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Mothers' laments for war
By Darren Levin
Age , Australia
May 3 2005
Singing for life: a mother and her child in Lullabies Over Palm
Trees.
A celebration of mothers' lullabies brings home the horrors of war,
writes Darren Levin.
It was Mother's Day 2004, and Samia Mikhail - a survivor of war-torn
Lebanon - was glued to the conflict unfolding in Iraq. "I was
watching the war on TV here in Australia, and it re-created the same
feeling I had in Lebanon," she says. "I wanted to stop it, but I
couldn't, so I wrote this idea about mothers singing for their kids,
singing for life. It can be the most beautiful thing."
Mikhail, 43, is artistic director of Lullabies Over Palm Trees, a
one-hour multimedia performance that juxtaposes footage of war with
women on screen and on stage singing to their children.
She spent five months with her husband, a digital artist, shooting
images in Syria, Lebanon, Dubai and Oman.
"There's a lot of images of women who have lost their kids," she
says. "I'm trying to make the presentation more artistic, to reduce
the ugliness of those images. I'm looking for a green area. These
mothers' songs are green areas; they're places of hope."
Not all images, however, were confronting. In Syria, Mikhail
encountered an 80-year-old Palestinian woman who had more than 400
descendants.
Advertisement
Advertisement"She was telling me how independent she was," recalls
Mikhail. "She still sells oil to the local community. During the
shoot, many of her relatives came up to kiss her hand."
Mikhail says each region put their own cultural spin on the songs.
Syrian lullabies, for example, often take on political or historical
themes, such as the killing of Armenians in Eastern Turkey in the
early 1900s, while in Lebanon and Palestine, they sing about sexual
prowess.
"One lady was singing about her son's sexual parts, that he's going
to be a strong man sexually. She was singing about cooking and
feeding the whole neighbourhood because of his (fertility)."
Still, she says, lullabies are bound by a two things: "good wishes"
and a "lot of hope".
"Lullabies are the wishes of mothers for their babies; they hold
female dreams of how life should develop.
"(They) express women's desire for the continuity of life, and they
stand strongly against violence."
Born in Lebanon, Mikhail, a mother of two, studied filmmaking in
Russia and has since directed a number of documentary films screened
on SBS, ABC and at international film festivals. She says the
performance carries a strong anti-war message. "It's fighting against
something I don't like," she says. " I choose humanistic subjects so
that people can connect."
Lullabies
Where Incinerator Arts Complex, 180 Holmes Road, Moonee Ponds
When Friday and Saturday at 7.30pm
How much $15/10/5
Detials Tel: 8325 1750
By Darren Levin
Age , Australia
May 3 2005
Singing for life: a mother and her child in Lullabies Over Palm
Trees.
A celebration of mothers' lullabies brings home the horrors of war,
writes Darren Levin.
It was Mother's Day 2004, and Samia Mikhail - a survivor of war-torn
Lebanon - was glued to the conflict unfolding in Iraq. "I was
watching the war on TV here in Australia, and it re-created the same
feeling I had in Lebanon," she says. "I wanted to stop it, but I
couldn't, so I wrote this idea about mothers singing for their kids,
singing for life. It can be the most beautiful thing."
Mikhail, 43, is artistic director of Lullabies Over Palm Trees, a
one-hour multimedia performance that juxtaposes footage of war with
women on screen and on stage singing to their children.
She spent five months with her husband, a digital artist, shooting
images in Syria, Lebanon, Dubai and Oman.
"There's a lot of images of women who have lost their kids," she
says. "I'm trying to make the presentation more artistic, to reduce
the ugliness of those images. I'm looking for a green area. These
mothers' songs are green areas; they're places of hope."
Not all images, however, were confronting. In Syria, Mikhail
encountered an 80-year-old Palestinian woman who had more than 400
descendants.
Advertisement
Advertisement"She was telling me how independent she was," recalls
Mikhail. "She still sells oil to the local community. During the
shoot, many of her relatives came up to kiss her hand."
Mikhail says each region put their own cultural spin on the songs.
Syrian lullabies, for example, often take on political or historical
themes, such as the killing of Armenians in Eastern Turkey in the
early 1900s, while in Lebanon and Palestine, they sing about sexual
prowess.
"One lady was singing about her son's sexual parts, that he's going
to be a strong man sexually. She was singing about cooking and
feeding the whole neighbourhood because of his (fertility)."
Still, she says, lullabies are bound by a two things: "good wishes"
and a "lot of hope".
"Lullabies are the wishes of mothers for their babies; they hold
female dreams of how life should develop.
"(They) express women's desire for the continuity of life, and they
stand strongly against violence."
Born in Lebanon, Mikhail, a mother of two, studied filmmaking in
Russia and has since directed a number of documentary films screened
on SBS, ABC and at international film festivals. She says the
performance carries a strong anti-war message. "It's fighting against
something I don't like," she says. " I choose humanistic subjects so
that people can connect."
Lullabies
Where Incinerator Arts Complex, 180 Holmes Road, Moonee Ponds
When Friday and Saturday at 7.30pm
How much $15/10/5
Detials Tel: 8325 1750