EL TANBURA

Following their sell out concert at the 2006 Barbican Ramadan Nights festival, veteran Egyptian master musicians, singers, philosophers & fishermen El Tanbura returned to the UK in February 2007 for a nationwide tour to promote their critically acclaimed new album "Between the desert and the sea".  El Tanbura played the Union Chapel (Highbury N1) on Sunday 4th March, supported by BJB (the Bedouin Jerrycan Band), pals from Al Arish in Sinai.  The show featured bamboute dancing, a unique style from Port Said associated with 19th century traders on the Suez Canal.

London Belly Dance caught up with the band's founder Zakaria Ibrahim (on the right in the picture above) & star dancer Ali Ouf (pictured left) at their hotel in Hampstead ...

Port Said son & El Tanbura founder Zakaria Ibrahim is a man with a mission: to preserve & also to develop Egypt’s musical cultural heritage.  His passion has lead him to tour the world with the ground-breaking & award-winning El Tanbura, to set up & manage several other troupes, & to establish & run the respected El Mastaba Centre for Egyptian Folk Music in Cairo.

It is hard not to be affected by Zakaria’s enthusiasm for Egypt’s musical traditions.  Port Said, north east of Cairo at the Mediterranean entrance to the Suez Canal, has inherited, absorbed & developed unique sounds from interactions between visiting peoples from across the globe.  It was these which trained Zacharia’s ear as he grew up a typical Port Said boy in the 50s & 60s.

Exiled as a teenager from his home town between 1969 & 1980 during the upheavals of the Suez & Sinai areas, Zakaria went on to pursue a degree in agriculture at Cairo University.  Music was put aside as he became heavily involved in student politics.

Returning home to Port Said in 1980, Zakaria yearned for the music of both spirituality & celebration he remembered from his youth.  However, he found a city transformed by the exile of its inhabitants, the affluence of the free trade area & the influence of tv, its music heavily commercialised & homogenised.  Spiritual & folk traditions were all but extinct.

Only the older generation knew how to play the old songs.  However, they no longer played:  Zakaria was told that nobody wanted to listen to the music, & nobody wanted to learn how to play it.

Zakaria felt a deep yearning to live within a community that rang with traditional music & dance; & a deep sense of social duty to not allow these traditions die out.  He felt that Egypt’s folk music was a treasure that nobody was taking care of & was determined to do something about it.

However, despite his commitment, it would be 9 long years before he was finally able to persuade the remaining master musicians, dancers, singers & percussionists of Port Said to join him in his venture when, in 1989, El Tanbura was finally formed.  

“El tanbura” is Arabic for a type of large lyre used only in closed spiritual ceremonies.  These deeply significant healing ceremonies also featured beautiful nay (Arabic flute) playing & strong percussive beats to (amongst other purposes) rid the body of suffering & befriend a person’s inner spirit or genie.  Zakaria, wishing to reinvigorate Egypt’s musical traditions, incorporated the instrument into El Tanbura’s repertoire & brought it into the public domain.

Troupe members also play the simsimiyya (a small lyre), nay, triangle, sagat (finger cymbals), shakhalil (castanets) & riq (tambourine).  Every member is also a singer – of hypnotic, chanting vocals - & a dancer.

The dancing performed on stage is called “bamboute dancing”, a corruption of the English “man of boat” or “man boat”.  The name refers to the Port Said men who would row out to sell their wares to ships waiting to sail down the canal.  A sale would be agreed & both goods & money would be exchanged by a rope thrown to the ship. 

Since 1989, Zakaria has gradually built El Tanbura to its present-day structure.  The troupe of 20, whose members range in age from their 20s to 70s, performs widely throughout Egypt, in both town & country, from concert halls to youth clubs, from tents to streets.  Outside of Egypt, the troupe has toured in Canada, France, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, Mali, Switzerland & the UK.

Along the way, Zakaria has also nurtured 5 other bands, & manages a further 4 through the El Mastaba Centre for Egyptian Folk Music which he founded & runs in Cairo.  Although music once learned through daily interaction with master practitioners is now taught formally in classes, workshops & rehearsals, it is being taught, it is being played & it is being lived by Egyptians again, just as Zakaria had dreamed all those years ago.  

El Tanbura’s repertoire of Egyptian folk & sacred music includes songs dating back 800 years.  Others date from the time the Suez canal was completed & some are only 100 years old.  However, in keeping with Zakaria’s wish to develop as well as revive traditional music & dance, there are brand new songs, such as his compositions “Waziery” & “Zayy el Nhardah” (“Canal song”) from the current album:  the latter song, reflecting Zakaria's political roots, celebrates the 50^th anniversary of the nationalisation of the Suez canal.

This new album is beautifully composed & performed, with pieces ranging from intense, melodic songs to more haunting pieces.  However, the spirit of this music lies in live performance, with lengthy, hypnotic songs gradually build to a rousing almost furious finale.  This is an experience on a completely different level & one not to be missed ... 

 

The CD "Between the desert & the sea" is out now  on Harmonia Mundi / World Village & is widely available through mainstream stockists.

El Tanbura played at the Union Chapel on Sunday 4th March 2007 & at other venues on the band's UK tour.

useful links ...

The band's website:   http://www.eltanbura.com/  

Footage from Spanish concert:   http://el_tanbura.mondomix.com/fr/video3313.htm

El Mastaba Centre for Egyptian Folk Music:   http://www.elmastaba.org/

Union Chapel:   http://www.unionchapel.org.uk/