Mosaic Dance Theater Company/ Martha Graham theater
The Mosaic Dance Theater Company is currently at work on a new production which will have its world premiere Nov. 4 and 5 at the First Congregational Church of Montclair.
The production is titled “Alhayat Raksa,” or “Life is a Dance,” and will be directed by the company founder and artistic director, Morgiana Celeste Varricchio.
Choreography will be by Samara Adell with original music by Maurice Chedid.
“Alhayat Raksa” is a tale about an Arab woman, nearing death, who looks back on her life with bitterness but two angels intervene.
“The story is a combination of “Christmas Carol” and “It’s a Wonderful Life,” according to Varricchio in a recent conference call together with Adell, the choreographer. “But we don’t want to give away the plot.
She’s dying, but not ready to go. She has issues to decide. She wanted to be a dancer, but was forced to live a traditional life. She goes back in time so that at the end of the story she’s ready to die.”
The angels escort her back to scenes in her life. None of the seven characters in the story have a name in an effort to tell a universal story. “Alhayat Raska” has no narration, only music and dance. Varricchio said the original idea came from Trisha Cangiano whose professional dance name is Tashira Wadiya.
The Lebanese composer, vocalist and oudist, Maurice Chedid, was commissioned to write the music. An oud is a stringed instrument similar to a lute.
“Many of the folklore pieces that Samara is choreographing are set in a folkloric milieu,” Varricchio said. “It’s the music of the region and Maurice knows all the different genres.
Thematically, it’s a very difficult story to tell. As a dance company, we can’t do anything we want. The music tells us what to do.”
The styles of Middle Eastern dance which will be performed, according to an internet calendar post, is traditional folklore, raks sharki or Oriental dance, shaabi or street dance and contemporary interpretive.
Additional roles performed are the dying woman’s mother, her daughter and two female friends. Mosaic Dance is essentially an all-female company which performs to traditional Middle Eastern music.
“As we go through life, we don’t see everything,” Varricchio said, explaining the dying woman’s witnessing of her past. “It’s transcendental when someone looks down on their actions.”
Adell said that while the music is traditional, it was decided to concentrate on the dying woman.
“There’s something that stands out and that’s the love of her daughter,” she said. “The woman sees what was done to her was repeated with the daughter and she wants to break the cycle.”
A grant from New Music USA Organizational Fund provided the money to commission Chedid. Additional funding came from the Essex County Division of Cultural Affairs.
According to Verricchio, “Alhayat Raksa” was completed with 13 scenes when, in June 2021, Mosaic Dance received notification of a $8,500 grant from New Music USA. Six months later, In December 2021, Chedid’s compositions were completed. But because of pandemic concerns and the reluctance of musicians to sign for an unspecified performance date, it was decided that his score would be recorded with his playing the uod as its foundation.
Two other musicians were brought in to play the violin and darbouka, which is a drum shaped like a goblet. Synthesized music, created by Vikan Makochian, a recording producer, provided the sounds of additional instruments. The running time of “Alhayat Raksa” is 80 minutes.
“When we can show things like this, it’s good,” Varricchio said. “We’re a female company. We’ve worked with men, but this is uplifting.”
The First Congregational Church of Montclair is located at 40 S. Fullerton Ave. For more information, go to: mosaicdancetheaterco.org.
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