What is Tarab Duende?
Tiffany Madera, photograph by Omni Kizzy
In almost all art forms, there is a moment when the artist enters a state of bliss and ego abandonment –a state of full flow that, when reached during a performance, can send an audience into ecstasy. In Arabic, the word Tarab describes a style of music that elicits this sense of rapture and ascension through supernatural possession. In the Spanish tradition, the word Duende describes this similar quality of inspiration, transcendence, and embodiment that an artist experiences.
This Sunday, April 23, 2022, Miami audiences will have an opportunity to get swept away into multisensory states of enchantment when Hanan Arts Director Tiffany Madera will weave Egyptian Raqs Baladi ( belly dance) with Spanish Flamenco, and live Arabic orchestral music, for a one-night-only performance of Tarab Duende at the North Beach Bandshell. Miami-based performers Tiffany Madera and Niurca Marquez will perform with Detroit’s National Arab Orchestra, led by Michael Ibrahim, to create an ecstatic world that connects folklore, history, and dreams.
Madera and Ibrahim will reunite on stage to continue the energetic dialogue that occurred during their last collaboration, captured in the 2020 documentary film Ya Habibi Ta’la: The story of a Song, directed by Gina Margillo, produced by Vivian Marthell and Tiffany Madera, and presented by Live Arts Miami. This earlier performance, (see clip below) celebrated the melding of spirit between dancer and musician, each simultaneously sharing energetic space and elevating the other. Picture two golden spiral staircases merging into one and leading to a lush infinity garden and you’ll have an image of how these performers play off of each other. Because the choreography is improvised the interplay is spontaneous. Adding to the excitement is the audience’s role in this energy exchange. The artist feeds off of the audience vibe, making the performance refreshingly unpredictable. We can be sure, given Madera and Ibrahim’s earlier collaborations, that we will be traveling deeper into magical realms with them.
The performance is part of Hanan Arts weekly activations programmed for the Global South Movements gallery exhibition, curated by Madera, at GreenSpace. The exhibition, which runs through the end of April, celebrates 20 years of Hanan Arts groundbreaking use of traditional middle eastern dance as a tool for social justice, along with new, mixed genre works by 11 globally acclaimed artists. Together the works discuss resistance, the body, cultural inheritance, fluidity, temporality, identity and gender. .
Like the gallery exhibit, Tarab Duende promises to engage the senses. The visceral experience will transport the audience into the more mystical and energetic realms prominent in Global South cultural expressions.
Hanan Arts is a Miami-Based 501C-3 organization founded in 1991. Hanan Arts globally innovates the genre of Raks Baladi (Belly Dance) as an instrument for social justice and community connection through workshops, film, interdisciplinary performance, social practice collaborations, international projects, visual art and academic investigation.
“Hanan Arts is a stand for all women and their personal, creative and community healing. Our mission is to empower women through dance and film,” Madera says
EVENT INFORMATION
Sunday, April 23 Time:7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
Miami Beach Bandshell 7275 Collins Avenue Miami Beach, 33141 United States (305) 672-5202
Free to attend with RSVP.
