Dancer Walid Aouni remembers Al-Ahram Weekly's music critic who died last week Amal Choucri Catta contributed to the advancement of arts criticism in Egypt over the past 20 years. She was more than a music critic: she was a critic of all the performing arts in which music plays a central role. I first met her when I came to Egypt in 1990 with the Maurice Béjart Ballet Company to perform in Pyramide -- el Nour. I was struck by the perceptiveness of her questions at the press conference held at the Mina House Hotel following the performance. So was Béjart. "That is a very intelligent woman," he told me that day. Little did I know then that this perceptive and intelligent woman would also be one of the champions of modern dance theatre in Egypt. But then I had not foreseen that I, too, would have the opportunity to share in that valuable experience. Later, after I was asked to form Egypt's dance theatre troupe, Amal Choucri Catta became, for me, the bedrock of our pioneering efforts. She defended the troupe and me personally in the face of assaults on the new movement in dance in Egypt, and she went on the offensive on our behalf through the barrage of information with which she underpinned her explanations or criticisms of our performances. As I was soon to discover, she herself was a veritable mine of information. Her house was crammed with books, and on my weekly visits I would find the latest international magazines and periodicals. She read voraciously and was always keen to keep up with the latest developments in theatre and the arts, as well as in politics and international affairs. She was a woman of strong opinions, firm beliefs and unswerving resolve. One of my favourite pleasures was the hours we would spend together after a show, parsing its every detail. She was interested in opera, classical music, ballet and modern dance theatre, which was her greatest passion. I had never met a woman as courageous as she was, or as dedicated to her work. Even when ill and bedridden she carried on working, and even when she was in hospital, where she spent the last two months of 2007, she carried on reading non-stop. Magazines were piled up high around her. She would try to keep herself awake as long as possible, determined not to sleep until she had read up on the latest world developments. Hardly had she been released from hospital at the beginning of 2008 than she reappeared at the Cairo Opera House -- on crutches -- and submitted her reviews as usual to Al-Ahram Weekly. The last time I saw her was two weeks ago. She was full of life and energy, as though she had never been ill at all, and she was elegantly and exquisitely dressed, as always, because we were in the Opera House, her home from home and the place that made her heart thrill and given rise to some of her best writing. When Georges Choucri Catta, Amal's husband died two years ago, she refused to give in to depression or to withdraw into solitude. She carried on working, and she resumed her second passion, painting, producing a new set of works on the ancient Egyptian pharaohs. In November 2007, even though she was staying in hospital at the time, she managed to attend the opening of an exhibition of her work at the Opera House Gallery. That took real courage and dedication and was the expression of a forceful character. As attached as she was to life -- "we have to live life to the fullest," she'd always tell me -- life packs some cruel surprises. Barely had she returned to our midst in full vigour, cheering us with her presence and stimulating our minds with her thoroughly substantiated and documented reviews, than she was taken away from us once more. She will be greatly missed. She enriched our lives with her insights into art and into the art of criticism; she opened our eyes to the strengths in our works and to their weaknesses; and she broadened our minds with her storehouse of knowledge. People in my field owe her a special debt of gratitude for her seminal History of Modern Egyptian Dance Theatre. She had also begun to write a history of the Cairo Opera House since its reopening in 1988, a book that promised to become a major reference work on the artistic revival that has been underway in Egypt over the past 20 years. She and her husband used to have two front-row seats reserved for them in the Main Hall of the Opera House. After her husband died, she continued to buy a ticket for him so that she could imagine him still sitting next to her during a performance. "I miss him there more than I do at home," she once told me. Now both seats are empty, and I feel as though there is a gap in the audience. I would like to believe that anyone performing at the Opera House will feel that gap too.
