When Rashid al-Hallak was a boy, all of the coffee shops in the Syrian capital had their own storytellers, or hakawatis, who would recite tales deep into the night of great deeds and heroes of the past.
But now the age-old art of public storytelling that he keeps alive is dying out, as young people shun a craft that attracts little money.
Hallak bristles with excitement for his subject, and says he has 180,000 stories in his repertoire, including the epic tales of Antarah ibn Shaddad, famous for his pre-Islamic era poetry, adventures and romantic trysts, and renowned King Zahir Baybars who battled the Crusaders and the Mongols.
“Narrating a story is about acting and attracting, not just reading,” says the sexagenarian storyteller, also known as Abu Shadi.
He held his own against television soap operas during the recent holy month of Ramadan, and all year round he draws the attention of foreign visitors as he stabs his baton to punctuate war scenes and the stilted dialogue of imaginary lovers.
But he fears he may be the last to practice storytelling in Syria where, without state support and recognition, students show no interest in learning a once-venerated tradition.
“You do not eat from this art,” says Abu Shadi. “Who will come and learn?” The token tips that customers leave at Al-Nawfara cafe in the heart of Damascus’s old city, where Abu Shadi narrates nightly, come to no more than US$120 a month, barely enough to support a family.
But this has not deterred the storyteller’s son, 35-year-old Shadi al-Hallak, from choosing a similar vocation — as a shadow puppeteer.
A new campaign, launched by the culture ministry with the cooperation of UNESCO and the EU delegation to Syria, could mean better times ahead for both father and son, however.
Imad Abufakher, director of the ministry’s popular heritage department, says the campaign aims to document and preserve less tangible aspects of Syria’s cultural heritage by spotlighting “human living treasures,” in particular those who perform folkloric songs, dances and stories.
“We want to make an inventory of the cultural elements threatened with oblivion so they are not forgotten,” says Abufakher.
But while Abu Shadi and his son are the only hakawati and shadow puppeteer registered in the campaign, neither has been admitted into Syria’s art syndicates as both lack the required academic credentials.
“If the state does not give salaries and places to teach this art, the craft of storytelling will vanish,” Abu Shadi believes.
His son Shadi says that he cannot perform in any of Syria’s 52 yearly cultural festivals because he does not belong to a vocational syndicate.
“This campaign can help us if it leads to recognition and sponsorship,” he says.
After being excluded from official events two years ago, when Damascus was the Arab capital of culture, the son staged his first performance at the Dar al-Assad theater in July, an event he calls “a breakthrough.”
He then spent much of Ramadan in August and early September casting shadows in Doha after dark, and also performed several puppet shows at the Damascus citadel during the Eid al-Fitr celebrations at the end of the holy month.
Karakoz and Eewaz are the key characters in his shows, two bickering friends building a mosque in the Ottoman period who are eventually beheaded because of their unproductive but entertaining squabble.
During the Ottoman era in Syria, shadow puppets always came on before storytellers in coffee shops, and their politically charged tales were sometimes codified to protect the narrator.
Shadow puppets often had animal bodies to avoid implicating individuals, and stories that started with Karakoz asleep spoke of the ruler while those that opened with religious rituals relayed official news and military movements.
“The shadow puppeteer was the one in charge,” Shadi says. “He was the messenger between the ruler and the people. He puffed up the king’s image when in court and then punctured it out in the streets.”
He recalls the last Syrian shadow puppeteer, Abd al-Razzaq al-Dhahabi, who died in 1994.
“When I opened my eyes to this art he had already been dead six years,” he says sadly.
Self-taught like his father, Shadi spent four years learning how to turn cowhide translucent and paint it with plant pigment to make his puppets.
During a performance, light is shone through the 25cm-tall puppets to cast colorful shadows on to a cloth screen.
Shadi now hopes one day to see puppet-led tours of Damascus’s old city and other key heritage sites around Syria, such as the Roman ruins of Palmyra in the desert and the imposing crusader castle of Krak des Chevaliers.
“When Karakoz and Eewaz are finished touring the planet we will make shadows on the moon,” he says.
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