Iness Mezel & Nora Abdoun Berber Duo

10th February 2023

Award-winning singer and songwriter Iness Mezel, performs a duo with her life-long friend and bandmate Nora Abdoun who is also Berber from Algeria and plays traditional percussion like the “Bendir” a frame drum emblematic of Berber/Amazigh* identity, a two thousand-year-old culture which has long suffered and still suffers from oppression and invisibility.

This unique duo explores an audacious combination between the Amazigh traditional style where a voice is only backed by percussion with a different musical approach in the use of some unexpected soft percussion and vocal melodic contour and colouring.

As a singer songwriter Iness has won some important awards including “Best African Female Artist” and “Best North African Artist” at the ‘All Africa Music Awards’ in Johannesburg where she received the awards from King Sunny Ade and Myriam Makeba.

Iness sings in Tamazight language and more specifically in Taqbaylit from Kabylie/Algeria, emotive chants and more upbeat songs driven on by the sometimes stately, sometimes wildly rhythmic percussion of Nora who inherited her gift from her father's lineage whose clan accompanied the rituals and ceremonies.

At the intersection of the fight for women’s rights and Amazigh cultural recognition, two women raising awareness in recalling the heritage of their unsubdued Amazigh ancestors, celebrating their eager for freedom and their independent spirit.

The duo gives a spell-binding performance as a window on the power and beauty of a secretive culture.

Tickets: £12/ £10 concessions

Doors: 7:30pm, Show 8pm

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