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23 March 2019 The Curtain Falls on the Guest of Honour’s Cultural Season, At Riyadh International Book Fair : Jassim Al Harban wit Ismail Dawwas Folk Music Band
The Curtain Falls on the Guest of Honour’s Cultural Season, At Riyadh International Book Fair : Jassim Al Harban wit Ismail Dawwas Folk Music Band

The curtain fell on Bahrain Authority for Culture & Antiquities’s cultural program events, launched in parallel to  Riyadh International Book Fair on 14 March 219, with  Bahrain as Guest of Honour, organizing lectures and  exceptional culture, literature, arts events, which were  attended by a selection of intellectuals from Saudi Arabia, poets, researchers and lovers of culture and arts inside and outside the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

During the  last event scheduled by the Guest of Honor, Mr.  Jassim bin Harban gave a lecture on 22 March, in which he highlighted the immensely rich heritage of local Bahraini Fidjeri, Bahrain songs of pearl divers was a huge part of Bahrain history. Al Harban said that  before the oil boom,  most of the laborers worked on jobs relating to the sea: as shipbuilders, sailors, fishermen, and pearl divers.  The pearl divers are known for practicing what is considered Fidjeri Bahrain’s most original and characteristic musical genre, fidjeri, or “sea music.” There are eight genres of fijiri: Sanginni (sung on the beach, not on the boat), Bahri, Adsani, Mkholfi, Haddadi, Hasawi, Zumayya, and Dan, the last two actually being subgenres of Hasawi and Mkholfi respectively. Bahri and Adsani are the two main genres. These songs, consisting of an all-male chorus and solo singer with minimal percussion, often accompanied specific and common actions, like rowing, setting sails, and pulling up the anchor.

Live practical music performance show followed Al-Haraban’s theoretical lecture, whereby a series of Fidjeri dances, the unique Samri singing style linked with the pearl diver and the sea, were performed beautifully.  

Al-Harban also said that the pearl divers and sailors had not the choice or the will to opt for entertainment while at work, but they tend to enjoy this joyful style when the ship is to be repaired of some damage or mechanical dysfunction, or when amenities supply oblige the crew to anchor sail in a nearby port. Then only, sailors and divers, after the approval of the captain “ Nukhadha”, can enjoy themselves.
 
After the lecture presentation, Ismail Dawwas Folk Music Band performed a selection of traditional popular music concert, ending thus a very rich Bahraini cultural season program planned for this international book fair. The event was an opportunity for Bahrain Culture Authority to showcase the diversity of Bahraini culture, attracting a large number of academicians, intellectuals, and lovers of Guest of Honor cultural program during al Riyadh International Book Fair 2019.