French duo takes audience on enticing cultural voyage

Kuwait Times
Apr 04, 2005

KUWAIT: The Ambassador of France Claude Losguardi and the Secretary
General of the National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters Badr
Abdulwahab Al-Rifaei hosted a pleasant evening for the Francophonie
music and lyrics connoisseurs in Kuwait. The visiting French duo
LUK.M turned the hall into a ship travelling from a place to place
along the Mediterranean. Performing in many languages, reciting
contemporary verse and tunes of few musical instruments, the art
show turned into a cultural voyage. The musical-recital called
Mediterranees (Mediterraneans) was hosted at the Abdelaziz Hussain
Cultural Centre in Mishref suitable with its acoustic and spacious
dimension on Saturday. The multi artistic duo of the contemporary
French comedian Fredericue Wolf-Michaux and the French clarinet
player Cedric Lecellier received great applause for performing in
all the languages of the Mediterranean countries. Addressing the
audience before the stage succumbed to the talent of the duo, Sylvain
Fourcassie, Cultural Attache of the French embassy in Kuwait, said:
“The evening will be filled with contemporary poetry by authors from
the Mediterranean region”.

Talking to Kuwait Times after the performance Fourcassie referred to
Wolf- Michaux as contemporary actress and director with exclusive
vocal qualities. Summarising the evening’s sally along many of the
Mediterranean countries, performers made a halt in places where
Greek music and poetry, Portuguese sensuality of lyrics and Spanish,
Palestinian and Turkish authors, could not but entice the audience.
The powerful and emotional poetry of Palestinian Mahmoud Darwish,
transcending reality into words and depicting the struggle, pain and
sorrow of his native land sparked off great applause and appreciation
among the audience. The international artistic event of Serbo-Croatian
and Armenian poetry recital and personifying “the spirit of the
Mediterranean,” as Fourcassie said, with the medium of traditional
songs from all over represented a variety of nations, lands and
habits. Topics as eternal as the hope, land, motherland, love and the
sea were the current motives in the poetry presented by the LUK.M duo.