The Downtown Contemporary Arts Festival (D-CAF, 4-28 April) has finally returned for the second year. This year, D-CAF offers a variety of contemporary performance and visual art at historical locations and outdoor spaces in downtown Cairo. D-CAF is Egypt's largest multi-disciplinary festival, and it promises some of the best in independent art from all over the world: theatre, dance, music, art, film as well as workshops. Thus Ahmad Al-Attar, the artistic director of D-CAF. Born in 1969, Al-Attar is a playwright, stage director and translator; he is also the founder and artistic director of The Temple, an independent theatre troupe that started in 1998, and of the independent art space Studio Emadeddin. He has produced over 12 plays, including Life is good (2000) and On the importance of being an Arab, with which he participated in the Sharjah Biennale in 2009, as well as Hassan and the Magic Well, a play for children dealing with class discrimination and water shortages. Al-Attar graduated from the American University in Cairo with a BA in theatre in 1992. He received his MA from the Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris in 2000. He has toured Europe and the Arab world with his performances. In January 2010, Al-Attar received the best theatre text from the Sawiris Foundation for Social Development for his play Life is beautiful. Though some titles suggest political interests, Al-Attar says, “I never did political theatre, I just play with the titles; they're deceptive. I believe art is political in general, but I do not deal with political themes. My works could be classified as postmodern plays.” Al-Attar is also a member of the European Middle East Forum for Culture. He was chosen by the Arabic version of Newsweek as one of 42 influential Arabs who contributed to change in the Arab World. It was only natural that he should be involved in something like D-CAF: “Many years ago I felt that Egypt was in dire need of a proper international arts festival; a country like Egypt with its huge population, heritage, history and culture definitely needs a different artistic direction. Compared to Egypt's International Experimental Theatre Festival (IETF), which was discontinued two years ago, D-CAF is more seriously planned. The IETF had a bad international reputation; it was run almost by e-mail, and selection was undertaken via DVD and this is why only small companies participated in it; the level of performances shown was gradually degraded.” Al-Attar says theatrical performances in this round are rich and diverse. They include the famous Hotel Modern theatre troupe from the Netherlands: an icon of contemporary theatre. Hotel Modern uses a new theatrical language combining video with performance and emphasising live interaction between stage and camera. Another strong act comes from France: the Compagnie L'Entreprise, a troupe that specialises in masks as a specific performance technique. Their piece Le Prince Séquestré, directed by François Cervantes, is currently showing in Marseille and will come to D-CAF in April -- the troupe's debut in the Arab world. They will be collaborating with the well-known Egyptian director Hassan El-Geretly, founder and director of El Warsha Theatre Company, who will be acting for the first time in a long time, performing the role of the Clown, a character type not regularly shown on Egypt's stages. “However,” says Al-Attar, “I want to emphasis that we are more than just a theatre festival. We are a contemporary arts festival, a multi-disciplinary festival. We are open to films, music, visual art. We are doing our best not just for the sake of our audience here, but for that of the international participants as well. International artists have the right to enjoy their stay in Egypt. A level of professionalism and effective organisation would guarantee us a good international reputation. It was in 2010,” Al-Attar recalls, “months before the 25 January revolution, that I met with Karim Shafie from the Ismailia Real Estate Company, now the sponsor of D-CAF, and we agreed on the need to establish a multi-disciplinary international festival in downtown Cairo,” a choice of venue that is somewhat too obvious, where people have access to numerous options, but, as Al-Attar explains, “Downtown is historically the cultural hub. It has over 15 cinemas and theatres, and it is the only part of Cairo that has a truly huge number of venues. The aim of the festival is to give the Egyptian audience access to European arts that have never come to Egypt. In a city like Cairo you cannot spread events because of traffic. So, I guess the venue will not change in future years, also because downtown has a lot of historical architecture and heritage from the modern era.” Al-Attar says the audience is varied: “Our audience is everyone who wants to go out of the bubble and experience something new. Our events are designed for all: children, young people, families, amateurs and professionals. And I hope the audience is changing. In the first round we had a variety of people, mostly young and educated, couples and families. This year we hope to have more people from across the class spectrum. We have had very positive feedback, and learned a lot from the first round -- we have learned how to improve our plans. For example, this year D-CAF has very interesting performances for children. I've participated in many festivals all over the world. The diversity of the international theatre scene is amazing; creativity and freedom is unlimited. I try to convey snapshots of the scene to Cairo. The quality of work is the main standard I have in mind when I choose a performance.” Children will be offered a one-of-a-kind theatrical experience with the British company Bootworks, The Incredible Book-Eating Boy. The performance will be staged on 5 and 6 April -- an interactive production performing to one audience member at a time. “Offering workshops to families as well as children,” Attar adds cheerfully, “D-CAF will present Spanish artist Olga Sasplugas in an act entitled Dancing with the Family.” As the founder and General Manager of the Studio Emadeddin Foundation, providing performance artists in Cairo with rehearsal space, residencies, workshops and training programmes, Attar has interesting things to say about the drop in the quality of experimental theatre since the 1990s despite the rise in quantity of fare -- and troupes. “There are a very limited number of foreign theatre companies that come to Egypt, and I believe that watching is part of learning. This is what D-CAF aims to achieve: encouraging new modes of expression and opening up new horizons for the imagination, and helping people to think in a different direction. The second reason behind this recession is the lack of production tools; the government does not support small companies and there are very few art funders in Egypt, especially when it comes to the performing arts. In short, there is no excitement. I mean there is no incentive for young talent to be more creative. There is nothing to aspire to...” This may indeed be one of the behind-the-scenes challenges Attar is facing with D-CAF. “The lack of funding is one of the main obstacles. We finish the festival's events by the end of April, and we start planning for the next round in June, because we have a huge schedule and historic events, and we almost start from scratch, searching for funding, teamwork, etc. The core funding makes D-CAF a running institution,” he explained, stressing that “the government should also partially support D-CAF financially as a gesture of support for independent cultural initiatives, which help in promoting a positive picture of Egypt's contemporary culture. The second challenge is the capacity of staff; finding good staff is hard, as the number of good cultural administrators is so limited.” So, what is your advice to young independent cultural administrators? “Independent cultural initiatives play a vital role in a country like Egypt, with its huge popularity and unlimited cultural heritage and new cultural venues and artists. We should not wait for the government to create and plan for Egypt's cultural policy. Part of this responsibility lies on the shoulders of artists and independent cultural organisers. This is why I really encourage artists and cultural planners to go beyond the limited circles, and start working creatively to create cultural events. My advice is this: If you don't really like what you are doing, then don't do it. Because working in the arts field is a really painful and hard job. Aside from the big names, artists actually work under harsh conditions, they are underpaid and have no prospects. So you can imagine the kind of obstacles we face as cultural administrators.” One exciting production from the Arab world is the play End, by Algerian director Kheireddine Lardjam and writer Mustafa Benfoudil. It explores the Algerian phenomenon of citizens who burn themselves in protest like Mohamed Bouazizi, the young man whose suicide triggered the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia. The play is written as a monologue and, in contrast to other D-CAF performances, it offers something more text-based and theatrical. The play looks classical in form but the playwright, who is a well-known journalist in Algeria, displays a very strong and nuanced voice in his writing. But apart from this production, D-CAF hardly touches on the Arab Spring. “I believe that revolution is not just about changing a regime; it is rather about changing the culture of the whole nation,” Attar says. “As an artist, I cannot consider what has happened a revolution. I am looking at the bigger picture, and I am more interested in exploring performances that would help in changing the dynamics of the male-dominated, racist, child-abusive society we live in.” Graffiti, the one art form closely attached to the revolution, is missing: “The audiences will engage in a fun and interactive digital conversation through the German production SMSlingshot. The performance will be on show from on 17-20 April. It involves a digital slingshot shooting colourful messages on a wall as digital graffiti.” But there are plans to go beyond Cairo. “We're planning to hold two nights at the Ahmed Bahaa Eddin center, this year, in Dewera village, Assiut, as well as several other events in Tanta. In the end I hope that D-CAF will be scheduled and acknowledged on the international art scene. We hope a time will come for D-CAF when it becomes one of the most important arts festivals in the whole world.” Al-Attar, after the end of the festival, will start writing a new script. The play discusses the status of the Egyptian bourgeoisie, “which is not moving a finger to participate in or interact with ongoing political events.” As for the current political dilemma, “It is just hilarious,” Attar says, giggling. “I don't think there is a way out. Even Eugene Ionesco couldn't have imagined such absurdity. It is actually beyond absurdity, because you can never tell where or when the tragedy will end.”
