About Prayer: Sacred Dances:
The Acco Theater Center has created a modern ritual event composed of Sacred dances and Sufi dance, also known as Whirling Dervish. The music is based on the sounds of mystic prayers (Jewish and Muslim) with mystical texts of the Sufi poet Rumi, Jalal al-Din and others. Sufi dance is a meditative technique, which involves the dancer-mediator whirling—circling himself continuously to a state of elation. Sacred dances are 5000-year old rituals originally performed by priest and priestesses in the ancient times. Facing the next millennium with the longing for unity and peace among traditions, this work deals with the search for mutuality of beliefs, for oneness between spiritual paths, and for a holistic peace through art, music, and dance.
"No prayer is complete without presence.” –Rumi
About the creators / performers:
Ibrahim Miari (Actor/Director/Co-Writer) Born in 1975, in Acco City, Israel. Graduated from Western Galilee College in 1997 and the Acco Theatre Center’s Actor Training Program in 1998. A member of the Acco Theatre Center ensemble, Ibrahim has been acting in various plays, commercials, short films, and performing folkloric, sacred dances, and Sufi Dances for nearly ten years. Ibrahim was recently seen in Blood Relative, a world premier at the Traveling Jewish Theatre in San Francisco, CA and in The Tower of Babble in Germany 2005.
Nataly Turjeman: Born in 1980, in Acco City, Israel, graduated from Haifa University: M.A. in Social Theater and Philosophy. A member of the alternative theater ensemble troupe "Shlomi Theater" in north Israel. Nataly has been practicing Sufi dances and Sacred Dances in Acco Theater Center since 2000. In 2001 she participated in the opening event of the Acco Theater Festival in the musical Dance show "Prayer." Nataly was recently seen in the play "Life Work Forgotten Memory" in Shlomi Theater.
About Acco Theater Center: The members of the Center have set themselves two goals in their work. Artistically, they strive for the creation of a unique theatrical language, and socially, they seek active involvement in the community. The theater is physically located in the Old City of Acco, which is inhabited mainly by Arab population and offers fertile ground for the development of mutual relations between the actors (both Jewish and Arab) and the community. After eighteen years, the Acco Theater Center is seen as a unique and important phenomenon in the field of Israeli culture. It is renowned in its encouragement of artistic groups and individual artists to create work out of commitment to their material and a sincere connection to the world in which they are creating.
