In the midst of PhotoCairo and the International Cairo Biennale, the capital’s biggest art events at the moment, a performance of another nature surprised and overwhelmed this writer; ranking among the best art experiences of the year.
“Tonight is Theater , sponsored by El-Nahda Culture Association, was a three-hour extravaganza of community theater by a group of Egyptian performers who have been trained under the auspices of El-Khayal El-Shaabi (The Popular Imagination) Theater – a local street theater company that has performed around the country in the last six years.
A part of the company’s mission involves theater training in local communities as a tool for empowerment and problem solving.
On that evening, however, the company took a back seat to their trainees: Egyptians from Cairo to Armant (a village near Luxor), from youth to deaf people, from teenagers to a group of kindergarten teachers. On view were five distinct performances, all collectively created by their participants and trainers.
The audience soon became witness to a part of Egyptian life scarcely represented in high profile international exhibitions, including a presentation by group of young men from the Manshiyet Nasser, sons of the zabaleen (garbage collectors) community.
What has been compromised for these young men in terms of health, access and privilege was alarmingly mute in their acting, giving a diligent presentation entitled “The Group of Modern Art for the Third Generation under the direction of El-Khayal El-Shaabi players Mostapha Mohammed and Shaker Said.
The actors were flamboyantly outfitted, and their work was a combination of rhapsodic spoken word poetry and ironic social commentary. The play, in part about a maestro trying to create a performance with irresponsible students, bespoke the power imbalances and petty humiliations that fill many lives.
The lack of civil and human rights manifested itself in different forms throughout the evening, particularly brilliant in the work of the group Tutana, another project directed by Khayaal members Diano Calvo of Spain and the aforementioned Said of Giza. The group has since traveled with Calvo and Said to Germany and Spain as part of a theater exchange group called “Getting to Know Each Other.
Commenting on the groups’ democratic method of creating work, Calvo spoke of her role as a trainee: “We take the decisions collectively. I have one vote; my voice is just like everyone else’s. The group chose from over 30 proposed themes for their new work.
They settled on the theme of how overcrowded Egypt is and presented a hilarious, disturbing sketch set in a hospital where a young doctor, alone in a ward of dying patients, rushes around searching for his mobile phone. He unearths it among a pile of innards fashioned from rags and ribbons. It turns out that the doctor has sealed it into one of his patients stomach’s during surgery.
This fantastic abstract representation is one of the show’s many innovative uses of prop and material. It illustrates two things: El-Khayal El-Shaabi’s novel employment of object puppetry and the shoestring budget with which they produced the evening.
In a modern art world that often demands “community work as an adjunct to fund proposals, the group stands out as an exception to work that is both extemporaneous and uncommitted to social justice. For six years, El-Khayal El-Shaabi has performed with and for the economically disadvantaged populations of Egypt – those without access to theater.
“It’s so beautiful to put up a show that is totally unexpected. In theaters there are rules to follow and you know exactly what’s going to happen. But in a non-theater that’s not the case, and something is suddenly happening. said Jakob Lindfors, one of the group’s founding members.
Lindfors, a native of Sweden, added, “On the street, people don’t lie like they do in theater. Children for example, won’t sit quietly and pretend to be interested. In the end, it’s not so different with the adults.
“As a performer you have to be much more receptive to the crowd and I think more generous, because we are guests. This is their home and we have come as strangers, which puts us in a more humble position.
Other highlights of the evening included an improvisational performance by the Association for the Deaf directed Lindfors and Calvo. With eloquent precision, the members of the deaf company performed silent scenes, a break from the raucous performance that preceded it. Three teenage boys presented a sarcastic morality play on hashish smoking and redemption, with physical comedy. In contrast, the deaf relied on subtle articulations of their hands and bodies, which called to attention their strongest means of expression.
The first part of the evening was translated entirely for deaf audiences by an onstage interpreter.
A group of kindergarten teachers from Armant presented a quieter comedic drama tackling themes of marriage and family vendetta, their first formal acting experience. The final play of the evening involved a heartwarming presentation by a group of small children directed by a teen from the zabaleen group. It told the story of a group of men from Upper Egypt, brilliantly interpreted by the boys around eight years of age. It centered on a man who’d been cheated in a real estate deal, and his quests to reclaim his money.
In summarizing their work with these communities, Lindfors spoke of his personal benefit, one quite different from the more common fanfare of Cairo’s current and most publicized art events: “In retrospect, it’s really given me the opportunity to go places I would never have gone and meet people from diverse backgrounds. People’s responses are more about sharing. In the end, it’s been totally liberating.
