Amman — The Jordanian Writers Association highlighted the experience of Jordanian director Ahmad Daibes during a cultural event that discussed the presence of the Jordanian narrative in television drama and the importance of the screen in preserving the features of local identity and presenting them through an artistic narrative capable of reaching Jordanian and Arab audiences.
اضافة اعلان
The event, titled “Jordanian Narrative and Television Drama,” was held Monday evening in cooperation with the Ministry of Culture and the Royal Cultural Center at the association’s headquarters. It was attended by a number of writers, critics, intellectuals, and professionals working in the fields of art, culture and media.
The event featured director Daibes’ experience in a discussion of his artistic career and work in television directing, particularly his contribution to Jordanian Bedouin drama and the images, characters, dialect and details drawn from Jordanian culture, environment and collective memory that his work has presented.
Daibes was interviewed by Dr. Ali Al-Shawabkeh in a discussion covering key stages of his artistic career and professional development, as well as his approach to working with scripts, actors and visual storytelling. The conversation also explored his vision for presenting the Jordanian Bedouin environment as a cultural and narrative component within television drama.
The discussion examined Daibes’ use of the Jordanian Bedouin dialect in developing characters and dialogue, as well as his familiarity with details of Bedouin life, including customs, behaviors, clothing, accessories, tools and visual elements. These details contribute to giving productions their distinctive character and ensuring consistency with the environment they portray.
Daibes’ experience was also examined through the concept of Robert Sternberg’s “successful intelligence,” as a framework for understanding how artists develop their knowledge and skills through learning, practice and experience, and transform what they acquire into tools that contribute to building and advancing their creative work.
The Jordanian narrative was a central focus of the discussion, with participants emphasizing the importance of television drama in presenting Jordan’s cultural and social identity, particularly as the local narrative draws on history, memory, heritage and a wide diversity of environments, characters, dialects and customs.
In this context, Daibes presented a number of ideas and proposals for developing Jordanian television drama and strengthening the presence of local identity within it. These included greater attention to Jordanian content, making use of elements of cultural and national memory, and presenting them through artistic treatments capable of engaging audiences both inside and outside Jordan.
The discussion emphasized that protecting Jordanian identity in drama does not mean turning inward. Rather, it requires an accurate understanding of the local environment, culture and collective memory, followed by transforming that knowledge into artistic work capable of connecting with Arab and international audiences.
In this regard, Daibes’ experience in Bedouin drama emerged as a space for highlighting aspects of Jordanian culture and social memory through imagery, characters, dialect and everyday details, along with the meanings they carry in relation to place, society and ways of life.
Participants also discussed the importance of documenting the experiences of Jordanian artists who contributed to the development of television drama, creating critical spaces to study the works that shaped the presence of Jordanian imagery on screen, and exploring ways to draw on those experiences to develop a drama industry better able to reflect Jordanian society and its diversity.
The event’s program included a documentary film highlighting aspects of director Ahmad Daibes’ life, artistic career and creative work. The film was prepared and directed by Dr. Falah Al-Amoush and served as a visual introduction to key stages of Daibes’ career in television.
The event concluded by emphasizing the importance of continuing the dialogue on the Jordanian narrative and television drama, documenting local artistic experiences, and encouraging ideas and projects that contribute to developing Jordanian drama and strengthening the presence of local identity within it, giving the Jordanian narrative a broader space in the local and Arab drama scene.
Resource: Al-Ghad. Reporting: Ahmad Al-Shawabkeh
