Issue No. 601
Culture
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29 August - 4 Sept. 2002 Issue No. 601 Culture |
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Recommend this page | ||
CIFET 2002: Happy hunting
ON 1 SEPTEMBER the 14th Cairo International Festival for Experimental Theatre opens at the big hall of the Cairo Opera house with Underground, Walid Aouni's latest production for the Cairo Modern Dance Theatre Company which he founded over 10 years ago.
Click to view captionThe Merchant of Venice(The Netherlands); Snow White (Italy) For the following 10 days theatres in Cairo, as well as some untraditional performance spaces, such as the house of Zeinab Khatoun and Beit Al-Harrawi, will be hosting performances from as many as 30 foreign countries (from Europe, including Bosnia and other former Eastern European countries, Africa, Asia and North America -- no Latin Americans unfortunately this year) as well as 11 Arab countries, including Syria, Lebanon, Tunisia, Morocco, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia -- with two productions -- and, for the first time in years, Iraq.
The fare is hugely varied, ranging from an Italian Snow White to a Georgian Medea, and most people will find something to their taste. For Shakespeare lovers there is plenty to keep them busy: The Merchant of Venice from The Netherlands; A Midsummer Night's Dream from Syria; Love's Labour Lost from Greece, and A Hamlet Summit from England in which all the characters in the play are hauled into the 21st century to fight out their feuds and grievances with the help of microphones and web cameras. Going back further in time, the Spaniards have decided to unearth the androgynous Ancient Egyptian Queen Hatshepsut and replay her conflict with the military and the priests; ardent feminists should watch this.
If your taste is for magic and fairy tales and you happen to like Peter Pan, then do not miss Chris Nikloson's Neverland which will play at the tent of the Egyptian National Circus in Agouza. I saw this fascinating multi-disciplinary show in a stable on the island of Terschelling in Holland and from the moment she said in the microphone "please feel free to eat, drink and chat to your neighbour and do not turn off your mobiles" until the end, it was pure magic. Some poignant moments too, but all part of the fun.
For poignancy and plenty of mystical musings mediated through movement and reinforced by voice-over recitals of famous lines from TS Eliot's Four Quartets, you can see Arianna Economou's In Darkness, The Eye Can Begin to See from Cyprus. A Heap of Broken Images is another Eliot inspired show from Malta, the source in this case The Waste Land.
Shows do not start until late in the afternoon so, if you have nothing better to do in the morning, you can drop in at the Supreme Cultural Council, in the Opera grounds, and meet all the prestigious theatre artists, theoreticians and academicians discussing the influence of the Greek theatre model, as explicated in Aristotle's Poetics, on theatre practices all over the world throughout history. Judging from some of the papers I have read, you might discover that a lot of what is being taught nowadays in theatre academies is pure myth.
An added bonus this year is The Other Side of CIFET, a parallel mini festival mounted by Frank Bradley, the head of the performance art department at the AUC. From 4-7 September, at the Falaki campus, will be Sophocles' Antigone (reviewed on this page under the title Antigone in Palestine), plus the first Egyptian production of a play by Marguerite Duras, La Musica 2ème, translated and directed by Nora Amin, who also plays the wife in this duet with Ashraf Sarhan. It will play at the Falaki Studio Theatre (the Black Box) on 2-4 September at 5pm. You also have a chance to see A Message to my Father (at the Falaki Studio Theatre on 8 and 9 September at 7pm), the result of a collaboration between the Egyptian Nora Amin and the Cypriot Arianne Economou, and performed in Cairo, at the National Theatre upstairs, a few months ago.
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