MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA SET 16-19 (4 DVDS/2 BOOKS)

Four DVDs illustrate 75 music and dance performances. (Also available as individual volumes).

Vol 1 includes Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon and Qatar: Islamic call to worship, military music of the Ottoman, dance of the knives, plucked lute solos and whirling dervishes, hammered dulcimer, Bedouin dances and songs, contemporary Iraqi song, belly dance and traditional mortar pounding and welcoming songs.

Vol 2 includes Egyptian popular song, Tunisian Bedouin dances and classical music, Moroccan Berber dances, and street musicians of Marrakech, along with classical music and a masked dance from Mali. Cameroon music includes praise song, finger piano, calabash, animal horn flutes, bowed instruments and minstrel poets, along with a village drum performance, Zaire's Mbuti dances and Tanzania's Masai dances.

Vol 3 visits Chad's town orchestras, a dambio festival dance, hero praise song traditions, tribal pleasure dances, children's dances and dances of Arab people. A Cameroon memorial ceremony and mourning music by a mask clan are included.

Vol 4 takes us to the Ivory Coast for bow harp singing, drum language and several tribal masked dances, children's dances, stilt dances and a dance of the leopard association. Botswana's bushmen perform musical bow, hand piano and song and trance-dances for healing. South African Zulu share a lullaby accompanied by musical bow and a wedding ceremony. A 136-page book completes the anthology with background information.