Róisín El Cherif
Cube, Project Arts Centre, Dublin
★★★★★
The Cube at Project Arts Centre, in Temple Bar, fits about 65 people in its six rows of seats, which cascade down to a small, red-lit stage that tonight features four empty chairs and a lone microphone. Before Róisín El Cherif and her band emerge, a scene from Leila and the Wolves, Heiny Srour’s part-drama, part-documentary from 1984, is projected on to the backdrop.
The film is a testament to Palestinian and Lebanese women, and the agency of women whose stories are lost when history is written. When El Cherif comes out on stage she greets a very full, very quiet room.
The Irish-Palestinian artist from Galway makes finely crafted music that blends Irish, English and Arabic. She describes most of tonight’s set as a mixture of Arabic anthems and new material. She begins with the first of those anthems, which consists only of isolated vocals and gentle percussion on a bodhrán.
When the band take their places they’re armed with a harp, cello, violin and DJ controller. The different musical cultures are stitched together smoothly: although the gig is just an hour long, it features an expansive and ambitious set list.
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The music is punctuated by more visuals, including clips from Jenin, Jenin, the Palestinian director Mohammad Bakri’s 2002 documentary. At times the string section weaves into the score of a scene as it fades out, inviting the start of another song.
El Cherif is as capable of a clean, theatrical pop vocal as she is of a deeper, more guttural lament. This is most clear in her cover of Kate Bush’s Running up That Hill, which precedes her standout, final track, the beguiling, mournful Siúil a Rúin.
The weight of the evening is lost on nobody. El Cherif has long been a formidable voice for Palestine in Ireland. It is telling that this show, raw in its shape and experience, is dedicated to sharing other people’s stories and painting extensive pictures of the two worlds she knows. As she herself predicts, the next one will be 10 times bigger.
