Danûk is an ancient ritual known in Mesopotamia. It begins every year in the end of summer, after the harvest season, between 15th Sep-15th October by boiling wheatin a big pot on the fire..
Children collect wood for the families who want to make Danûk, and while waiting the wheat to be cooked, traditional songs and stories are told. When the wheat is boiled every child comes along with his plate to fill with Danûk,addingsalt and butter and enjoying the meal with all the families around.
All the Mesopotamia children grow up with the same ritual which we are trying to revive through our music as an example of gathering, having fun and sharing love and Danûk.
Kurdish folk music
Kurdish music is principally folk music and "anonymous". Originally purely vocal, a song was often composed by a woman wishing to express her feelings of sadness or, more rarely, of joy. It might also come from poetic contests the young men and women indulged in on their return along mountain paths or at other gatherings of young people or, then again, a song might be created from the blow of tragic events.
Once the song is created, an instrumental accompaniment is added and it achieves anonymity through the intermediary of the dengbêj (bards) who disseminate and popularize it in the course of their travels from village to village, from encampment to encampment.
Transmitted orally from generation to generation, the song retains quite faithfully its original words. But the melody is only a very supple frame, subject to constant modifications and to continuous renewal.
The nomadic way of life had a profound effect on cultural life and especially on music.
While the music of the mountain people makes use particularly of wind instruments, some of which, such as the dûdûk, have a special capacity for creating echo effects, in the instruments of the plains stringed instruments predominate and especially the tenbûr, a six-stringed lute.
However, whether from the plains or the mountains, the valleys or the plateaus, the Kurdish songs have a number of traits in common: the "long" songs, dramatic and nostalgic, with the exception of the dilok, dance tunes and music for entertainment, which are numerous and spirited.
Danuk aims to preserve this culture. By remixing one more the songs to our own version that focuses on positivity, love and peace during these times in which war is destroying us.
