About Making Noise
Hosted by Intro in Situ, several organisations in Maastricht came together on the 28th of November for music, a bakesale, and community. More info.
Andrés Ravelo kindly stepped in to replace Nader, who originally played in Watan, bringing with his background in jazz and film scoring a different energy to the project.
Video coming soon!
Watan: Homelands
For all that is said about the limitations of language, and the power of other senses and artistic mediums to bridge those gaps, there are some instances where a word slices through layers of experience and strikes a chord that resonates through memory; like a long-forgotten scent that brings an entire childhood back.
“Watan” is such a word. In Hindi, वतन reminds me of protest songs that were written during the struggle for an independent homeland, free of British colonisation. I only realised last summer that it was a loanword from Arabic وطن. It became the unifying motif and title of the piece I developed alongside Nader and Nora last summer. Watan was developed for a performance in July at the invitation of Laura for Tell Me More at Plantage Doklaan in Amsterdam.
Frustrated by months of stalling while a genocide continued unabated in Gaza, we found ourselves drawn to the poetry of Mahmoud Darwish, the pre-eminent poet of Palestine, as a source of inspiration. Our piece Watan brought together poetry and improvisation, and we attempted to draw a line from the Palestinian struggle for statehood and freedom to the universal human desire for a home, a land, and a voice.
