Choreographer speaks to Amal Choucri Catta about modern dance at the Cairo Opera House The founder of the Cairo Opera's Modern Dance Theatre Company, director and choreographer , this year celebrates two decades' involvement in dance. A controversial figure, Aouni has always sought the unusual and the enigmatic, and his work is driven as much as anything by the dramatic intensity of the moment. A Lebanese, Aouni first arrived in Egypt in 1990, in the crew of Maurice Bejart's production Pyramid Al-Nour, which was staged at the Opera's main hall, returning two years later with his own creation, Contradictions, for which he received the Critic's Prize at the 1992 round of the Cairo Experimental Theatre Festival. It was partly in response to such success that the Dance Theatre Company was established soon afterwards under the rubric of the Cairo Opera House, producing, in the next decade or so, a total of 12 full-scale shows, the first of which was The Fall of Icarus in 1993, the last Mahmoud Mukhtar -- Khamasine Winds in 2003. Since then the company has also performed in Europe, Asia and North Africa, receiving awards in a number of countries. This month Aouni also concluded the proceedings of the fifth Festival of Modern Dance Theatre, a collaborative event organised jointly by the Ministry of Culture and the Cairo Opera House, which he helped found in 1998 and has since directed, introducing some of the most interesting foreign as well as local dance companies to the Opera's audiences. The festival had not been held for two years, and so it was particularly challenging to put together a successful programme, with four French and eight Egyptian companies participating. Prizes were introduced for the first time, and many figures were honoured. It seems the festival was not a complete success, however, with some performances departing so drastically from conventional taste that the irritated audience left the theatre mid- performance. "This happens because audiences don't always understand the meaning or the message of the work performed," Aouni explains. "Dance theatre is not ballet, a performance does not set out to tell a tale. Even when it does, as is the case in Joseph Nadj's adaptation of Buchner's Woyzeck, for example, it is neither a repetition nor a summary of the plot, but the individual vision of an artist. "In 1993, the year our company was created, the local audiences had no knowledge whatsoever of modern dance; many identified it with tap-dance or any number of commercial or music-hall genres. In the last eight years they have come to understand the difference." But do they always like what they see? "They don't always have to like it, though one does expect them to appreciate the effort that goes into the work and the idea behind it. At first there was some confusion between modern dance and dance theatre, and the difference is in the theatrical part of the performance, which is absent in modern dance. Audiences today mostly understand these differences, especially the younger generation. They've learned to appreciate the work itself, however unique -- ugly and repulsive, eccentric or beautiful... "It doesn't have to be entertaining or amusing, but it does have to be whole, with a strong impact. Its function is to bear a message, be it a positive or a negative one. While the purpose of music-hall dancing is to divert, and the purpose of ballet to fascinate, modern dance and dance theatre are meant to give audiences something to think about. The audiences can learn to appreciate even a disagreeable work intended as a mirror of ourselves or our times. "When we invite a company to take part in the festival, we do not impose conditions on the spectacle it is to put on. Take for example Joseph Nadj: he has created some outstanding pieces of his own, but if he decides to put on Woyzeck, we can only accept his choice, because we invite an artist, not a show. Ionesco, Buchner and others gave us a new kind of theatre that we sometimes find difficult to accept. It forces us to change our conventional view of theatre, likewise with modern dance and dance theatre." But are audiences provided with enough information about the theory and practise of such performances? "Our pamphlets and booklets are filled with explanations. Maybe the media could do a little more, if they wanted to, though we cannot be held responsible for their lack of interest. On the other hand I must stress that the companies we invite really are among the best in their respective countries, and the purpose of the festival is partly to show Egyptian audiences what is going on abroad in this creative field. "I've never said that modern dance and dance theatre should be made to 'invade the Egyptian stage'. What I do say is that a country of Egypt's stature should be party to what's going on globally in the world of theatre and dance. We've even founded a school that specialises in these two disciplines, and this year one of the festival prizes went to a student of that school. We had, in fact, several young Egyptian choreographers and dancers contributing their own shows: Ayman Abdel-Fattah, Walid Abel-Wahab and Ahmed Nabil; Reem Higab and Kamal Rabei; Dalia El-Abd and Adham Hafez; Karima Mansour and Karim El-Tonsi. Some have already made a name for themselves, which was not the case 10 years ago. "It must be added, in this context, that dance theatre has never been as popular as, say, folklore, not even in Europe. And let's net forget that very few young people have adequate access to education in theatre -- or dance. By inviting foreign companies to perform we can give them a glimpse of what's happening in Europe and other parts of the world. I'm proud to say that so far I've contributed to making some nine young choreographers, eight from the dance theatre company and one, Adham Hafez, from the school; he's the one who received the best first work prize in the festival. His work is new, distinctly different from what's been done to this day -- very interesting. We also had the work of Kamal Rabie, another young choreographer with impressive ideas. "At the school for modern dance we teach 11 different subjects, divided into theory and practice: modern, popular and classical dance, theatre and dance theatre, improvisation and character building, musical appreciation, rhythm and vocals as well as master classes. "The greatest difficulty lies in the students' mentality, which is different from that of their European counterparts, who know what dance methods are all about. This is not the case over here. I'm working to adapt Euro-American systems to the local culture, and though we're still at the beginning we already have a handful of promising choreographers." Aouni has always been fascinated with the piano as the principal accompaniment of dance -- any dance. "When you learn ballet you start with the piano and for the first two years you learn your steps, the movements of your arms and body, to its sound," he says, remembering how his own contribution to the festival, Quicksand, first came into being. "In Belgium I had a teacher who taught everything with a piano playing in the background; that's something I've never forgotten, and I always wanted to create a solo spectacle with piano music. "Finally, this year, while working with my dancers I had a sudden vision of Robert Schumann and his wife Klara Wieck, that strange father-daughter-husband triangle. That's why the show is based on Schumann's music, with soloist Marcelle Matta beautifully interpreting the part of Klara on the keyboard. The dancers perform on a sponge-covered floor evocative of sand dunes while I dance the part of Robert. The performance," he announces, "will be repeated at the upcoming experimental festival in September." Next year's modern dance theatre festival, Aouni adds, will feature Swiss rather than French companies and will not be titled "Encounters". Choreographers will not only encounter each others' work, they will also be meeting to discuss ideas and projects. The encounters will take place over a fortnight rather than a whole month. "We should not make it too long," concludes Aouni, musing about the future of dance.
