Festival helps accentuate Sudanese positives

Photo: Rebecca Hallas IT WAS singing that stopped Plath Diar's spirits from sinkingduring the four years he spent in Egypt waiting for a country toaccept him after he fled his conflict-torn homeland of Sudan. "It helped me to forget a lot of the issues. It refreshed mesometimes," he said. When Diar escaped over the border into Egypt, he took with him arepository of songs from his Dinka culture. Advertisement: Story continues below He had been singing since the age of two at home, at school andin church and in 1994, the 17-year-old was placed second in anational competition, singing in Arabic. It was the equivalent of Australian Idol and he camesecond, he said shyly. But Diar who worked for the United Nations as a courier whilefinishing school had to give up all thoughts of taking his singingfurther after he went into hiding from army "recruiters" for thenext two years. In Egypt, while he waited for his wife and children to join him,he busily worked two jobs and it was another two years before hehad time to sing again -for the exiled Sudan community and for hispolitical party, the Sudan People's Liberation Army/Sudan People'sLiberation Movement. Now after seven years in Australia, the 34-year-old father offive has resumed singing and performs tomorrow afternoon withHeartland, a big band that opens the Footscray-based Big Westfestival in its debut performance. Heartland, formed especially at the request of the annualfestival, consists of 12 musicians six from the Horn ofAfrican countries, Sudan, Ethiopia and Eritrea, and six othermusicians and seven dancers from the Horn of Africa. During Rosetta Stone Arabic last year's festival, Diar looked on longingly as heheard music out of his childhood performed by someone else. He is thrilled that this year he is one of three singers withHeartland, each singing in songs from their traditional culture, intheir first language. The St Albans based singer who works as a driving instructorsaid: "The media sometimes has trouble with the Sudanese. I triedmy best to make a good reputation for the Sudanese because somehowwe must try to solve the problems in a different way." The festival is a way to show the wider community "we have aculture but we are also artists and we can do our best. It is notalways the negative". Duncan Foster, Heartland's musical director and bass player saidit was formed "to present a band from each of the [Horn of Africa]communities with musicians of professional standing and to takesome music from each community and to form a big band with a fullhorn section [typical of much African music] and dancers". "We hope the communities are proud of the musicians they havehere and see their best musicians on stage working with otherpeople," he said. "A lot of these musicians were professionals in their owncountries and they come here and while having to hold down a job,try to promote their art. It is Australian music too now." The Big West Festival, held around the Footscray Mall andMaddern Square, runs for nine days with the Big Backyard openingweekend party today in which the area's diverse cultures "collide"through music, art and food.

Posted in: Rosetta Stone,Rosetta Stone Outlet,rosetta stone software,Rosetta Stone SoftwareRosetta Stone,Rosetta Stone V3