Osama Kamal attends a piece of theatre where the audience is an essential part of the performance Nora Amin, no specific genre of artistic experience is enough. The 41-year-old choreographer and theatre director has written fiction, experimented with storytelling, and has practically travelled the world in search of something new. Her new play, Two Shows in Opposition, is intentionally provocative. It combines truth and untruth, honesty and dishonesty, and several approaches to theatre all in one. The former intern of the Centre of the Theatre of the Oppressed in Brazil has brought the ideas of Augusto Boal to Cairo with characteristic panache. In My Name is Mahmoud Badr, the first act in Two Shows in Opposition, Mahmoud Badr appears as himself, speaking about his revolutionary activities and subsequent imprisonment. In the second act of the performance, Interview, a fictional character played by Sherif El-Desouqi is interviewed by an invisible interlocutor. Desouqi's character is clearly opportunistic, the exact opposite of Mahmoud Badr -- hence the title. The audience is encouraged to take part, and once this happens it leads to a new level of experimentation, one in which the audience takes the lead. Desouqi stays brilliantly in character and keeps the audience continually intrigued. In the end, we learn more about the audience than other genres of theatre can ever aim to do. Amin is a great believer in the Theatre of the Oppressed and its ability to educate people about their feelings and reality. She is forever trying to bring artists and would-be performers to experiment with this type of theatre, one that encourages the audience to become part of the show and cross the invisible line between viewer and actor. She tells me that the Theatre of the Oppressed is all the more interesting these days because it helps us discover more about ourselves and our society. Her recent show, developed in cooperation with the Arab Fund for Art and Culture (AFAC), is all about encouraging dialogue in ways that may ultimately impact on our lives. For the past seven years or so, Amin has been coming up with stage performances that call for audience participation. Her first production of what she calls "forum theatre" was in 2004, when she collaborated with one of Boal's disciples, Geo Britto, to bring the Theatre of the Oppressed to Egypt. Amin organised another round of the Theatre of the Oppressed in Alexandria in 2009, this time in cooperation with the Swedish Cultural Centre. The following year she led a theatre workshop in Cairo in cooperation with the Jesuit Society for Scientific Revival. Her aim is to attract more followers to the Theatre of the Oppressed in Egypt. In October alone, Two Shows in Opposition was performed twice in Alexandria and three times in Cairo -- once in Darb 1718 and twice in Rawabet. Amin has also held a collaborative performance for La Musica, her independent theatre group, and the Danish theatre company Asterions Hus. The performance involves seven acts, each lasting 15 minutes or less and all relying heavily on improvisation and body motion. The seven acts -- Perhaps, Misunderstanding, Hope, Potential, Suspicion, Demonstration and Dream --blend in time and space in an impressionistic way, but still maintain a clear bond of harmony and a dreamlike quality enhanced by colourful visual effects. The dramatisation is kept subtle and evocative, leaving the audience with much room for interpretation. Hope begins with a dance performance by a Danish actress Tilde Knudsen who, as if waking from a dream, is confronted by a three-headed figure symbolising the three taboos of religion, sex, and politics. Wearing a fascist-like uniform, this figure becomes particularly aggressive. The actress calls for help, but an ageing gentleman who tries to rescue her gives up after a while, and she is left to devise her own mechanisms to escape. Demonstration features successive images of protests, choreographed in a hectic manner, as if seen through a succession of camera snapshots. Dream involves Egyptian and Danish actors speaking freely about actual dreams they have had. Interestingly, the theatre audience reacted enthusiastically to the Danish dreams despite the obstacle of language. According to Amin, the actors aspired to stress the common features of humanity, with their stories blending the private with the public, the geographically specific with the globally relevant. Having studied half a dozen or so theatrical traditions, Amin seems to traverse art genres with extraordinary ease. Beyond the rigours of style she has an uncanny ability to keep her eyes focused on the task at hand. Unfettered by the diversity of her training, she seems to be able to choose just the right artistic threat to follow. For her, conceptualising a new show is both a private and a collaborative mission. First the actors have their input, and once they are on stage it is the turn of the audience to participate. Two Shows in Opposition was performed in four locations in October. In November, The seven-act show with Asterions Hus toured four governorates, including Port Saied.
