In music and dance, Sudanese performers transport refugee audiences back home

CAIRO: As the performers took the stage and the traditional drum beat gained momentum, Sudanese refugees sitting in the audience were moved to tears. Hadia Moussa said the melody reminded her of the country’s Nuba Mountains, her family’s ancestral home.

“Performances like this help people mentally affected by the war. It reminds us of the Sudanese folklore and our culture,” she said.

Sudan has been engulfed by violence since April 2023, when war between the Sudanese military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces broke out across the country. 

The conflict has turned the capital, Khartoum, into an urban battlefield and displaced 4.6 million people, according to the UN migration agency, including more than 419,000 people who fled to Egypt.

A band with 12 Sudanese members now lives with thousands of refugees in Egypt. The troupe, called “Camirata,” includes researchers, singers and poets who are determined to preserve the knowledge of traditional Sudanese folk music and dance to keep it from being lost in the ruinous war.

Founded in 1997, the band rose to popularity in Khartoum before it began traveling to different states, enlisting diverse musicians, dancers and styles. 

They sing in 25 different Sudanese languages. Founder Dafallah El-Hag said the band’s members started relocating to Egypt in recently, as Sudan struggled through a difficult economic and political transition after a 2019 popular uprising unseated longtime ruler Omar Bashir. Others followed after the violence began. El-Hag arrived late last year.

The band uses a variety of local musical instruments on stage. El-Hag says audiences are often surprised to see instruments such as the tanbour, a stringed instrument, being played with the nuggara drums, combined with tunes of the banimbo, a wooden xylophone.