A concert usually requires an audience to listen. Riahiyat wants them to sing.
The new women-only event, taking place at the Cultural Foundation in Abu Dhabi on August 28, is built around the idea that the audience should be part of the performance rather than simply watching it.
Led by Tunisian singer Lamia Riahi, the evening will draw on Arab Tarab, Tunisian songs and, for the first time in her career, Gulf music.
“I will try to satisfy almost every taste,” Riahi tells The National. “I will sing Arabic music from the eastern Arab world as well as Gulf music.
“This will actually be the first time I perform Gulf songs,” she adds. “But I love it very much and I know many songs by some of the most important Gulf singers.”
There will also be Tunisian songs familiar across the Arab world and music from what Riahi describes as the “golden age”.
The concert will mark Riahi’s first performance in the Gulf.
“This concert is definitely a dream for me,” she says. “I am used to performing concerts, thank God, but I consider this a new and very important step.”
Riahiyat grows out of Riahi’s work in Tunisia, where she runs a private cultural centre and a women’s singing group.
She says the idea comes from a belief that women need spaces where they can step away from the pressures of work and family life.
“I feel women are the group carrying the greatest burden,” she says. “Women are tired.
“A woman needs a way to enjoy herself and relieve that pressure, whether through sport, music or many other things.”
Her sessions bring women together to sing, socialise and dance, with the dancing kept private and not filmed.
Riahi says she has seen participants of different ages gain confidence through the group.
One young woman initially arrived on crutches and needed help from her father to climb the stairs to the centre. After continuing to attend sessions, she appeared at a Mother’s Day concert without them and surprised her mother onstage.
Riahi is careful not to claim a medical role in her improvement.
“I do not claim to be a doctor,” she says. “But what we do makes us happy and gives us a wonderful energy.”
That collective spirit was what drew Sanaa Azzi, co-founder and general manager of Highways Arabia, to Riahi’s work.
“I think that the idea of having all these women gathered in a safe environment and sharing their love for Tarab and old songs is something that I would have liked to experience myself,” Azzi says. “So, let’s bring it to Abu Dhabi.”
Highways Arabia, which Azzi co-founded with Caline Nassif, has been based in Abu Dhabi since 2010.
For Azzi, the women-only format is less about exclusion than about giving women a different kind of shared activity.
“Why don’t we do something where we can just express ourselves, we’re singing and we’re having fun?” she says.
She also sees the format as multigenerational, whether between friends or between mothers and daughters.
The Abu Dhabi edition has been designed to stay rooted in the city’s cultural scene. Riahi will be joined by the women of Chorale El Arab from Arab Choir Abu Dhabi and locally based musicians, under the musical direction of Dr Ahmed Abdel Sattar.
The evening will also open with a short film paying tribute to the progress and achievements of Emirati women, including their contribution to the arts.
The choice of the Cultural Foundation was deliberate.
“Even the furthest seat is still very close to the stage,” Azzi says. “Wherever you are seated, you feel close to the stage, you feel that you are part of the experience.”
That intimacy suits an event built on audience participation, but Azzi acknowledges the concept is also a risk.
Women-only cultural events are often held in smaller, more private settings, she says, and a participatory Tarab night is more niche than a conventional concert.
“This is almost the first thing that we’re daring to do,” she says. “But we wanted to take that challenge and we really hope that we will create something that is nice.”
Organisers are also creating a wall where those attending can leave cards carrying messages to other women, whether it is someone they know or a stranger. Some of those messages are expected to be shared during the month-long Emirati Women’s Day programme.
Riahiyat may also become the starting point for something larger.
Since announcing the event, Azzi says Highways Arabia has heard from women behind dance hubs, singing clubs and other creative initiatives who are interested in collaborating.
“We do not only want to bring experiences to the UAE that have already been done elsewhere,” she says. “What we really want is to create shows with women in the UAE, make them successful, be creative with them and, hopefully, export them.”
“Our dreams and our plans are much bigger than this event,” Azzi says. “But we wanted to start as soon as possible with something. So, we said let’s start with this and build on it, inshallah.”
Riahiyat: An Immersive Ladies’ Tarab Night takes place at the Cultural Foundation Abu Dhabi on August 28 from 8pm; tickets starting at Dh350 are available online
