Dr. Wajih Kanso is devoted to Janoubia with a weekly article published exclusively on the website’s pages and platforms.
Like most Lebanese, I was watching with great anticipation the last episode of America Got Talent, in which the final results of the first winner among ten contestants were announced, each with a special and distinctive talent, which made the competition strong and intense. During the episode, I had a fear: that Mayas’ group’s chances would be lower than some of the competitors who showed remarkable self-possession and potential, and that the taste of the American viewer who prefers entertainment, that is, direct performances, is more than new shows to him and perhaps a little strange to him his background and culture.
Mayyas, since her first appearance, did not come to compete or even win, but rather came to present a scene, a picture, a life painting, a text full of semantics, and functions overflowing with meanings.
I asked myself the following question: What makes Mayas band distinguished from other competing talents, which he would nominate to win the title? That is, if this group is destined to win, on what basis? As a result of this question, I noticed that Mayas band did not present itself with a special talent to be compared with the rest of the talents, and on the basis of which the differentiation and comparison were made between the ten competing talents. That is, it was not the issue of appointing the most talented and the most professional, since Mayas, since her first appearance, did not come to compete or even win, but came to present a scene, a picture, a life painting, a text full of semantics, and functions overflowing with meanings.
Mayass band did not attract the audience and viewers just for talent, quality of performance and harmony of rhythm, despite the availability of all that in the band, but rather it brought them all to another world they did not expect, a creative, innovative, artist world, brimming with vitality, feelings, aspirations and hopes. A world they were attracted to and were guests in it, so the distance diminished and even vanished between the presenter and the one presented to him, between the seer and the visible, until they became one within the scope of a common existence. Everyone who attended and witnessed that he had within this scope something of his lost, forgotten, stolen or contemplated reality. Something from his secret past, his silent sadness, his scattered desire, his shy joy, his awkward freedom, his impossible dreams, his distant expectations.
Mayas came with a burdened conscience: a nation’s wound, a people’s pain, an indelible memory of death, anger that wants to erupt in all directions.
Mayas was more than a game of competition or competition between talents. She came with a heavy conscience: the wound of a homeland, the pain of a people, a memory of death that does not fade, anger that wants to erupt in all directions. But what Mayas did was that she did not come to elicit sympathy or sympathy, nor to curse predestination, nor to urge revenge or punishment, nor to incite hatred. What she did is that she transformed and transformed those who watched her, even for a few minutes, into other people living new lives, another meaning, a different reality, a horizon of change, an innovative lifestyle. My imagination, yes, but it is possible and permissible, innovative and industrial, but it is hidden within us as the potential for emergence and verification.
Mayas presented itself not only as a talent, a craft, or a quality of performance, but as an event, an act of innovation, a force of creation.
Mayas presented itself not only as a talent, a craft, or a quality of performance, but as an event, an act of innovation, a force of creation. Any creative synthesis and merging of multiple talents, a spectacle that has faded and melted and the talents, talents, energies and desires, whether on stage or behind, before or during the performance, were hidden within it. Everyone was a sparkling unity that radiated with abundance, an abundance of signs, body movement, and melodies, all converging and intertwined in one fluid and flowing language, uniting and rippling in a turbulent, calm and violent rhythm, to reveal the magic of a forgotten existence, and reveal the good news of the new man coming, the man who is not satisfied with resisting what It restricts and hinders it, but rather the person who constantly dares to transcend himself.
Mayas band deserved the title, not because its talents are the best, but because it is an unprecedented event in the program that carries within it the energy of changing the world.
Mayas band deserved the title, not because their talents are the best, but because according to program founder Simon Cowell, an unprecedented event in the program carries within it the energy of changing the world. As for us, the Lebanese, Mayas band revived in us the image of a cheerful and dazzling homeland, but it is a homeland in eternal alienation from its land, water and sun, a homeland exiled to the land of distant dreams.