VOA标准英语2013--Arab-Israeli Singer Bridges Cultures Through Music

 

Arab-Israeli Singer Bridges Cultures Through Music

NEW YORK — Arab-Israeli songwriter and pop star Mira Awad began her weeklong run at New York’s Metropolitan¹ Room by singing a traditional tune² from the Arab village in northern Israel where she was born in 1975 to a Palestinian father and a Bulgarian mother.

“It comes from the belly³. It doesn’t come from thinking," Awad said of her music. "It doesn’t come from a planned way of singing like opera or like the Western kind of singing which is very calculated. This is much more passionate⁴ like flamenco, like these things that come from the blood. Like we say: 'We have hot blood.' It’s not by accident.”

There is a different sort of heat in the soulful Europop songs Awad’s fans are most familiar with. All My Faces is the title song from her 2011 album.     

“It only tackles the level of my womanhood, but it’s like that about everything," Awad said. "We all have many faces. No one is one thing. That’s boring. We are all made out of many many many many layers.”     

Awad says this Western, unabashedly sensual style of music would raise eyebrows⁵ in her hometown, although the village is relatively⁶ modern compared to many Palestinian communities in Israel’s Galilee region.  

“But nevertheless, it’s an Arab culture and still it is very patriarchal and the father decides for the family, the man decides for the woman," she said. "A woman is expected to, OK, go study, go work, but choose family life eventually, and I didn’t. I wanted a career. I wanted to go follow my passions. The word ‘passions’ is scary one in the culture I come from. A woman having passions is scary. It’s a woman you cannot control.”

Awad’s history of protest and activism began at the age of 16, when she began started to play in her own rock and roll band. The neighbors would often gossip when she’d get picked up in the village by her band mates, all of whom happened to be male, for the drive to Nazareth to rehearse.

“It was very difficult for them to understand how come my father is letting me do that and they even started to interfere⁷ with the upbringing [saying] ‘Take hold of your daughter. Put her in her place,’" Awad said. "So actually that is the place I started from protesting, to have an equal say, to have any say at all,  about my own life and to choose differently if I liked to, as a woman.”

Awad left the confines of village life as soon as she could and enrolled⁸ at the university in Haifa, a city unusual in Israel for its mixed Jewish and Arab population. Awad had never defined herself in ethnic⁹ terms, because everyone she grew up with was Arab.

But on campus, her fair skin and green eyes did not fit the common stereotype¹⁰ of what Palestinians look like. Jewish students thought she was also Jewish, and felt free to express their true feelings about Arabs in her presence.

“I suddenly started to realize how much racism¹¹ there is against Palestinian citizens of Israel and I’m hearing this and my blood was boiling in my veins,” Awad said.

Although Awad is well known in Israel and Europe for her songs about life and love, she is perhaps best known for her songs about peace, justice and equality. In 2009, she and Jewish Israeli singer Noa were chosen by the Eurovision Song Contest to sing her song There Must Be Another Way about forging peace between their two peoples.

But Awad says her hopes go far beyond Israel and Palestine.  

“I believe we have to go together as a human race and try to figure out how we share the resources of this poor planet that we’re on,” she said.      

These days, one of Awad’s favorite instruments is a friend’s cracked flute¹² she saved from the trash. She says she has learned to honor life’s imperfections – that, like the poet  Leonard Cohen, she believes that “there’s a crack in everything; that’s how the light gets in.” 

1 metropolitan   

adj.大城市的，大都会的

参考例句：

• Metropolitan buildings become taller than ever.大城市的建筑变得比以前更高。
• Metropolitan residents are used to fast rhythm.大都市的居民习惯于快节奏。

2 tune   

n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整

参考例句：

• He'd written a tune,and played it to us on the piano.他写了一段曲子，并在钢琴上弹给我们听。
• The boy beat out a tune on a tin can.那男孩在易拉罐上敲出一首曲子。

3 belly   

n.肚子，腹部；(像肚子一样)鼓起的部分，膛

参考例句：

• The boss has a large belly.老板大腹便便。
• His eyes are bigger than his belly.他眼馋肚饱。

4 passionate   

adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的

参考例句：

• He is said to be the most passionate man.据说他是最有激情的人。
• He is very passionate about the project.他对那个项目非常热心。

5 eyebrows   

眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Eyebrows stop sweat from coming down into the eyes. 眉毛挡住汗水使其不能流进眼睛。
• His eyebrows project noticeably. 他的眉毛特别突出。

6 relatively   

adv.比较...地，相对地

参考例句：

• The rabbit is a relatively recent introduction in Australia.兔子是相对较新引入澳大利亚的物种。
• The operation was relatively painless.手术相对来说不痛。

7 interfere   

v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰

参考例句：

• If we interfere, it may do more harm than good.如果我们干预的话，可能弊多利少。
• When others interfere in the affair,it always makes troubles. 别人一卷入这一事件，棘手的事情就来了。

8 enrolled   

adj.入学登记了的v.[亦作enrol]( enroll的过去式和过去分词 )；登记，招收，使入伍（或入会、入学等），参加，成为成员；记入名册；卷起，包起

参考例句：

• They have been studying hard from the moment they enrolled. 从入学时起，他们就一直努力学习。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He enrolled with an employment agency for a teaching position. 他在职业介绍所登了记以谋求一个教师的职位。 来自《简明英汉词典》

9 ethnic   

adj.人种的，种族的，异教徒的

参考例句：

• This music would sound more ethnic if you played it in steel drums.如果你用钢鼓演奏，这首乐曲将更具民族特色。
• The plan is likely only to aggravate ethnic frictions.这一方案很有可能只会加剧种族冲突。

10 stereotype   

n.固定的形象，陈规，老套，旧框框

参考例句：

• He's my stereotype of a schoolteacher.他是我心目中的典型教师。
• There's always been a stereotype about successful businessmen.人们对于成功商人一直都有一种固定印象。

11 racism   

n.民族主义；种族歧视(意识)

参考例句：

• He said that racism is endemic in this country.他说种族主义在该国很普遍。
• Racism causes political instability and violence.种族主义道致政治动荡和暴力事件。

12 flute   

n.长笛；v.吹笛

参考例句：

• He took out his flute, and blew at it.他拿出笛子吹了起来。
• There is an extensive repertoire of music written for the flute.有很多供长笛演奏的曲目。