‘Starring in French, International Play is Universal Opportunity’: Hiba Tawaji Tells Asharq Al-Awsat

Lebanese singer Hiba Tawaji has been celebrating the warm welcome she has received in New York with the group of the “The Hunchback of Notre-Dame” play, in which she plays the main female role.

Since the debut of the play on July 13, and at the end of every show, the audience stands and applauds for several minutes to express their appreciation. At New York’s David Koch Theater, Hiba Tawaji plays the main female character in the play, Esmeralda, the charming gypsy, alongside Angelo Del Vecchio, who plays the bell ringer, hunchback Quasimodo.

During an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat, Hiba Tawaji said she is thrilled to play such a great role on one of the most prominent stages in the world, noting that she’s set to perform 13 shows until July 24, which means she performs twice a day sometimes. But this doesn’t bring her down. On the contrary, “the audience is showing delightful enthusiasm, applaud, and await us outside the theater to take pictures with us. This really touches me and the group, and gives us more motivation,” she said.

Lebanese musician Oussama al-Rahbani who is currently in New York and attended the debut show, described the warm welcome as “amazing”, noting that the audience applauded for 10 minutes for the actors after the first show. “Hiba’s performance was breathtaking, and the abundant congratulations and motivations will make her more focused on the work.” According to Rahbani, many known figures and artists attended the show, including Yuja Wang, one of the world’s greatest pianists, who congratulated Hiba and took a picture with her.

Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre-Dame was turned into a play 25 years ago. Hiba Tawaji was selected to play Esmeralda in 2016, after it was performed by French star Helene Segara. The role opened the door wide for her to stand on the world’s best stages. From Paris’ Palais des Congrès six years ago, Hiba Tawaji started her tours with “The Hunchback of Notre-Dame”.

“We performed in Russia, Turkey, Lebanon, Belgium, Switzerland, and we made a large tour in Taiwan and China. People really love this play. Our top three tours were in Canada and London’s West End. Then, it was the turn of New York, but the play was postponed twice due to the pandemic. Our New York tour was supposed to take place a few years ago,” the Lebanese singer said.

“New York is a city of art, culture, and musicals, it’s full of life and celebrations. To be in such an entertaining, cultural capital is highly significant for me and the group. We feel great to see the audience clapping that much after each performance,” she added.

From a Lebanese singer who shined on the Rahbani theater and built a unique team with Osama al-Rahbani, Tawaji moved to perform in The Voice France, and then to starring in “The Hunchback of Notre-Dame”, which led her to New York. Hiba Tawaji said her journey wasn’t that easy. “Before ‘The Hunchback of Notre-Dame’, I performed a musical, ‘The Return of the Phoenix’ written by the great Mansour al-Rahbani, and musically composed by Osama al-Rahbani. I debuted my theatrical journey 15 years ago from a prestigious and respectful place,” she explained.

“After ‘The Return of the Phoenix’, I performed the main female role in four musicals. I was young back then, in addition to all the albums, concerts, and music videos we presented in the Arabic world. All that helped me handle my new responsibilities, and continue my journey,” she added.

The young Lebanese singer learned how to deal with both the eastern and the western audiences and built a great expertise in audience psychology.

“There are people who have more sharp expressions, while others are calmer, but that doesn’t mean they don’t appreciate what they are watching. When we performed in Taiwan and China for example, the silence surrounding the hall was astounding, we didn’t hear a hiss, for this much they respect what’s happening on stage. But after the show, the applause, shouting, and enthusiasm we heard were unexpected. The play has been ongoing for 25 years, and this means it’s successful and popular,” Tawaji said.

In 2016, the play was officially relaunched, and since then, Hiba Tawaji is touring the world. “We see that spectators love it, request it, and applaud it. Some sing with us, some cry, some laugh, and some clap their hands. The most beautiful thing about New York is the diversity of its audience. There are Americans of course, and there are many other nationalities, and this is so beautiful and flattering,” she said about people’s interaction with her work.

Hiba Tawaji’s journey is exceptional and incomparable in the Arab world. “I don’t think any other Arabic artist had the chance to participate in an international play like The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. I don’t like to speak about others, but I am saying that I am enjoying a universal opportunity to perform as the female protagonist of a French play touring the world. It’s a major step as I am singing in front of an international audience.”

The Lebanese singer doesn’t know how many times she played Esmeralda, “but they are over 500 times for sure, because we make long tours in each country,” she noted.

Hiba Tawaji is preparing a new album with Osama al-Rahbani, and some of its songs are set to launch soon. “It’s a diverse album, we worked with new people, which has given the album a different spirit. I am so excited to launch it because it includes many surprises,” she said about her upcoming album.

According to Osama al-Rahbani, the album was made in Lebanon, Paris, and New York. “It needs around 45 days to release. Two music videos have been produced so far, and we plan for more works,” he explained. Rahbani believes that his success with Hiba Tawaji is driven by her potential and talent. “Work in music needs interaction. It’s a ping pong game, and its success requires two people,” he said.

Since its debut in 1998 by producers Richard Cocciante and Luc Plamondon, “The Hunchback of Notre-Dame” has been performed in 23 countries around the world, and in nine languages. However, New York’s audience enjoyed the show in French with English subtitles.

Two slightly burnt, fat-covered sticks discovered inside an Australian cave are evidence of a healing ritual that was passed down unchanged by more than 500 generations of Indigenous people over the last 12,000 years, according to new research.

The wooden sticks, found poking out of tiny fireplaces, showed that the ritual documented in the 1880s had been shared via oral traditions since the end of the last ice age, a study in the journal Nature Human Behaviour said on Monday, AFP reported.

The discovery was made inside Cloggs Cave in the foothills of the Victorian Alps in Australia's southeast, in a region long inhabited by the Gunaikurnai people.

When the cave was first excavated in the 1970s, archaeologists discovered the remains of a long extinct giant kangaroo that had previously lived there.

But the Gunaikurnai people were not involved in those digs, "nor were they asked for permission to do research there", lead study author Bruno David of Monash University told AFP.

Further excavations starting from 2020 included members of the local Gunaikurnai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporation (GLaWAC).

Carefully digging through the soil, the team found a small stick poking out -- then they found another one. Both well-preserved sticks were made from the wood of casuarina trees.

Each one was found in a separate fireplace around the size of the palm of a hand -- far too small to have been used for heat or cooking meat.

The slightly charred ends of the sticks had been cut specially to stick into the fire, and both were coated in human or animal fat.

One stick was 11,000 years old and the other 12,000 years old, radiocarbon dating found.

"They've been waiting here all this time for us to learn from them," said Gunaikurnai elder Russell Mullett, a co-author of the study and head of GLaWAC.

Mullett spent years trying to find out what they could have been used for, before discovering the accounts of Alfred Howitt, a 19th-century Australian anthropologist who studied Aboriginal culture.

Some of Howitt's notes had never been published, and Mullett said he spent a long time convincing a local museum to share them.

In the notes, Howitt describes in the late 1880s the rituals of Gunaikurnai medicine men and women called "mulla-mullung".

One ritual involved tying something that belonged to a sick person to the end of a throwing stick smeared in human or kangaroo fat. The stick was thrust into the ground before a small fire was lit underneath.

"The mulla-mullung would then chant the name of the sick person, and once the stick fell, the charm was complete," a Monash University statement said.

The sticks used in the ritual were made of casuarina wood, Howitt noted.

Jean-Jacques Delannoy, a French geomorphologist and study co-author, told AFP that "there is no other known gesture whose symbolism has been preserved for such a long time".

"Australia kept the memory of its first peoples alive thanks to a powerful oral tradition that enabled it to be passed on," Delannoy said.

"However in our societies, memory has changed since we switched to the written word, and we have lost this sense."

He lamented that the ancient animal paintings found in French caves would probably "never reveal their meaning" in a similar way.

Indigenous Australians are one of the oldest continuous living cultures, and Mullett said the discovery was a "unique opportunity to be able to read the memoirs of our ancestors".

It was "a reminder that we are a living culture still connected to our ancient past," he added.

juc-dl/bc

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‘Starring in French, International Play is Universal Opportunity’: Hiba Tawaji Tells Asharq Al-Awsat