Sowt al Ard (The Sound of the Earth) is a multidisciplinary performance that weaves together opera, Arabic instrumentation, Levantine dabke, projections, and sensory immersion to explore ancestral memory, identity, grief, and interconnection. The project functions as a living, breathing ritual of remembrance and resistance, asking: What stories does the earth carry, and how do we listen?

The performance is structured as a journey through the ways humans experience the earth through their senses. Each element highlights a different dimension, sound, smell, touch, memory, and voice, inviting audiences into an immersive encounter with culture, history, and ritual.

At the beginning, dancers move among the audience carrying traditional incense  (dispersed through the theatre using essential oils instead of traditional incense), a fragrant resin that evokes memory. Center stage, an instrumentalist plays the oud, enveloped by the aroma, while a vocal improvisation celebrates the beauty of the Levant. Music and scent intertwine, connecting personal and cultural memory. The improvisation is interrupted by an operatic voice representing the earth, accompanied by projected images of homeland, migration, and displacement. Adapted lyrics in Arabic and Italian confront erasure, diaspora, and inherited trauma while offering moments of healing and reclamation.

This operatic piece is interrupted by an older woman’s chant traditionally sung by women of the Levant, mourning loss of home.  The dancers dressed in traditional falaheen (workers of the land) dresses, come on stage and start reciting the aweeha, an Arabic call used by women in Palestinian folk traditions to express celebration in poetic form. The vocal invocation anchors the work in the voice of women as keepers of cultural memory.  The music gradually transforms into a celebratory folkloric dance, signaling resilience, connection and the interweaving of sorrow and joy.  Projected images show water turning dirt into mud, leaving footprints alongside maternal imprints. The ritual concludes with the planting of seeds, symbolizing growth, memory, and continuity.

Throughout, vocal and instrumental elements shift to convey grief, loss, and the universal experience of mourning. Traditional lamentation rituals are performed, followed by improvisatory instrumentation and vocal ornamentations, echoing cultural memory and ancestral voices. Images of olive trees and the land’s natural beauty are projected as the performance transitions to celebration, with call-and-response vocal traditions and lively folkloric dance. Low-frequency bass drums called tabls are incorporated, producing vibrations that are both felt and heard, connecting the body to the earth and the soundscape.

The performance culminates in a return to collective traditions, recalling the origins of dabke as a communal ritual of work, celebration, and shared music. The final musical sequence blends operatic and folkloric elements, closing the journey in song and movement that honors continuity, resilience, and connection.

Sowt al Ard is rooted in the belief that sound holds power beyond language, it heals, provokes, and reconnects us to what has been lost or silenced. By integrating Arab aesthetics, storytelling, and ritual into the operatic form, the work challenges Western classical conventions and centers Arab and SWANA histories and sonic landscapes.

Ultimately, audiences leave, awakened to the power of voice, sound, and memory. They feel the vibration of resistance, the tenderness of grief, and the earth singing back their own stories.

Runtime: 1 hour

Ages: All Ages

Content Advisory: mild flashing lights and regularly occurring references to grief.