‘A plea for connection': Gaza musicians bring the Levant to Sydney Opera House

The Guardian

03-07-2025

As long as you can hear a beat or someone singing, you can dabke.
'The official definition, if there is one for dabke, is when a group of people dance together, usually in a synchronised way,' Tareq Halawa says.
Unofficially, the musician continues, the dabke is when a group of people jump in no particular order, prompted by the sound of music. Sometimes the only beat is the sound of feet hitting the floor, without a drum.
'All the beat and rhythm that you need actually comes from the stomping,' he says. 'It's an expression of our culture. It can be an expression of our joy, frustration – a show of power.'
A celebration of the Levantine folk dance forms part of Dabke and Tatreez, an Artists for Peace event showing at the Sydney Opera House on Sunday.
There, Halawa will play the riq – one of the world's oldest instruments.
It is 'like a tambourine but it's especially for Arabic music,' Palestinian musician Seraj Jelda says.
Jelda, who played with the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music in Gaza before fleeing Israel's bombardment for Australia a year ago, will play the riq and oud on Sunday.
He's one of an ensemble of 10 artists performing at the event, which brings together musicians and dancers with Palestinian, Lebanese, Turkish, Indonesian and Cypriot heritage.
'It means a lot because we are delivering our culture, our songs,' Jelda says.
From the routine of harvest, joys of weddings and honouring of family matriarchs to being forced to leave a homeland, the event's repertoire is 'a journey through people's lives', Halawa says.
Most pieces come from before the 1948 Nakba – 'how our grandfathers, and our ancient people, [were] singing their songs,' Jelda says.
'Once they want to collect vegetables and fruits and olives … they start singing these songs. Once they want to get married, they sing these songs for the groom and for the bride.
'Some songs will talk about the Nakba and how songs are transferred from cultural and happy songs to songs that talk about Palestine and how it was occupied and our land was stolen.'
Halawa says Sunday's show is 'a window of understanding' into the Levant culture.
'What this means to me … is that I am seen and heard and accepted here in Australia, with the background and the culture that I bring with me,' the Palestinian, Syrian and Turkish musician says. He has lived in Australia for 12 years.
'The language of storytelling and music is so universal that it's compelling, and having that as our medium of conversing with Australia is important.'
As Israel continues its bombardment of Gaza – which has destroyed cultural heritage sites across the strip – Halawa says the performance becomes 'more than just sharing of culture and understanding and music'.
'It's a plea for connection,' he says. 'It also means that it's part of our contribution as performers to lifting the injustice.'
It has made Halawa reflect on 'what these songs actually mean'.
A song telling the story of a person leaving home, for example, wields the meaning 'that it's not about the taste of the food as much as the togetherness, the caring and connection with the land and with one another, endurance as a collective thing'.
'Now that I need to convey its content and its spirit, it led me to really rethink these stories and what they mean and what the original authors were thinking and experiencing that potentially led to them writing these stories.'
The Opera House event is a work of cultural preservation, Ayşe Göknur Shanal says.
Music is 'one of the most important mediums in expressing culture and identity and heritage and tradition'.
'There are songs for celebration, for grief, lamenting,' the Turkish-Cypriot Australian curator and opera singer says. 'You dance in anger, and you dance in love and passion and celebration.'
Shanal felt a sense of urgency to perform.
'I feel like the complacency of the arts industry and sector has propelled the urgency in me,' she says.
'The silence has propelled the urgency in me. We are proponents of arts and culture and heritage and history … and to see Palestinian music being absent from the musical vernacular and landscape frustrated me.
'So many mosques and churches [are] being bombed in Gaza and elsewhere – that's destroying heritage and history and culture. We are trying to protect and preserve, as opposed to what's happening, which is destroy, erase.'
Jelda says: 'Sometimes it is sad for us to play music and do happy things [when] our families and friends [are] in Gaza facing a difficult time.
'But it is [also] like a happy moment, because we are delivering something for them, making people know what's happening in Palestine and Gaza.'
Dabke and Tatreez is showing Sunday 6 July at 8pm at the Sydney Opera House