Pack of Cards
By Madame Sosostris |
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Last week witnessed the inauguration of the brand new Centre for Artistic Creation on the Opera House grounds, a gala event attended by Mrs Suzanne Mubarak. Mrs Mubarak watched a wonderful performance of William Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream, directed by Khaled Galal and produced by the Cultural Development Fund expressly for this occasion.
According to Culture Minister Farouk Hosni, the centre is the first to be fully dedicated to supporting the arts of cinema and theatre using state-of-the-art techniques. It features a grand hall, the activities of which are to be directed by Galal, as well as a modern dance theatre school, to be directed by Walid Aouni. A movie hall, equipped with the latest technology and managed by director Ahmed Mahfouz, is another important aspect of the new centre, which cost LE12 million, and took two years to build. It is definitely also worth mentioning that a group of birds sculpted in bronze by the gifted sculptor Mohamed Rezk decorates the facade of the building itself.
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Meanwhile, at the beautiful Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil Museum's Horizon I Hall, the culture minister, along with Ahmed Nawwar, who heads the ministry's Fine Arts Sector, inaugurated an exhibition showcasing a selected group of paintings by the late artist Inji Efflatoun (1923-1989). The show, running through 3 October, showcases 77 paintings that perpetuate Inji's different artistic stages. Head of the Central Department of Museums and Exhibitions Mohsen Sha'lan told me that, among other paintings on display, are The Girl and the Beast, The Revenge of the Tree, Collecting Oranges as well as The Red Devils, a work that incarnates her reaction towards the establishment of the High Dam. Inji's love for art, combined with her strong patriotic feelings, is brilliantly reflected in most of her paintings. No doubt, my dears, she is a talent to watch.
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80,000 congratulations are in order for Tagammu' Party Head Khaled Mohieddin, who celebrated his 80th birthday in a big way this week, with a grand fest being held for him at the party's headquarters. President Hosni Mubarak's chief political advisor Osama El-Baz was in attendance, as was assistant Arab League Secretary-General Said Kamal, veteran actresses Samiha Ayoub, Nadia Lotfi, Magda El-Sabbahi, Soheir El-Murshidi, and actor Ezzat El-Alaili. There were also ambassadors aplenty from a multitude of Arab and European countries. Mohieddin received bouquets of flowers from Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa and Minister of Agriculture Youssef Wali, and, in recognition of his relentless political efforts spanning so many decades, members of the Tagammu' Party granted their party chief a pure gold necklace.
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Al-Ahram Weekly's very own talented caricaturist George Bahgoury is the guest of honour at this year's International Caricature Festival, taking place at the Limousine art gallery in Paris. I must say, my sweets, it's a much-deserved honour. Bahgoury's work is also on display at the gallery, in an exhibition titled "Good Morning Pablo Picasso: After 30 Years of Absence (1973-2003)". The exhibition is organised under the supervision of the Picasso Museum, and on the occasion of 30 works showcasing some of the late Spanish artist's greatest treasures.
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My dear and dynamic friend Nihal Zamzam, the marketing and PR manager at Le Meridien Heliopolis, and Mamdouh Farag, the hotel's executive assistant manager, recently welcomed the ravishingly beautiful Lebanese singer Nawal Al- Zoghbi to the hotel. Zoghbi was in town to perform in the opening ceremony of a friendly football match between our very own Al-Ahli and IS Roma at Cairo Stadium, held in honour of Egyptian-Italian Friendship Day, and organised under the auspices of the Ministry of Tourism. It was a rather busy week for Zamzam, who also welcomed, with the hotel's General Manager Philippe Bonnot, the renowned hairstylist Mohamed El-Saghir, who has just opened one of his exclusive beauty parlours in the hotel itself. Famous for his magical hair-styling hands, El-Saghir always makes sure Egypt's society dames look superbly sublime.
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I am thrilled, my sweets, to see this year's top Thanaweiya Amma students who graduated from East schools being awarded for their excellence. The lucky youngsters were treated by the school's chairman of the board, Awatef Serageddin, to a trip which included Turkey, Cyprus and Lebanon.
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My dear friend Bahey El-Din Hassan, the director of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, gave me a sneak peak of the centre's newest publication, a book called Terrorism and Human Rights After September 11. Released yesterday, the series of essays written by such luminaries as Azmi Bishara, Joe Stork, and our very own Washington correspondent Mohamed El-Sayed Said, amongst many others, certainly provides an interesting take on how the post 11 September world has turned the world of human rights right on its head. Culled from a conference on "Terrorism and Human Rights" that took place in Cairo in January, the amazing thing, dearies, is that these writers all warned of the dangers that the "war on terror" would pose to human rights. As Hassan says in his introduction to the book, the writers represent a "third voice that have come to realise the exorbitant risks of terrorism... [which] they strongly believe can be eradicated, but without sacrificing human and people's rights". In fact, "they warn against undermining or underrating the importance of those rights, which in fact would magnify the perils of terrorism."
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Last but not least, my sweets, I must tell you that I am quite looking forward to the publication of another book, the American University in Cairo Press's new coffee table volume, In the Eye of Horus, A Photographer's Flight over Egypt. Photographed by Marcello Bertinetti, it certainly looks to be a stunner. And the best thing is, you can catch a glimpse of some of these shots at a special exhibition set to be inaugurated by Tourism Minister Mamdouh El- Beltagui at the Music Library Gallery at the Opera House on 10 September. The exhibit will run till the 18th.
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