The New York Critic: Reviews

Four Mystics Minus Two
The Sufi Liturgy of the Great Ummayad Mosque
presented by The World Music Institute

The Whirling Dervishes of Damascus and the Sheikh Hamza Shakkur Al-Kindi Ensemble presented The Sufi Liturgy of the Great Ummayad Mosque of Damascus recently (at Skirball Center in New York, presented by The World Music Institute). There were meant to be fours dervishes, but two were denied visas, as was one of the musicians. New York was honored to host them, and the concert was a marvelous artistic and worshipful event.

The songs have the majestic reverence of prayer:
"Oh God, I begin my entreaties by praising your goodness.
In humility and acceptance I turn to you."

Instruments included the qana (zither), ney (reed flute), 'ud (lute), and riqq (tambourine). The music is intricate and subtle, and all the more engaging for its strangeness. As Hamlet advised, "As a stranger give it welcome."

From time to time the dervishes would stand and begin their extraordinary ritual. They start by walking in small circles, about four feet in diameter. As the music intensifies, they begin to whirl, counter clockwise, accelerating until they reach about 60 rpm's. They rotate on the left heel, with their eyes closed. This lasts for perhaps ten minutes, during which their splendid white gowns billow around them like great sugar bells. They return to their seats with perfect composure.

The position of the arms is important. It varies within a piece, and with the dancer, sometimes symmetrical, sometimes not, always with the elbows bent, the fingers pointing down or up, sometimes with a hand before the face as if the dervish were examining his palm through his closed eyelids. In certain positions they're channeling energy from heaven to earth. I've also been told that the various positions stimulate various parts of the brain. They are unquestionably deliberate.

The ceremony is firstly a form of worship. The Mawlawiyya (order of the dervishes) is a brotherhood of Sufism, the mystical branch of Islam. The name of the ritual is sama; it's a spiritual listening. Sama developed in Turkey in the twelfth century, and spread to the neighboring Islamic countries.

There's no dissonance here between worship and performing. The perfomer is a priest (as in most priesthoods, these were all men). They were whirling for all of us.

Steve Capra
9-08

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