Mira Awad
Mira Awad
Singer, songwriter and actress. Born 1975 in Rameh village in the Galilee (Israel) to a
Palestinian father and Bulgarian mother. As a relentless Artivista, Mira makes a point of promoting dialogue through all the art forms she practices. As actress she participated in numerous bi-lingual productions, as singer she has made the point of collaborating with artists from both sides of the conflict, to bring forth a model of co-existence. As writer she created TV formats promoting dialogue, and a TV drama series that deals with the Palestinian-Israeli identity. As composer, Mira developed a unique fusion of sounds, combining the East with the West, weaving the Arabic language and it's oriental ornaments with Western harmonies. She also composes music for film and theatre.
Marina Raydun: I referred to you as a poet once and you corrected me, saying that you’ve
always thought of yourself as a songwriter, not a poet. What is the
relationship between lyrics and poetry?
Mira Awad: Well, I do have the habit of shying away from titles, but after giving your question some thought, I do think a song is some form of a poem after all. Once words are intentionally put together to describe a situation, or an emotion, they are poetry. And like in poetry, lyrics may come in many styles and rhythms, with or without rhymes, they may be strictly structured or freely flowing in an associative manner, this would necessarily affect the way they are put to music.
MR: Is music in your family or did you fall into songwriting on your own?
MA: Yes, music is in my family, both my parents have musical hearing and beautiful singing voices. From my mother's side there are even musicians, in different levels of professionalism. However, as far as I know, I am the first composer. I started writing songs at a very early age, I cannot recall how I started scribbling words and why they became tunes, but nowadays I think maybe if there were existing songs in my language that portrayed the emotions that I had wanted to describe I would not have had the need to write new ones. I may be mistaken of course, and maybe the need to write songs is stronger than circumstance.
MR: What is the first experience you had when you learned that language had
power?
MA: I think I had that realization quite early in life. As I come from a multicultural family, I spoke three languages up to the age of 5, and could connect the different parts of my family together. Although I could not make that assessment as a child, that fact put me in the bridging position early in life.
MR: A couple of years ago you put a few poems by Mahmoud Darwish to music.
What was your biggest challenge with this project? Having asked
that—biggest reward?
MA: The biggest challenge was that the poems were already put to music by a big Lebanese artist called Marcel Khalifeh, and his songs had a big popularity in the Arab world. I had been commissioned to write the music for a theatre play made of Darwish's poems, and felt that the original tunes could not serve the drama depicted on stage, and suggested to the director we re-compose them to serve the play. I did not know how this would be accepted by Palestinian crowds who know the original tunes, and I think opinions are divided regarding this: some appreciate the modern take on the very well known poems, and some feel it was presumptuous of me to even think I could do a better job than Khalifeh (which was never my intent). Regarding the reward, well, besides the actual rewards this project got (I received composer of the year in the theatre awards for that year, and also an award from Acum, the Israeli organization for composers), the biggest reward is when young Palestinians tell me I have revived Darwish for them, and even more, when Israelis , who were usually exposed to Darwish in a demonizing way, tell me I have introduced his poetry to them in a way they can connect to.
MR: You’re a true Renaissance woman—you’re a songwriter, a singer, an actress,
a graphic artist, and a screenwriter. Does your creative method vary from
medium to medium?
MA: Calling it a "creative method" gives me a lot of undeserved credit, as if I have a planned process I go through in order to create. All the medias you mentioned are ways of expression, each one of them appeals to different senses, but all come from the same need to release what is within, whether in shapes, colors, words, melodies or stories. The process may vary, a creation may start from a private or a shared session of improvisation, or from an idea that then needs to take shape. Creativity is my therapy, that’s why I also developed workshops for creativity, to encourage others, who may not consider themselves artists, to uncover the creativity within them as well. I believe we are all born extremely creative, and I believe that when we release these creative energies, we are happier people.
MR: Your upcoming TV Series, Muna, is about a relationship between an Arab
Palestinian living in Tel Aviv and an Israeli Jew from Sderot and what
happens to their bond with the commencement of military operation
Protection Border in Gaza. You are a tireless advocate for peace and
coexistence. Is this project a part of that effort for you? What inspired you to
turn to screenwriting in particular?
MA: My TV drama Muna deals with the same story that I try to tell using all other medias: my identity, as a Palestinian living in Israel. Only this time I chose to bring it forth with a story, and not with a song. While songs may remain in the metaphoric realms, a scenario allowed me to treat the subject more directly, and go more in depth into the conflicts and the complexity. My only experience in scriptwriting comes from being an actress, acting out other people's scripts, and with the years I developed my own taste in what would be a good story or a good scene, and that's what lead me through the process. However, I did have scriptwriter Maya Hefner and director Ori Sivan working with me on Muna, so, although I came up with the story, the series is eventually a joint effort, and the process was yet another big lesson in collaboration.
MR: If you had to do something differently as a child or a teenager to become a
better writer as an adult, what would you do?
MA: I would have worked to release my creative energies more, to learn how to channel my thoughts more freely, something that had taken me years to develop.
That is why I also believe that education for creative thinking should be included in school curriculums.
MR: What, if anything, do you owe real life people who serve as an inspiration for
your characters, be it in a TV show, or perhaps a song?
MA: Everything is inspired by real life, by people I meet, and situations I encounter. Clearly these things get processed through my individual outlook on life, but nothing is created from nothingness.
MR: What question have you always wanted to be asked in an interview?
MA:
Q: "In the eyes of the public, an artist only exists when they share their art. Is it frustrating that people sometimes ask why you disappeared?"
And the answer is: Yes. Sometimes I am frustrated that audiences don't consider the incubation time that I need as an artist, and if I'm not sharing a new song or new concert on my [facebook page], or if I'm not on some morning TV show, then it's as if I'm not doing anything. The truth is that the incubation time, the time that it takes to form a new project, is real life for me. When it is time to share it, it means the creative process has ended and the marketing phase had started, which is nothing about artistic expression and all about sales. I'm sure you can imagine that I would have preferred to remain a private individual in an ongoing creative process, but hey, we all need to make a living somehow.
To learn more about Mira Awad, please visit www.miraawad.co