the festival committee... A project like this one, in our country, must wrest success by main force in the face of difficulties and obstacles known to everyone who has cut a road and opened a passage. And yet not everything wished for has been attained and realized. There are homeless projects and a confused, anxious budget... a result that gives no pain!!

Will the sun of Baalbek return, I wonder? Will there resound among the columns of its citadel a present greater than the past and its tales — tales inspiration had almost grown weary of and weaned itself from?

I behold the citadel of Baalbek, in my wishing, as a temple for newborn art... for beauty ever renewed... for the spacious, radiant image... for the resonant, well-stocked word!...

And the little tale begins today with a count of the names of the organizers of the popular-art performances at the Baalbek Festivals.

The committee is composed of Mrs. Zalfa Chamoun — whose persevering concern with all that is authentically popular was the first seedling of the whole project — then Ustad Khalil Hibri, the wives of Messrs. Fouad Salam and Hasan Daouk, and Ustad Najib Hankash.

The virgin work is being carried out by Mr. Marwan Jarrar and his wife, Mrs. Wadia — the two of them are training the troupe of dancers — then the two Rahbanis and Fairuz, who need no introduction, and Ustad Sabri Sharif, the discerning director.

I listened to Mrs. Jarrar speak of her work, and in her words I tasted a surging faith backed by specialization from London and training in Moscow.

There is folk dance in Lebanon, said Mrs. Jarrar, but it moves only a few feet in the scattered villages. Like all folk dance it seems, at a hurried glance, a fall of feet whose regularity is monotony and whose art is naivety. As for the Lebanese dabke, its limbs are scattered here and there — so why not gather them all together? Why not make it evolve within a frame of conservative renewal?

Is not the Lebanese dabke a scene that paints resolve, steadfastness, union, and pride? You speak truly, Mrs. Jarrar — but few have seen that, because all they pick up from it is the regular sound of pliant feet striking the earth hard once... let us strike it softly twice!!

The "Jarrar duo" is today training a troupe of volunteer amateurs — students of the secondary schools and universities, two hundred in number... But... the inclination of the amateur is not the zeal of the professional!!

The "two Jarrars" are supported by Mrs. Chamoun's concern and her constant assistance, especially in what concerns the choice of fitting and suitable costumes; the committee's adviser in this regard is Ustad Youssef Yazbek, one of the trustees of Lebanese history...

Nor does the eye of Ustad Michel Touma, the patron of the troupe's work, ever leave it... He it is who says that folklore is a link in our life that must not be lost or neglected... he it is who believes in the revival of popular art...

And music remains the life of dance and song. Ustad Sabri Sharif says that what encourages our activity is that Lebanon's musicians, few though they be, hold fast to the Lebanese folklore that the villagers hum and that passes on from ear to ear; he singles out here the Ustads Nicolas al-Mani, Philemon Wehbe, and the Rahbani brothers.

The Lebanese musicians of today, like the nimble director, hold fast to the beautiful passages of folklore — say rather the fixed, concentrated shots — refine them, and make of them the pivot or, at times, the point of departure.

Ustad Sharif holds that Lebanon has an authentic folklore with a character that keeps pace with the Lebanese temperament in general and brings out for us shadows of that Lebanese life. In his eye is a tomorrow in which folklore will be concentrated in a harmonious orchestral structure.

For folklore is a naive lyric rapture that must be clarified, that must be adorned. As for the word, the time has come for it to disobey no longer. Some of our poets have managed to widen its domains and bring it close to the intimate popular tune — among them Said Akl and Michel Trad.

All this is bold, many-branched attempts, waiting... and they will meet in a single embrace to look out upon us, on two evenings of the nights of the Baalbek Festivals, in dance and song and melody and pictures: in the dance of the sword and shield, the dance of the gypsy girl and the knives, the pitcher, the harvest, and the grape-gathering... all of them phantoms of the past and of a shrinking present — a sin that they should be scattered!

These phantoms are symbols, keys to riddles... or to legends and tales we may know and may not know... they may at times be the spice of local history, and at times its salt.

I heard yesterday that popular art is buffoon's goods, not worth stopping for. Would that I had known then the answer to what I heard!!

Folklore, I say today in a tone far removed from modest whispering, is a wine-jar... and bread... and a lyre of glory!!