Embracing Ramadan nightlife, Amr Hussein spends two evenings at Beit Al-Harrawi Cairo nightlife takes on a different form during the holy month. Music lovers depart the Cairo Opera House, heading for the city's old neighbourhoods. Where rock and jazz normally predominate, in Ramadan it is Arabic music, and often Sufi chanting, that draw the greatest numbers. This Ramadan-specific culture is a process in which the Cultural Development Fund has played a vital role, due largely to the renovation and opening to the public, in the 1980s and 1990s, of historic buildings like Beit Al-Harrawi, near Al-Azhar Mosque. Turning these buildings into performance venues, the Fund fills them with a particularly active programme of performances during Ramadan, admission to which, as an added incentive, is free of charge. Creativity Centre manager Khaled Mohieddin, the perpetually tired man in charge of both Al-Harrawi and Beit Zeinab Khatoun, had not slept for two days when I spoke to him, hours before the opening of the Harrawi programme, last week. "It was a merchant," he started, outlining the history of the building, "Ahmed Bin Youssef, who built it as a private house in 1731. That was in the Mameluke era. Later, in 1881, it was bought by Abdel-Rahman Pasha Al-Harrawi; and the tradition being that houses should be named after their owners, this is how it has been known since. Al-Harrawi was a leading scientist, one of the first Egyptians to obtain a doctorate from France. It was his research that led to the extraction of colour from the henna plant. And maybe that's what encouraged the French to renovate the house," in the 1980s, "a beautiful architectural achievement that shows both Mameluke and Ottoman features. It's quite large inside, with separate quarters for men and women. Only the entryway is used for performances -- as a kind of music hall. The present programme," he added, looking more tired than ever, "will last until 27 Ramadan." Activities at Al-Harrawi, Mohieddin explained, take place throughout the year -- a fact that has held particularly true since 2002, when Al- Harrawi started hosting Beit Al-Oud Al-Arabi (Arab Oud House), a performance and learning centre established by Iraqi oud virtuoso Nasseer Shamma: "We offer lessons for interested students three times a week on Saturdays, Mondays and Wednesdays. Egyptians pay LE250 per month and foreign students pay $US250. We do have people from France, Mexico, the States as well as students from various Arab countries. Shamma and his students have been performing here on the first Sunday of every month since 2002." As it happened, that opening concert (Wednesday, 20 October) was a Beit Al-Oud Al-Arabi performance, led by Shamma. Even standing room proved hard to find 15 minutes into the show, with Shamma, in black shirt and creamy white suit to the left of the stage, surrounded by 24 male and female students, all, except for two very small boys who wore black trousers and white shirts, decked out in black. Both Egyptian and foreign members of the audience thoroughly enjoyed the show's 13 instrumental pieces, five of which were compositions by Mohamed Abdel-Wahab, Riyad El-Sonbati and others, the rest being Shamma's own, evidencing his penchant for mixing classical Arabic with Flamenco, with the occasional solo by Shamma or a particularly talented student. "Training, directing and conducting all those students is a major responsibility," Shamma told me at concert's close, a little before 11. "We had to work very hard to reach this standard. It takes hard work and considerable talent. I'm not only talking about performing per se, but also how you actually perform. I used to meet people with a paralyzed arm or an amputated hand who would be interested in learning, so in 1986 I invented a technique that enables them to play the oud with one hand. That's an example..." My next evening at Al-Harrawi was somewhat more in line with Ramadan -- Sheikh Helbawi, his band and choir performing Sufi songs on Friday 22 October -- yet the evening featured so much noise from the audience, both those inside and those who listened with the help of a speaker while sipping tea and smoking shisha outside, it proved, in the end, somewhat irritating. Helbawi went on stage 18 minutes late, so that by the time he started we already had a full house. Among the audience were Shamma and some of his students, one of whom played the oud with Helbawi. Veiled women with children sat side by side with foreigners, and the latter were particularly impressed with what remained, all things considered, a grassroots, indigenous performance. The band had four backing vocalists, one oud and one nay (flute) player, and two percussionists. Singers stood to Helbawi's left, musicians sat to his right. All were dressed in cloak-covered galabiyas, looking as if they were about to pray rather than perform. Helbawi greeted the audience before bursting into an unexpected opening number -- the call to prayers from the time of the sultans, a three-singer, precisely coordinated affair -- followed by a recitation of the last verses of Surat Al-Baqara and the Names of God, the latter giving way to delighted, explosive applause. Then an unexpected thing happened: there was a power cut. Helbawi consulted with his audience -- Applaud if you want us to go on anyway. Of course, everyone did. The sound was loud and clear enough, given the size of the space, and within minutes generator-operated neon lights had been brought into play. Audience interference did get somewhat annoying, however, so much so that Sheikh Helbawi started clicking his fingers to signal his need for silence. All the previous items had been purely vocal and the introduction of music was a welcome variation; it was soft, unobtrusive, with a simple beat. At this point it became clear that Helbawi is not only the founder and lead performer but the maestro of his band, his hand working to maintain balance and tempo. I was told that the backing singer next to him was his son; they both had an exquisitely high-pitched voice, with an identical range of characteristics, it seemed. The 10-number performance took 80 minutes and was thoroughly enjoyed by all. Noise and the power cut may have been disruptive but by the end of the show the relaxed, informal, slightly improvised atmosphere had struck a distinctly Ramadani note, and one left Al-Harrawi with the feeling of having celebrated the holy month.
