La Chanson de Roland

The Egyptian artist Wael Shawky (Alexandria, 1971) is returning to the Holland Festival with La Chanson de Roland, a large-scale musical theatre performance based on one Europe's most influential chivalric stories and the oldest traditional literary work in the French

language. This epic poem, which is shrouded in myth, centres around a battle between Christians and Muslims.

Last year, Shawky left a big impression at the Holland Festival with his film Cabaret Crusades: The Secrets of Karbala (2016). This formed the final part of his trilogy about the Crusades, viewed from an Arab perspective in a filmed puppet show. The first two parts were The Horror Show File (2010) and The Path to Cairo (2012). In contrast with Shawky's previous work, La Chanson de Roland does not use puppets or marionettes. The story is told by a cast of around twenty Fijiri singers from Eastern Arabia's Gulf states, who give the performance a special dimension with their traditional, choral singing, percussion and dance (originating from the working culture of Arabic pearl divers).

The original text of La Chanson de Roland, of which there are many different versions, was written between 1040 and 1115. The song is composed in stanzas of irregular length and describes an event from the year 778. At the Battle of Roncesvaux Pass (in the Pyrenees, between Spain and France), the rearguard of Charlemagne's Christian army was betrayed. The Saracens (A people who had already converted to Islam at an early stage) strike. They threaten to crush the Christians, whom they outnumber, but the heroic Count Roland – Charlemagne's nephew – blows hard three times on his horn. Then he drops down dead. Charlemagne rushes back, and his men pursue the Muslims into the river Ebro. That is the myth. The story incorporates various conflicts, such as the clash between Christian and Pagan/Islamic ideologies, the contrasts between French people and Saracens and the internal conflict of the leading actors who attempt to reconcile seemingly irreconcilable ideals. The story remained extremely popular until well into the 14th century.

More than 1000 years later, Shawky retells this story from the Arabic perspective. He selected the most important passages and translated them into classical Arabic. Shawky's La Chanson de Roland now consists of three layers. The first is formed by the poetic Arabic text, and the musical composition and song of the Fijiris provide the second layer. This is complemented by a third, extremely rich visual layer, consisting of dance, objects, scenography, costumes and art objects. The original stage design was inspired by Shawky's previous sets for Cabaret Crusades: The Path to Cairo: wonderful scenographic landscapes, based on famous Persian miniatures.

By shifting the emphasis in this performance from puppets and marionettes to living performers, Shawky creates a poetic live experience that refers to age-old musical storytelling traditions in both Western and Eastern civilisations.