Nasser Abdel-Moneim has a long history with the Ministry of Culture, which he first joined in 1983. As an artist he presented stage adaptations of novels by such writers as the Moroccan-French Tahar Ben Jelloun and the Algerian Al-Tahir Wattar for the ministry's Al-Talia Theatre and, later, the Cairo Experimental Theatre Festival. His adaptation of the Egyptian Yahya Al-Tahir Abdalla's The Ring and the Bracelet won him the best director prize in the 1996 round, which was to be followed by many other awards, most recently the best director award at the National Theatre Festival in 2013. He also occupied various positions at the ministry: art director at Al-Talia and Al-Ghad theatres and Al-Ghouri Palace, head of the National Centre for Theatre and the Theatre Art House (from which he resigned during the brief rule of the Muslim Brotherhood in 2012-13). “The Cultural Production Department is the production arm of of the ministry,” Abdel-Moneim explains, “the one responsible for funding and budgets across the fields of cinema, theatre, folk dance and the circus. It includes the following sectors: the Theatre Art House, the Folk Dance Art House, the Al-Hanager Art Centre, the National Centre for Cinema, the National Centre for Theatre, the Greater Cairo Library and Al-Hadara Library. As for the theatre, it is directly and entirely funded by the state. We have nearly 11 troupes affiliated with the state. Film funding remains partial though the National Centre for Cinema coproduces some projects and produces low-budget films of its own.” For a new head, according to Abdel-Moneim, “You realise how hideous corruption can be. You have to pay the bill of 30 years of corruption and think of ways to fix the system that produced it. “I regard the time between 2000 till 2010 as a very harsh period in Egypt, all the assets of the state suffered severe damages during that time, with an infrastructure that was growing without maintenance or development. By 2010, of course, there was absolutely no development taking place; what little was done was done on the surface: repainting the walls or changing the colour of the seats. Development of the infrastructure is a particularly grave consideration in theatres, where negligence can cause tragic accidents like the Bani Sweif Cultural Palace fire, which killed over 30 people on 5 September 2005, or the burning down of the National Theatre in 2008. And none of this is to even begin to discuss cultural content, how to attract the audience or market the work being produced. “With careful planning,” Abdel-Moneim says, “we can improve these conditions, making our work more bearable for a start. Theatres have three kinds of problem: technical problems that can be solved free of charge or nearly free of charge; problems that require money but are ultimately affordable; and problems that require serious state funding, which require extensive planning. So, for example, I can say quite literally that our theatres are under siege by street vendors in Ataba, so is the historical Azbakeyya area — a potential tourist attraction going back to the era of the French Campaign and including such venues as the Matatia Cafe, where Gamaleddin Al-Afghani used to confer with fellow revolutionaries, for example — and both are completely neglected, handed over to street vendors. “The campaign to remove street vendors that has proved successful downtown has yet to reach Ataba, where it is harder because the vendors in question actually live there as well, but I am optimistic about the National Theatre, which is due to open and is actually an antiquity in its own right, so requires three-five metres of free space around it by law…” The National Theatre complex actually includes three theatres: the National itself, Al-Talia and the Cairo Puppet Theatre, as Abdel-Moneim goes on to explain. “A new project aims to create a new entrance to all three from Al-Gomhouriya Street, and connect the three buildings with a garden that can hold open-air performances as well. To work this project will have to deal not only with street vendors but also with the Metro station under construction there, which will take five years to complete. We have protocols with seven ministries who will be assisting with our work… “At the same time we're retrieving our cinematic heritage assets, including theatres and films. The aim is to found a special department for film production to deal with the LE50 million expansion in funding planned for the next few months, raising the budget to LE72 million. In this regard another thing that needs to be addressed is censorship. Banning films is no solution to the alleged problem of deteriorating taste when everything is available on the internet, something the current ministry, luckily enough, fully understands. “As for the Reda Folk Dance Troupe, which is so famous and successful it actually caused a traffic jam that required police intervention in Germany in 2004, it's in a strange position. It can neither renew itself nor turn into something else. The rich heritage of the pioneers Mahmoud Reda and Farida Fahmi is all that remains. What I find peculiar is the fact that the Reda Troupe was trained by Russian dancers in the 1960s, which resulted in minor alterations to our traditional Egyptian dances. At the same time there are folk dancing troupes not affiliated with the ministry that exists in every governorate in Egypt and they're truer to our heritage. The problem here is that troupe members are appointed by the state and remain employed until retirement age whereas in fact dancing is like football, it would make much better sense to contract dancers on a limited-time basis. The same applies to circus performers. I don't mean the ministry should abandon its employees to their fate but at some point we have to start solving problems or at least stop creating problems. “The key to bringing back the audience remains stability. Last year security issues, clashes and curfews resulted in very low attendance across the cultural spectrum, but last month the National Theatre Festival saw such high attendance rate that we know the audience is interested. We need to keep this audience by announcing our semi-annual plans online besides publishing our schedules at a high price in the three state newspapers. We're putting together our own publicity units to deal with this challenge. “The theatre will see major events in the next few months,” Abdel-Moneim starts. “First, we're reviving the repertoire. As a Agouza resident, I used to go to the theatre once a week with my families to see operettas and plays from that repertoire, so though we have declined somewhat we can still draw on what we have. The National Theatre is to reopen with a performance about Refaa Al-Tahtawi by Noman Ashour. We also hope to do Al-Farafir by Youssef Idris, all the classics for the new generations to see. Everywhere around the world the National Theatre performs the local classics as well as world classics. Al-Talia, which is the Arabic word for ‘avantgarde', originates in the military world, being a reference to the first line of soldiers who will take the greatest risks, pushing boundaries. And that's what we hope to be doing again in the state theatres. The National Theatre will now have a board of trustees to gather talents and expertise in the field, removing all administrative obstacles. The great theatre actress Samiha Ayoub, for example, should be on the board. “Seventy percent of the department's budget goes to the salaries of employees,” Abdel-Moneim says, “leaving only 30 percent for production. After the revolution [of 2011], huge numbers of temporary workers were employed…” Abdel-Moneim concluded his account of the department's challenges with his concern for the state of the National Circus, which despite its high revenues — “nearly LE30 thousand daily”, he says — is “dreadful. It has to do with the deterioration in the standards of the performers, who obviously need cooperation and exposure to the world circuses like the latest in China and Russian in parts some in Europe as well. Members of the National Circus refuse to leave the Agouza location under any circumstances, and as far as I'm concerned I fail to understand how a circus can be located in residential area without any provisions for emergency. In the case of a fire, for example, where do the lions go? My vision for the National Circus is that we need scholarships abroad as a step on the way to preparing for a new establishment altogether.”
