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All Editorials - Eid Mubarak!
The MC affected a grave dramatic tone, which often didn’t go with the music… or the obscure titles for the videos.
Ah, dancers sitting around. That’s movement? No, sorry, my mistake, one of them just sighed out of obvious boredom.
Yes, kids, this just goes to show that if you try hard enough you CAN touch the sky! My favourite part of the whole show was the effect of the lights on the smoke… pity about the rest of the show, though.
I see where much of the budget for the festivities went. Right up smoke with those spectacular fireworks!
Seeing as though there wasn’t much happening on the Corniche, I thought I’d have fun with manual camera settings… Hmmm, long exposures and fast moving vehicles… and cheaper than the laser display, too!
Being new to Qatar and new to the traditions of Islam, my wife and I decided to go to the Eid Celebrations to experience some of the local culture firsthand. Both of us, along with our Egyptian friend, who came along, were quite disappointed at what we found at the Corniche. While there were many people out, most of them, including ourselves, were driving around looking for non-existent parking.
Those that had parked seemed not to have much to see, and when we finally made it into a parking space, we found little happening, in spite of all the people around. We did hear sounds of music and saw a laser light show, which we followed, and thus found ourselves at the stage behind the giant Orry Oryx statue and the Doha Asian Games Countdown Clock.
Onstage was a show that was bemusing and obnoxiously loud. I didn’t mind that the narrator, who came onstage, droned melodramatically in only Arabic, nor did I object to the blinding laser light show, or the style of music they played. But the volumes coming from the state-of-the-art sound system would have been better suited to a Hard Rock concert.The piercing tones of some of the pieces, played at such high volumes had many audience members rushing for the exit.
If that wasn’t bad enough, the whole show was ambiguous at best. It seemed to be an attempt to dramatise a vague commercial for Qatar, only there was a section of the video that showed snow-covered mountains! The titles for each section confused more than enlightened, and there were dancers who moved about behind the musicians to such poor choreography that at one point had them sitting on stage doing very little except billowing some material occasionally (as a clichéd reference to water I guessed), and raising arms in what I could only interpret to be yawning boredom. Now I’ve seen contemporary movement and dance, at many levels from amateur to professional, so I was astounded at how amateurish the whole show appeared to be.
I really feel that Qatar Tourism should have put less money into the ear-bursting sound system and cornea-frying laser lights (pretty as they were with the smoke) and spent more time, money and effort putting on a thoughtful, well-choreographed show, for the diehard audience who stuck it out. Maybe then there wouldn’t have been so many empty seats.
To their credit, though, the build-up of fireworks over the evening (at many intervals with increasing splendour) encored the cryptic show with a grand finalé worthy of the 1812 overture.
Qatar Tourism may be doing a lot for the State, but it is still disappointing that my wife had to spend a full hour on the internet before finding any information on the schedule of events for the Eid Al Adha Festival. There were signs up around Doha, but they were as disorganised as the show we watched, and poorly designed to boot.
I admit that it was not all bad. The show which followed on the Orry Oryx Stage, looked (from afar, at least) to be much more interesting than the one we saw, but the music was still too loud, even as we walked away disgruntled. I think that next year we’ll take our Egyptian friend’s advice, and spend Eid dancing and revelling with all the locals along the Nile.
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