10 - 16 May 2001
Issue No.533
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 10 - 16 May 2001 Issue No.533 |
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Diary of a festival goer
Nur Elmessiri, discovering the pitfalls of judging a festival by its publicity dossier, is nonetheless pleased to visit usual places
Tuesday 1 May: Long day at work, but el-hamdullillah we managed to make space -- and a big space too -- on our pages for the month-long "Les Français aiment le Caire" festival. If the impressive publicity dossier -- a lovely, especially-produced-for-the-fest folder with over 40 sheets of extensive descriptive info (Arabic on one side, French on the other) -- is anything to go on, it seems this will be a really interesting festival. From the list of people and official bodies involved, you can tell it will be important.
Thursday 3 May: I arrived at Mar Girgis tube station and just as Souq Al-Fustat came into view, the band started playing. A dramatic moment. In white uniforms the fire brigade brass band looked very stately; less so the bagpipe band dressed in "pharaonic" costume. I don't know which is worse: to have, as a downtown waiter, to wear a T-shirt saying "Les Français aiment le Caire" for the entirety of the month (a rumour which has mercifully turned out to be false) or to have, as a member of the police band, to wear pharaonic skirt and headdress.
Not that it was a big deal anyway. No sign of throngs of curious spectators. For an event that was to launch a prime heritage space in Cairo things seemed a bit too desultory in Souq Al-Fustat.
I installed myself in the beautiful, airy cafe -- how skillfully Mona Zakaria, the architect, has had the stone Souq designed -- while a tape of Fairuz singing about Al-Quds competed with the pharaonic bagpipes. Finally Fayza and I found each other and, together, donning our investigative hats, strolled through the Souq.
Where the traditional artisans? Where the potters, the glass blowers, the wood workers? Where the crowds, the Masr Al-Qadima folk? Today, we were told, was just for us -- the press. As for the souq booths, these had been given over to arty, multi-lingual home furnishings and ethnobilia designers. It was nice to see friends and their exquisite products: designer Ayman Azabawi and jeweller Suzy Al-Masri of Al-Khatoun and Maadi's Morgana; painter Omar Al-Fayyoumi of Maadi's Catacomb; designer Amina Sabri of Zamalek's Caravanserai -- and to browse through the World-Trade-Centre-based Tannis textiles, Shahira Mehrez's folklore-inspired ladies wear, the beautifully marbled and bound books of the shop behind Al-Azhar mMosque, and the French book stalls. Nice souq, but -- as even some of the chic conveyors of chic homefurnishings agreed -- "a bit too chic."
CFCC and press people milled about -- and then the Minister of Tourism arrived and delivered a speech that was moving. About how Egypt is the country of peace in which religions have, for centuries, coexisted harmoniously in -- hence, the importance of mugamaa' al-adian (the Centre of Religions, as the area -- with its historic Amr Ibn Al-Aas Mosque, Hanging and Mar Girgis churches, and Rabi Ben Ezra Synagogue -- has come officially to be called).
Thursday, later: My heart sank as, making my way towards Beit El-Harrawi the only faces were the same as those of the morning. Nice faces, friends' faces, but come on, it's a festival not a private party. But when I went inside it was a full house, a nice mix of people. Alfred Gamil's Qithara troupe were really good, and entertaining. (Mentally made a note to attend their other soirées this month). Even when they couldn't quite carry things off they erred on the side of interesting experimentation. Serious songs -- for example, Subhanak, my neighbour told me, was done in "TV religious song" style -- were not the troupe's forte, though when 13-year-old Mohamed Ali sang the Umm Kulthoum/Ahmed Rami/Mohamed El-Qassabgi Ayuha'l-Fulk it was truly enchanting. Powerful voice, and perfect diction. I loved the way Gamil and the other musicians camped up the different classical maqamat without being over-flippant. The audience really appreciated this style of self-consciously "quoting" the traditional Arabic music repertoire, and sometimes the players, telling musical "jokes" with their ouds, elicited warm in-the-know laughter. My favorite was Nehad Fathi's performance of comedian/singer Shoukoukou's Leili Tal. She has a fantastic sense of humour, a complex, interesting voice, is very regal, dignified (certainly far from clownish) -- and has character and a beautiful voice.
Nice to see young, "modern" Egyptian musicians who, while respecting traditional music, do not take it for a sacred, untouchable cow but do interesting, theatrical things with it.
Saturday 5 May: What a let-down. The kind that makes you feel angry and -- if you've been telling all and sundry about this "festival" -- foolish. "Exhibition of photographs by Alain Bonamy curated by Galila El-Qadi (Institute of Research for Development) on the preservation of downtown buildings titled Downtown: Urban Forms of Cultural Exchange." Exhibitions shmexhibitions. And to think that I, taking publicity dossiers in good faith, typed those very words in last issue. What bombast! I mean, the photos -- many in wide angle, and all "documentary" -- were quite nice, but in what does "curation" consist? In any case, it was nice to rest awhile from the heat at Café Riche... and why did no one think of including in the festival the wonderful Café Riche "permanent exhibition" of photos of Egyptian literary figures?
Over an expresso Fayza told me that the taxi driver on the way back from Fustat the other day was not impressed by the idea floating around that Souq Al-Fustat be used as a "real," "authentic" souq. "We already have souqs. We don't need any more." He wanted the souq to be a kind of mini-Khan El-Khalili -- with all the Khan goods: papyrus, traditional pottery, brass... etc -- without the hassle of crowds and -- with parking. "That's what'll bring the money in, ya madam. That's what the tourists want. I mean, can you see tourists wanting to shop for tomatoes?"
Out into early evening Downtown Cairo -- as charming as is her wont, festival or no festival -- to "exhibition" hop, occasionally sighting the easy-to-spot "festival"-attendee. The exhibition on at the Estoril was by all counts the most thoughtfully put-together (curated?) of the lot. George Bahgory's paintings at Arabesque were a real treat to spend time with -- but it's not like the festival context added anything to them, other than the pompous title "Cairo Seen through the Eyes of Contemporary Plastic Artists." Grillon hadn't on opening night gotten its plastic arts act together. Tomorrow, they said.
The last straw, exhibition-wise, of the evening was the "exhibition" on at the Cosmopolitan. Nice photos, but why do they look almost identical to those we just saw at Riche? Fayza and I decided to give the Pension Roma and Lehnert and Landrock exhibitions a miss. By now we got the picture: pleasant enough, but not substantial, certainly not commensurate with the intimidating exhibition titles.
But let's go to Rue Alfi. It could be fun to see the Wist Al-Balad band playing en-plein-air in the pietons area with, as spectacular backdrop, beautiful 1930s Midan Tawfiqqiya buildings. Reggae? Ramba? "International" definitely, so much so that you had to make a leap of faith to register the fact that the members of the group (some wearing cool-dude type head-kerchiefs) were singing in Arabic. The crowd up close to the stage (festival-goer types definitely) really got into the groove. The real crowd, the Midan-Tawfiqiyya types -- way behind, maintaining a respectful distance from the "important" people, a distance reinforced by the presence of security people -- seemed slightly curious, but not curious enough to betray to the tourists in the front-line crowd that this is not the kind of thing that happens every day in Cairo.
And why shouldn't it? The Alfi area is a perfect place for free every-night summertime concerts. For dealing with all the bureaucratic processes to make that kind of event possible, one felt thankful for CFCC-organised festivals.
Maybe next time Yassin El-Tohami?
"La ya madam," is the greengrocer's answer. "It's all well and fine in Euroba. Too many pickpockets in wist al-balad though."
For festival details, see Listings
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