Latif Bolat brings to Kaua‘i once again his “healing sounds of ancient Turkey,” with several evenings of mystic music, poetry and images, including public concerts and lectures beginning this Friday, Jan. 6, with a 6 p.m. lecture on Turkish mystic
Latif Bolat brings to Kaua‘i once again his “healing sounds of ancient Turkey,” with several evenings of mystic music, poetry and images, including public concerts and lectures beginning this Friday, Jan. 6, with a 6 p.m. lecture on Turkish mystic culture, at Church of the Pacific at Princeville, followed by a 7 p.m. concert.
He’ll repeat the lecture-concert schedule this Saturday, Jan. 7, at Steelgrass Ranch in Kapa‘a (please see the Web site, www.power-of-music.org), at 5730 ‘Olohena Rd., with the lecture at 6 p.m. and the concert at 7 p.m.
This Sunday, Jan. 8, he’ll be at the Talk Story Books, Cafe & Gallery on Hanapepe Road in Hanapepe, at 7 p.m., where special guests from the Garden Nile Bellydance Troupe will also perform.
The event at Talk Story has blossomed into an Indian and Middle-Eastern Event Night, with an Indian and Middle-Eastern dinner being served at 5:30 p.m. for $15 a plate, followed by an hour of belly dance from members of the Garden Nile Bellydance Troupe at 6 p.m., followed by Bolat’s show.
For more information about the Hanapepe event, please call 335-6469.
Tickets are $10 to $12 at each location. Please call 821-1857 for more information.
Latif Bolat’s Web site is www.latifbolat.com, and the Garden Nile Bellydance Troupe Web site is www.gardennilebellydance.
com.
Traveling from the Mediterranean city of Mersin in Turkey, Bolat plays Turkish folk ballads and ecstatic devotional Sufi songs, he said.
These are the ritualistic music and poetry of the Anatolian mystics since the 12th century, he explained.
From the years of the Crusaders and Genghis Khan’s destruction in the Middle East to the present days, people found great comfort in this Sufi culture, he related.
Throughout the programs, Bolat will also recite devotional poetry from 13th-century Sufi poets Yunus Emre and Rumi, and will show images of Turkish people and sacred places from the land of Anatolia.
Among the instruments Bolat will play is the saz, or long-necked lute.
Now residing part of the year in Santa Fe, N.M., Bolat has presented his music all across America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Singapore, Bulgaria, Spain, Turkey, Philippines and England.
In addition to the concerts and lectures around the world, he has recorded four CDs, made many TV and radio appearances, and composed music for the PBS documentary “Muhammed: Legacy of a Prophet” and George Lucas’ TV series “Young Indiana Jones.” With poet Jennifer Ferraro, he translated a compilation of ancient Turkish Sufi poets, entitled “Quarreling with God: Mystic Rebel Poems of the Dervishes of Turkey,” which will be published in September by White Cloud Press.
