24/05/2010
MAKAN-(ECCA)
Egyptian Center for Culture and Arts
The Egyptian Center for Culture and Art (ECCA), also known as Makan, is a performance, documentation and archive center for traditional Egyptian music (Zar, Egyptian Gypsies, the Egyptian Delta, wind instruments- arghoul, settawiyya, ballads (mawwawil)...)
Founded in 2002 to record and promote traditional music in Egypt, increasingly in danger of being relegated to the status of an exotic and de-contextualised tourist curiosity or to place on the shelves of academic archives far form daily lives of its dwindling practitioners. ECCA document and present traditional music in Egypt as a vibrant and renewable resource, a multilayered point of reference to the cultural richness of Egyptian music and arts. A number of strategies activities support these aims :
Systematically recording, documenting and archiving current practice so as to make it available to scholars, musicians and to an increasingly broad-based audience.
Promoting an audio aesthetic that respects the integrity of the instruments and voices, an alternative to the aesthetic that imposes echo, reverb and other effects dominating the popular market.
Expanding the audience for this tradition, renewing the lively performer-audience-venue relationship and increasing opportunities for financial self sustainability
Organising encounters among a range of performing artists (musicians, poets, dancers, storytellers), bringing them together in the context of workshops, rehearsals, facilitating their participation in festivals and evnings
Expanding its already substantial network of contacts in order to further cooperation and the establishment of partnerships with a wide range of cultural organisations and scholarly institutions from all over the world.
Makan offers these artists and technicians the basic and necessary infrastructure, together with a simple ambiance and spirit that can inspire the creation of new forms and traditions as a strategy for self-sustainability.
