In February 2020 Waris Dirie: Her Touching Fate Becomes a Musical
KLEINE ZEITUNG
2019.03.07.
In St. Gallen you can see the story of the ex-model Waris Dirie, who points to worldwide genital mutilation with her novel “Desert Flower”.
The story of the Somali nomadic girl, who has undergone female genital mutilation when she was five years old, fled the forced marriages with an old man at the age of 13, and later became a top model, touched the world. The Theater St. Gallen makes the life story of Waris Dirie a musical that will be premiered on February 22, 2020.
It was Waris Dirie himself, who had been looking for a musical producer for some time, announced Werner Signer, director of the St. Gallen theater, to the media on Thursday. The former UN Special Envoy is campaigning against the female genital mutilation (FGM) with her organization Desert Flower Foundation. The musical wants to put the message on a broader footing and reach out to younger people in particular, Signer said.
Dramatic substance
The socio-political history is an unusual material for a musical, said opera director Peter Heilke. A musical is not just nice entertainment, but absolute theater and great opera at the same time. The story of the dramatic escape through the desert, the triumph as a model, life in London in the 1980s screams to be told as complex as it could only a musical.
Two scenes from the musical, whose cast will be announced this autumn, were played by a singer and the musical makers Uwe Fahrenkrog-Petersen (music) and Frank Ramond (lyrics). The song “A Day in Africa” describes the first return of the top model to the African desert in 1996.
Waris Dirie listened intently and clapped her hands enthusiastically. She suffers from her brutal fate and does not really like to talk about herself, she later told the Keystone SDA: “I can not forget what was done to me, but I’m still alive,” said Dirie.
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