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Al-Ahram Weekly 17 - 23 June 1999 Issue No. 434 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 17 - 23 June 1999 Issue No. 434
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Features Living Travel Sports Time Out Chronicles People Cartoons Letters All the world is a cabaret
By Nehad Selaiha
You would think that with an Italian mother and an Egyptian father, choreographer and dancer Karim Tonsy would be Mediterranean through and through, and would find in the ancient civilisations of that basin enough cultural food for his imagination. And, indeed, in at least two of the five shows he choreographed and directed since he launched his own Contemporary Dance Theatre Company under the auspices of Al-Hanager at the end of 1994, he drew heavily upon the popular Egyptian cultural heritage, and managed to effectively display and foreground its rich hybrid texture by resetting it, through movement and music, in the broader cultural context of the region. Al-Radwa (1996) and Maqamat (1998) consisted of sequences of meticulously executed exotic images centering upon women, and featuring their life, past and present, in its positive and negative aspects, in its brighter and darker sides, within the general framework of a hybrid Arab-African-Mediterranean culture.
Sadly I missed Tonsy's first production which he performed with his company in Ewart Hall at the AUC in 1995, within a few months of his leaving the Opera Contemporary Dance Theatre Company, where he had spent years and made his mark as a gifted dancer; but the title of that production, Transmissions, suggests that, like Al-Radwa and Maqamat, it had a deep preoccupation with cultural correspondences and cross-currents. In The Other Side of Silence (1997), which was sombre in mood, the balance tipped slightly in favour of the European shores of the Mediterranean, and the work subtly communicated a pervasive sense of alienation. It seemed to me at the time that Tonsy was going through a kind of crisis of identity both on the cultural and personal levels.
The subsequent Thoughts and Impressions (the result of a movement workshop at Al-Hanager based on improvisations with a group of young actors at the beginning of 1998, and focusing, as far as I can remember, quite openly on cultural, social, and sexual alienation) seemed to have a cathartic effect on Tonsy. Maybe he discovered that he was not alone in his cultural and personal dilemmas, and that many of his generation, even those whose official documents certify that both their parents are Egyptian (a word that essentially denotes ethnic, religious and cultural multiplicity), feel equally marginalised in the current, increasingly repressive social and cultural scene in Egypt.
In any case, by the end of 1998, Tonsy had recovered his former zestful acceptance, even celebration, of his multiple cultural identity (I am tempted to call it his true 'Egyptianness'), and jubilantly embarked upon another hedonistically exhilarating voyage into his mixed heritage, and to that part of it nearest to his heart -- the world of women. His Maqamat, which featured a memorable women's Turkish bath scene, came across as a lusciously colourful and sensuously lush pageant which vividly combined visual elements from Italian opera with details from the paintings of orientalists, projected them in a light-hearted, tongue-in-cheek mood, and passionately underlined that most endearing aspect of Tonsy's work -- his adoration of the female sex.
His latest Extravaganza (which was tried out on the audience for three nights last week at the French Cultural Centre, which sponsored it, and is due for a longer run at Al-Hanager at the end of this month) is even more exuberant and culturally defiant than the Maqamat. The cultural scope is here extended beyond the Middle East, Africa, and the Mediterranean to embrace the dance and musical heritage of the New World. It was not surprising, since Tonsy is a graduate of the AUC and studied ballet and modern dance in London and New York. What is surprising, exciting, refreshing, and robustly invigorating is the carnivalesque, burlesque, and vigorously youthful thrust of the work. Under the eyes of his ancestors, framed in old, faded, family photographs which frame the stage in the form of an arc, and endow it with a nostalgic, romantic, old world atmosphere suggestive of the beginning of this century, Karim Tonsy and his delightful, well-trained dancers (Nora Moussa, Yara Idris, Doaa Mohamed, Amina Naguib, Walaa Mohamed, Marwa Motaleb, Ahmed Rifaat, Ahmed Samir, and Mahmoud Moatassem) proceeded to joyfully flaunt their cultural multiplicity and assert their right as legitimate heirs to all the cultures of our global village. As natural heirs to this global cultural heritage (in the fields of dance and music), they can choose to relate to it in the here and now nostalgically, seriously, or playfully, or dissociate themselves from it to watch it critically and parody it humourously. To the tunes of a clever musical collage, composed of famous numbers and melodies from American musicals and films (mainly Chicago, The English Patient, and Shakespeare in Love), as well as Fathi Salama's Nahawand, Cheb Fadel's Male Habti, Mozart the Egyptian, and original musical items by Lili Baniche, Challe and Carlos Campos, they combined various modes of dance (oriental, ball-room, classical ballet, American show biz, Spanish and Latin American), and with every step and movement transformed their bodies into living cultural bridges and claimed the world as their own. In their presence, and under their graceful, nimble feet, the stage of the cosy theatre at the French Cultural Centre became the whole world, or, rather, the world became their appropriated stage, physical space, and cultural playground. Tonsy's simple conception of the show as an extravaganza consisting of a number of parodic items presented in a cabaret (and possibly inspired by Lisa Manelli's famous song Life in a Cabaret) was complemented and enriched by Sherif El Horaii's multiple stage-set, which suggested several settings enclosed within each other and superimposed upon each other; with a few simple, carefully chosen props (old photographs, an arc of coloured bulbs, a curtain made of strings of beads, a dressing table and a piano), the stage became alternately and, sometimes, all at once the stately home of an old family; a seedy music hall, American bar or night club; a sleazy oriental joint; a ball room; a posh teenagers' party; and a nursery where children indulge in fantasies and mimic grown-ups and what they see in cinema, on stage, or on television.
The final impression was one of liberation, tolerance, integrity, and, also -- quite poignantly -- of transience. As Tonsy and his wonderful butterflies skipped blithely across many cultural fields, one could not help wondering how long they can guard their freedom, sustain their sense of global integration, and of being at home in the world and its human heritage, against the winds of fanaticism, cultural fundamentalism, and nationalistic bigotry. But then, this painful sense of transience invariably assaults one whenever the metaphor of the world as a stage or life as a cabaret is projected from the boards. And in Extravaganza, it was the source of inspiration and the moving spirit.
