Dream City 2019
Transe - Amir Elsaffar
The purpose of this project is revive Stambeli practices in the streets of the Medina of Tunis during the period of the Dream City Festival, and to bring this ritual to the streets of European cities in 2020 and beyond. The music was performed by a transnational ensemble consisting of 12 musicians coming from Tunisia, as well as Morocco, Mali and joined by Amir ElSaffar on the trumpet. Although these musicians come from a wide geographical area, the basic musical language and the ritualistic practices bear many similar traits.
This project addresses humanity’s history of slavery and unequal power dynamics, through the collective ritualistic practice open to participation and integration. Thus this project aims to create a unique space for meaningful interactions between Sub-Saharan and North African people, beliefs, histories, and aesthetics, therefore allowing the conditions for a collective healing and re-forming lost connections.
DREAM CITY is a multidisciplinary contemporary art festival organized outdoors and in public spaces exhibiting works resulting from an artistic manufacturing process of more than a year, during which Tunisian and foreign artists are invited to innovate in their artistic practices by make it in situ in a close relationship with the territory and the populations.
Created by Sofiane and Selma Ouissi, the DREAM CITY concept was born in November 2007 and continued in 2010, 2012, 2013, 2015 and 2017. It is part of the Tunisian artistic community as an act of challenge around an aesthetic contemporary.
DREAM CITY takes place in the Medina of Tunis, its usual or unusual places, carriers of social life, culture or heritage such as cafes, houses, chapels, restaurants, schools, squares or alleys, are the places for the dissemination of contextual original creations of the artists.
