Nehad Selaiha encounters varieties of protest at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina This year, the organisers of the second Bibliotheca Alexandrina Creative Forum for Independent Theatre Groups (held from 28 December 2004 to 5 January 2005) allowed more time for the artists to get together and ponder the present and the future. Instead of the one roundtable held last year, which was mostly taken up with introductions and brief statements of dreams and obstacles, barely skimming the surface of the thorny issue of independence and leaving many unsatisfied, having been denied the opportunity to air their views, there were four roundtables this time, strategically scheduled on the two last days of the year, as if to mark the end of a phase and prepare for a new one. Moving from the general to the particular, from the conceptual to the practical, they started with a debate on theatre and democracy, asking if the latter was an essential condition for the existence and survival of the former. While Girgis Shukry, a young poet and critic who played moderator, insisted that this was the case, others countered by citing the example of some Eastern European countries, particularly Poland, where theatre thrived under totalitarian rule. Were such examples intended to persuade us in the Third World to put up with our non- democratic regimes? Critic Maysa Zaki sardonically asked. And since the participants represented both the north and south of the Mediterranean, the term democracy itself inevitably came under scrutiny. Did it refer to a particular system of government developed in the West, or to a mental attitude and frame of mind which could exist anywhere and materialise in various forms and practices? Underlying this argument of course was the uneasy suspicion most Arabs and many Europeans feel regarding the US current drive to impose democracy, American style, on the whole world by the force of arms or economic bullying. The debate, however, was finally clinched in favour of the latter definition (democracy as a mode of consciousness and mental orientation) by theatre professor Mieke Kolk, from the Netherlands, who once had her own theatre company. For democracy to become a reality, she roughly said, one, especially the artist, should experience and practice it on the deeply personal level, in one's own intimate thought processes and this entails putting everything into question, even one's most cherished and hallowed beliefs. In other words, ideas and views should be allowed to fairly compete on an equal footing inside one's own head and internal, self-imposed censorship should be abolished. This is what allows artists to survive under the most rigorous of dictatorships, one concluded. It also explains why in some so-called democracies you often come across ideologically bigoted, despotic people who pass for artists. The discussion of democracy became more concrete and specific in the second roundtable (moderated by Maysa Zaki) which provocatively asked in its title whether "Independent Groups" were "A Model for Democracy?" Scottish director Andrew Mckinnon frankly confessed to the difficulty of directing a play in a democratic way. For one thing, it took much, much longer to do; for another, very few directors relished being contradicted or gainsaid. For 25 years he had pursued a dictatorial policy in running his actors and putting together his shows, he said. When he became an international consultant to independent groups, however, he had to switch to a democratic approach to decision-making; and though it was often hard and frustrating, it was also extremely rewarding. When he was recently commissioned to do Macbeth for a professional company in Scotland, he discovered that he could not revert to his old dictatorial style though the conventional context of the work allowed him to do so, and, indeed, demanded it. Egyptian director Effat Yehia (founder of the Caravan troupe), critic Amani Samir (artistic adviser of the Light troupe) and Nan Van Houte (artistic director of the Frascati theatre in Amsterdam) agreed that democracy was essential in the initial stage of creating a performance when the collaborative contributions of the whole team are of great value; but there comes a point, they all concurred, when the director has to draw the line, put a stop to all new ideas and suggestions and attend to the practical side of the business -- what they termed the executive stage where the director becomes sole arbiter and dictatorial leader. But supposing a conflict of artistic visions and directions erupts within the same group, what happens then? Should the founder of the group bow down and put the contentious issues to the vote? Both Al- Haraka (Movement) and Al-Shazya (Shrapnel), two of the strongest and earliest independent theatre groups in Egypt have experienced this crisis. Actor and director Hani El-Mettenawy spoke feelingly of his dilemma when he clashed with Mohamed Abul- Su'ood, the founder of Shrapnel, admitting that both parties were entitled to their views and laying the blame on neither. In response, he was told that though he had grown up with the company and found it painful to sever the umbilical cord, it was time he moved out and formed his own. Such an advice, however, though practical and wise, implicitly negated the possibility of real democracy within independent theatre groups. It pinpointed the difference between a theatre group and other non-artistic collectives, alliances or corporate bodies. In these, the interest of the majority should, and invariably does, win the day. But in the case of artistic affiliations, in my experience, the spiritual structure can never be quite democratic, even when the management is; the founder of the group invariably constitutes its primum mobile, guiding spirit and source of inspiration and the structural model, therefore, tends implicitly to be that of a saint and his/her disciples. If one of the disciples undergoes a change of heart and adopts a different faith, so to speak, he or she should simply leave and initiate their own sect rather than try to convert their comrades and draw them away from the founder of the original group. The second roundtable left us with the unresolved question of whether one group can accommodate different artistic/existential visions and directions? The third roundtable, entitled "Theatre and Social Change" and moderated by Frère Fayez Saad, from the Jesuit cultural centre in Alexandria, started with another question: can artists effect a degree of change, however modest, in their societies and how far are they affected by what happens around them? This predictably led to a discussion of that vague, amorphous entity called the audience. Should artists target a particular audience, seek to generally appeal to everybody (an impossible proposition if there is one) making the necessary concessions, or forget completely about the audience, nurse their individual talents and pursue their own inner directives? And if they do, where does this leave the politically committed artist who sees theatre as an enlightening mission, a vehicle for consciousness-raising, empowering the oppressed and bringing about some dreamt-of social utopia? To such momentous questions there were, predictably, no pat answers; but raising them was of the utmost value to many of our young artists and launched them on a course of democratic thinking where ideas are allowed to freely wrestle and compete. The questions raised in the third roundtable gathered momentum and gained in focus as they re- emerged in the practical, socio-political, economic context proposed by the fourth and last roundtable. Moderated by critic and journalist Yasser El-Zayyat, it centred on the "Relation between Independent Groups and Official Institutions". And here opinions were sharply divided between a forceful, almost fanatical demand to avoid any such relation if one is to guard one's independence, and a more realistic, level- headed approach which recognised the need to deal with official institutions without necessarily having to submit to their rules or subscribe to their secret agendas. In this context, the term "independent" itself came under a heavy shadow, seeming like a dubious label, as Girgis Shukry openly accused all the representatives of the independent groups present of trying to curry favour with the Ministry of Culture while clinging to some illusory dream of independence. The independent groups counter-argued that whatever money those institutions had was tax-payers money, in other words, the people's money, their own money, and they were legitimately entitled to a part of it and quite justified in pursuing whatever means to get it; unless they are lucky and, like Al- Warsha, find a foreign sponsor, where else can they get the necessary funds for their projects? Our European partners were more tolerant of such views than Shukry since, as it transpired, most of them faced the same quandary. Apart from the four roundtables, really exciting and thought-provoking, there was an interesting lecture by the Swedish dancer and choreographer Marika Hedemyr on dance performance analysis from a choreographic perspective, using Laban's model; a seminar on the theatre movement in Sweden, hosted by the Swedish Institute in Alexandria (one of the sponsors of the event), in which the speakers were director and composer Niklas Ryden, director Leo Cullborg, lighting and scenic designer Charlie Astrom, Andres Ohren, Hana Lepp and Ms Hedemyr; seven workshops (on multimedia and electronic music, body analysis, contact improvisation, improvisation as scenic truth, actor and accessories, body and movement, and light designing) and two concerts, one on new year's eve, conducted by Sherif Mohieddin and one featuring memorable songs by Edith Piaf, starring Asa Fang and directed by Leo Cullborg with musicians from Sweden and the Bibliotheca. In the evening, it was theatre time and what fun that was. All the 11 performances (from Egypt, France, Sweden, Austria, Cyprus, Switzerland, Italy and Tunisia) were rewarding in different ways and in this galaxy of artistic inventiveness the Egyptian shows stood out, ranking among the best in the festival. On the opening night, choreographer and dancer Karim Tonsy thrilled us with a new creation, Cult (subtitled Writing on Water --- Nature vs Being ), in which he seemed to have progressed by leaps and bounds along the road to artistic maturity and inventiveness since last year, and to have thrown all caution to the wind, daring the traditional taboos surrounding the body with an audacity hitherto unknown in Egypt, and moving as it were on the cutting edge. Cult takes its inspiration from clay and water, which feature prominently on stage in the set, props and fluid body language and choreography of the piece, and replays the story of creation in a pagan vein, replacing the traditional male God with an androgynous entity and Adam and Eve with two men. It starts with Hamada Shousha, sitting cross-legged on the floor, in a pool of light and naked, like some Indian sage, with a bent head and outstretched arms limply resting on his knees. His body glistens, as if wet or covered with oil and his thick mop of long, curly hair spreads like an auburn halo between his shoulders, contrasting with the masculine torso, and subverting traditional gender definitions. At his back, water streams against a black plastic sheet and his repose and the sound of water are hypnotic. When he finally raises his head and slowly, ritualistically shapes out of the clump of clay in front of him two small human figures, Karim Tonsy and Ayman Kassem come into being and proceed to reenact the complex, variegated drama of human relationships in all its shades and colours. In these sequences, Tonsy displays his virtuosity and consummate skill as dancer and the contact between his body and Kassem's and all the movement patterns vividly suggest the feel of water and clay. The climax comes when both dancers set about smearing each other with clay, until it completely covers their naked bodies, in a bid, as it were, to revert to their blissfully unconscious original state as part of nature and the earth. Later in the evening, we watched Ahmed El-Attar's Temple group in a repeat of their savage multi-media satire on the role of the media in our lives today, Mother, I Want to be a Millionaire (reviewed on this page on 26 February, 2004) and on the following day, Mohamed Shafiq and Laurence Rondoni, with the help of Thomas Jeker, Marielle Girard, Gaspard Gilbert, Claudio Ionna, Willem Meul, Felix Berdreau and François Blet, plunged us headlong into a crazy whirlpool of frenzied energy, a quasi cabbalistic celebration of sheer nihilistic violence called Hadid (Iron). The music and songs, which range from classical opera (the "una furtiva lagrima" aria from Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore and Mozart's "dalla sua pace" from Don Giovanni ) to modern pop and the traditionally Oriental, all superbly performed by Mohamed Abul-Kheir accompanied by Jeker on various instruments, work to expand and generalise the setting so that it can be Egypt, France, or any other modern urban slum. But whatever the setting we choose, the performance relentlessly sweeps us along, as if on a tidal wave of destructive energy, across continents of pain and oceans of suffering, leaving us at the end quite exhausted and breathless with admiration. It is as if the body has to be destroyed in order to be recovered, and, indeed, Shafiq and Rondoni work this paradox in every element of the show and stress it in the performance note printed in the Forum catalogue when they say: "We disappeared...Nothing remained of us except the echo of that solid subject they call 'Body'. Even that we no more believe in its existence... By the fire I change the shape of iron. When would I be able to change without fire?" The Italian Taciturn Scream, A Silence (choreographed and performed by Frida Vannini) seemed to take up and echo, in the language of dance, Donizetti's "furtiva lagrima" or secret tear, transforming grief, fear and pain into clusters of poignant and hauntingly beautiful images. Equally lyrical and visually effective was the Austrian Sto Nero by the Editta Braun company. With a Greek title which means near the waters of Lethe or Acheron in Hades, the setting is predictably ancient Greece and the piece replays in the language of dance the drama of Orpheus's mythical descent into the underworld, ruled by the goddess Persephone, in search of his beloved dryad, Eurydike. Though innovative and poetic in their imagery, Vannini's Scream and Braun's Sto Nero seemed somewhat tame and old-fashioned compared to Sweden's Dolly (by Studio Oscuro) and Strak (Moving Field) by the Crowd company. While the former, conceived and directed by Charlie Astrom, was a crossover between theatre, dance, mime, performance art and light show, creating a flow of arresting images, the latter, created by Victoria Alarik and Marika Hedemyr, in collaboration with artist Jan Cardell who contributed a moving and sounding three-metre high sculpture, was more of an installation work than a dance performance. No wonder it was staged at the Library's Exhibitions East Hall. Equally fresh and exhilarating, with the added benefit of being alternately sad and hilariously funny, was Relache Noir by the Swiss Compagnie Drift, based on the 1924 Dada ballet Relache by Erik Satie and Françis Picabia. Nothing, however, could match the charm and poignancy of The Way Out by the Theatre Courage company from Austria. Based on Franz Kafka's A Report to the Academy and cast in the mode of a variety show, it features a superb clown, Joseffo Olivero, in a series of comic sketches which combine philosophical depth with slapstick farce in the manner of the silent movie great comedians and centre on the quest for freedom and human fulfilment. In the course of the scenes, Olivero metamorphoses into a caged lion who tells the story of his capture and exile from his natural habitat, how at one time he joined a circus to escape his captivity and tried at another to pursue his education thinking it would give him a way out. The wonder of Olivero's performance is that despite his lion's mask, he still preserved throughout that air of pathetic helplessness and childish wonder which characterised his presence at the beginning. Believing with Wordsworth that "the child is father of the man", Olivero and his director, Walter Pfaff, view the world from a child's perspective where "only the here and now counts" and "search for a constant naiveté that touches the depths of human existence, a fascination with the simplest things", as they say in the Forum catalogue. Performed on 30 December, it felt like a priceless gift for the new year, full of hope and courage, sympathy and goodwill. Coming out of the theatre in the cold and the rain, I felt a warm glow inside me and fervently prayed for a kinder new year.
