Amal Choucri Catta goes Nordic "If clouds could speak": opening performance of the eighth festival for dance theatre, choreographer and director Walid Aouni, music by Richard Wagner, for the Egyptian Modern Dance Company, Cairo Opera House Main Hall, 5-6 June, 8 pm and 9 pm Rumbling thunder was the prelude to Richard Wagner's "Ring of the Nibelung", introducing the deep waters of the Rhine and the golden treasure hidden beneath. The curtain slowly rose on a darkened stage, with a wall in the back, while grey lights dawned upon a mysterious construction to which human bodies were clinging -- a breathtakingly beautiful vision evoking a live sculpture, a fabulous painting, a work of art reminiscent of Theodore Gericault's famous "Raft of the Medusa". And as suddenly as it appeared, the vision dissolved. The dancers, the lights, the clouds on top of the stage, even the burning horizon started moving, while the lights were turning blue and the wall revealed its nine components on wheels with the dancers turning and whirling around, reshaping the wall as a perpendicular entity, dividing the stage in two halves, with dancers on each side executing different dances to the same music. In his new spectacle "If clouds could speak", created for the eighth festival of dance theatre, choreographer-director Walid Aouni dreams a Wagner dream that has been haunting him for several years. Based mostly on Nordic myth and legend, Wagner's "Ring" opens with "Rhinegold" introducing a prologue about the origin of the world, in which a divinity, Wotan, decided to be the most powerful. He organised his kingdom accordingly, leaving the clouds to the gods, the earth to giants, while driving the dark-skinned dwarfs, the "Nibelung" into the magma underneath the earth's core. Yet Alberich, an ugly Nibelung, ventured out of the magma and onto the shores of the Rhine where he was being tantalised by the banter of the three Rhine- daughters, gaily singing and swimming in the river's clear waters. Alberich finally discovers the treasure, the gold of the Rhine, and manages to obtain it from the three maidens, on condition that he renounces love. Thus, the Nibelung curses love which, for him, is but lust. He then tears the gold from its bed and disappears with it into the bowels of the earth. That is when the golden "Ring" spreads its evil over the continent and when the battle for gold really begins. That is also when wars between gods and giants, men and dwarfs erupt and hatred prevails all over the world. Thus the gods have left the clouds and the clouds have ceased to speak, while on Cairo Opera's main stage twelve dancers evoke the days of doom, when "earthlings" are forced into barracks, into camps surrounded by barbed wire and walls are created, separating mankind. Once upon a time, two humans were chased out of the Garden of Eden, and when they discovered their freedom, they started building walls that were meant to be protective. Yet they turned out to be walls of jealousy and hatred between brothers: one was killed by the other and since then, hatred never stopped, neither did the building of walls, for walls are born of covetousness, of lust and malevolence, of spite and ill-will. In the meantime earth has turned into a quagmire of evil intentions, and since the Nibelung has renounced and cursed love, replacing it by lust, purity and sincerity have vanished. In the major part of Richard Wagner's musical dramas, the hero puts up a fight against evil: thus, in the legend of the "Flying Dutchman", the captain of the mysterious ship makes a deal with the devil, while in "Tannhaeuser", the knight and minstrel, in an evil hour, seeks refuge on the hill of Venus, only to discover that he is a prisoner of the goddess who refuses to release him to the world. In "The twilight of the gods", the "Nanir" or Fates weave their rope of Runes on Valkyrie's rock. The rope breaks and the Nanir disappear, knowing that the end of the gods is at hand. Siegfried dies at the end of the "Ring", while the Rhine daughters regain their golden treasure from the ashes of the earth and Valhalla is burning with its array of heroes and gods. Even "Parsifal" remains an adventurous tale of the keeper of the Holy Grail. Fascinating stories to the fascinating music and poetry of Richard Wagner's operas have, since Wagner's lifetime, attracted music lovers who realised that his extraordinary composer has added a new dimension to music, turning "opera" from a synthetic art form of drama with a musical accompaniment into a harmony of ideas and emotions. Wagner's dramas are more than stories: they are great epics with all the sensations of hope and hopelessness, of victory and defeat, weakness and strength of the eternal battle of man against fate. His "Ring of the Nibelung", a project it took Wagner over 25 years to complete, comprises "The Rhine-gold", "the Valkyrie", "Siegfried" and "The twilight of the gods". In his latest spectacle, presented last week at the Cairo Opera's Main Hall, Walid Aouni gave his viewers an astounding conception of a dancing performance combined with Wagner's music. Thus, the entire show exudes Wagnerian moods and emotions, opening with the glory of the gods in their celestial abode, high above the clouds, and closing with the twilight of these same gods who have abandoned their heavenly mansions, while descending into Valhalla which was built for them by Wotan and which they shared with the giants and the nine Valkyries, warrior maidens who took the slain heroes from the battlefield into Valhalla, there to feast and to remain as bodyguards for Wotan. Thus, getting closer to mortal earthlings, the gods have lost their power and man has turned away from them, becoming a slave to his own evil and lechery. That is when Hip-Hop and Rap are introduced: their relentless, implacable beat and their merciless sound seem to animate the dancers, driving them into a delirious frenzy, while the walls acquire new shapes, new forms, as they are moved about. Yet Wagner's cloudy backdrop is always visible: like an omen, a warning, an ominous sign of the twilight of our earthly gods. At the backdrop on the darkened crimson horizon, huge feet of Wagnerian giants seem once again to advance with the desire to take over our global destiny, while humans are clinging to their block of wall, each trying to write his own "Mene-tekel". According to the scriptures, the "Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin" which in Aramaic means "numbered, numbered, weighed, divided", are the words that appeared on the wall during Belshazzar's feast and were interpreted by the prophet Daniel to mean that the Lord had doomed the kingdom of Belshazzar. On the opera's Main Stage, the performers' Mene-tekel was as foreboding. In the end, having evoked every form of wall, from the wailing wall to Walid Aouni's "separating wall", for which he was awarded the prize of the Tenth International Cairo Biennale, the nine blocks on which were projected views of people and places in a haphazard, random way, started whirling and turning and dancing around the stage to the fascinating music of Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries". And as the music soared, the curtain slowly came down. This was undoubtedly one of Walid Aouni's most fabulous shows. Conculding the trilogy which started with "Between dusk and dawn" and "Smell of ice", it could never have been better. photo: SHerif Sonbol
