Something for everyone

Youssef Rakha samples some of what the holy month has to offer
Winter having barely set in, Ramadan is once again upon us, mixing the spiritual with the mundane and modulating not only the daily schedule but the routines of entertainment and culture in our lives. This year, moreover, the annual cultural abundance is witnessing a variety of developments.
The Opera House, for one increasingly multifaceted establishment, participates this year with a season of "Ramadan evenings" to which some nine Arab countries will contribute musical and dance performances and poetry readings through the holy month. A window onto the performance arts of the Arab World seems not only appropriate to the festive spirit of Ramadan but necessary in the face of oppressive political realities elsewhere in the world: solidarity through art. Among the highlights to look forward to are the Lebanese singers Somaya Baalbak and Ghassan Saliba, who will, along with other Lebanese performers and poets, open the Opera's performance series. The United Arab Emirates will present its national day celebrations at the Small Hall of the Opera House, while the National Tunisian Music and Singing Group will showcase the traditional art forms of the Maghreb.
The Ministry of Culture evidently has more to say, though, for besides the usual, and much cherished Beit Al-Harawi and Zeinab Khatoun evenings (ranging from experimental theatre to story telling and folk music, these programmes are rich and varied), the 27th National Exhibition of Plastic Arts is scheduled to open in the first week of Ramadan: an astonishing 398 works by 302 artists have been chosen for display. (For those of us whose visual receptors are more keenly honed during the month of fasting, the Salama Gallery's annual "Ramdaniat" show offers, in addition, some 60 paintings by artists ranging from Hussien Bikar to Omar El-Nagdy.) The Cultural Palaces, besides, are undertaking a veritable stampede of grass-roots cultural activity to coincide with Ramadan: 50 venues feature 20 religious chanting groups, 21 folk singing groups and 24 zaffas (celebratory processions).
These are arguably the most interesting of all the Ministry's contributions. Located in popular districts (Sayeda Zeinab, Shubra Al-Kheima, Rod Al-Farag, Al-Zawya Al-Hamra, Al-Tebbin and many others), the venues in question can be divided into two categories: traditional, moulid- style tents and traditional cafes. In this open and informal atmosphere, Egyptian performers and audiences establish the kind of rapport that is not usually possible in Western-style venues like the Opera House. Of the bands and troupes who will animate these events, one might look forward to the Angelica Band of Nubian music, the Mohamed Ezzat Band and the Shamayel Band. But if the moulid atmosphere becomes overbearing, there is always the chance to attend Ministry of Culture theatrical performances at Al-Nil Theatre, the Manf Hall and Suradeq Al-Khalidin, the last of which is worth a visit in its own right. Of the three main performances, Sayed Awwad's Rubaiyyat Salah Jahin (The Quatrains of Salah Jahin), directed by Ahmed Taha, offers an opportunity to recall, in the context of a performance, the masterpiece of one of Egypt's best loved vernacular poets, the multitalented and phenomenally vital Jahin.
Of all that the holy month has to offer, however, television, Ramadan's time-honoured monster, is the pastime most people wind up relying on, most of the time. Ramadan programmes have been known to propel struggling actors to stardom, and the best work is always kept for the holy month, during which, it is rightly believed, it receives the best possible airing. Of the 19 or more new shows to be screened this year, three are sequels to successful soap operas from previous years. In the third part of each of Bawabet Al-Halawani (Halawani Gateway), Al-Sira Hilaliya (Hilaleya Epic) and Awraq Masriya (Egyptian Papers), popular actors like Salah El- Saadani, Youssef Shaaban, Somaya El-Alfi and singer Ali El-Haggar are expected to attract a large audience. One show, Hadith Al-Sabah wal Masaa (Morning and Evening Conversation), based on a story by Naguib Mahfouz, sees the film star Leila Alwi participating in a television serial for the first time in four years. In Al-Baydaa (The White Woman), script writer Mohamed El-Rifa'i and director Ibrahim El-Shawadi have for the first time turned Youssef Idris's early, and unjustly neglected, novel of the same name into a dramatic work: an almost historic event, even if the final product does not prove as thrilling as Idris's original work of fiction.
Otherwise the range of offerings is astounding: quality notwithstanding, there will always be a narrative to follow and characters, however tentatively, to identify with in the hours following Iftar. Malika minal Janoub (A Queen from the South) is a period drama centring on the historical character of Al-Khayrazan, the mother of the famed Abbasid caliph Haroun Al- Rashid. Al-Imam Sufian Al-Thawri (Sufian, the Revolutionary Imam), another period drama, follows the spiritual journey of a remarkable historical character who, having coveted the mundane, discovers the serenity of selfless spirituality. Al-Bar Al- Gharbi (The West Bank), starring Raghda, ploughs the depths of conventional Egyptian social life by exploring the trials and tribulations of a man married to four women. Hikayet Gaber Ma'moun (The Story of Gaber Ma'moun), featuring Yehya El- Fakharani and Dalal Abdel-Aziz, is about a respected and virtuous businessman who undergoes the trial of discovering his supposedly honourable family's embarrassing history. The only comedy to be screened this Ramadan stars Hussein Fahmi. A gender-reversal take on the recent, much hyped developments in marriage legislation, Al-Nissaa Qadimoun (The Women Are Coming) explores a well-worn, if still interesting hypothesis: what would happen if women became professionals while men assumed household chores.
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