ANALYSIS / THOUGHTS

Promenade symphonique dans un paysage musical ou Un jour de fête à El-Oued en 1976

(March 1976 – March 1978) – 32’

Symphonic walk in a musical landscape Or a feastday at El-Oued in 1976

Here how the story is told, and it is actually a symphonic walk carried out through a landscape.

 

It is the morning. A walker accompanied by his wife, his Algerian friends and his tape recorder, comes from the desert. The air is quiet, but the acoustic is inhabited. A tent of Nomads appears between the dunes, women weaving a carpet invite him to take the coffee. The walker takes again his road and penetrates in the city; since his role is to listen and to walk he walks. He visits among other things the market where the symphony of the voices is organized, where rhythms are shaped.

 

It is the afternoon. A man seeing my microphones spontaneously begins to sing a long erotic threnody. Crowd piles up, reacts, the feast organizes itself, several went to seek their old rifle to accompany the song. There is a wedding today. An orchestra of drums emerges on the place, dances and sings during hours.

 

It is the evening. The youyou of the women announces the arrival of the fiancée. A group of old squatted sages sings the Koran by beating the sand with their sandals, while very nice girls dangle their head in rhythm by making fly their splendid hair back- and forwards.

 

It is the night. The orchestra disappears in it by dancing.