A reporter once asked Michal Shahaf, a digital and social entrepreneur, if she was hoping that her unique social-musical initiative, Koolulam, would bring peace to the world.
Shahaf, Koolulam’s co-founder and CEO, said her ambitions were more modest than that.
“I laughed and said, ‘Unfortunately, no, but what we are trying to do is inspire people,’” Shahaf recalled. “This inspiration can manifest in a lot of different ways. One person looks and changes his mind about Israel. Another person might want to initiate this kind of event in his community. And another person smiles who wasn’t supposed to smile that day.”
For the past several years, Koolulam has been bringing unexpected smiles to large groups of people by staging mass singing events. Under Koolulam’s direction, groups of non-professional singers from all walks come together to form a collaborative musical creation featuring an original three-part vocal arrangement.
Think of it as a flash mob, but with singing instead of dancing.
Previous crowds orchestrated by Koolulam have included Matisyahu’s “One Day,” Imagine Dragon’s “Believer” and Bob Marley’s “One Love.”
The performances have been captured in online videos that have garnered millions of views.
“We feel privileged we have the ability to show another face of Israel from what people have seen throughout the world,” Shahaf said in a recent phone interview from her home in Ramat Golan.
On Dec. 15, Koolulam is performing at the Saban Theater in Beverly Hills, marking the group’s first appearance in Los Angeles.
Koolulam – which combines the word, “kululu,” an Arabic expression for
“happiness,” with “kulam,” the Hebrew word for “everyone” – was founded in 2016. It’s led by Shahaf as well as Israelis Ben Yaffet and Or Taicher.
At Koolulam events, Yaffet appears onstage with a band. With his long, brown curly locks, he’s the face of Koolulam. He is also creative and musical director. Taicher serves as artistic director.
Yaffet typically spends less than an hour training the audience how to sing the song. For those who’ve never sung publicly before, the experience can be intimidating, Shahaf says.
“The biggest challenge for people participating for the first time is to let themselves free and let themselves go and really sing. But I can tell you, one of the most beautiful things I see at our events is how people come in, and how they go out,” she said. “When they come in, they’re suspicious, distant, closed. And when I see them at the end of the event, they’re hugging, dancing, and singing together.”
In 2019, marking Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Koolulam led more than 2,000 men and women in singing “Let’s Get Loud” by Jennifer Lopez. Somehow, a video of the performance reached the pop star, and Lopez contacted Koolulam about using the group’s unique arrangement for her then-upcoming 2020 Superbowl halftime performance.
Of course, Koolulam gave Lopez their blessing.
“This song is very close to our hearts,” Shahaf said.
Koolulam had originally planned to come to Los Angeles in 2020, but COVID-19 derailed their plans. Like many organizations, the pandemic forced Koolulam to pivot. The group began sending at-home tutorials for participants to use in recording themselves singing sections of a song. With this method, Koolulam created a video collage of people singing the soaring Coldplay ballad, “Fix You,” with 5,000 participants from 66 countries taking part.
This type of bridge-building work is familiar terrain to Koolulam. In 2018, in honor of a historic visit to Israel by a Muslim religious leader from Indonesia, the group staged a performance of Bob Marley’s “One Love.” 1,000 Jews, Christians and Muslims sang the uplifting reggae song in Hebrew, English and Arabic at the Tower of David in Jerusalem.
“We use the platform of Koolulam to promote social agendas, and when we want to bring a specific social agenda, we think about the lyrics and song that will best describe that agenda,” Shahaf says. “The song is becoming the script of the event.”
Next year, Koolulam is participating in a two-year study, funded by the Templeton Foundation, that’ll measure the effect of religious and spiritual activities on people’s lives.
Koolulam is one of 12 groups participating in the study, which is being led by Shira Gabriel, a professor of psychology at the University of Buffalo.
Shahaf has observed the psychological effect singing in large groups has on people. The experience, she said, can be transformational.
“Music is an international language, and it has the ability to cross borders, cultures and religions,” she said. “At a Koolulam event, participants – it doesn’t matter who they are, which God they believe in, or who they are going to sleep with at night. All that matters is they want to be part of this mission, this group and bring their voice to this group. And to go through this process together.”
To purchase tickets to Koolulam’s Los Angeles performance, visit https://teev-e.simpletix.com.
