A free Al-Azhar park performance on a Friday is typically not where you want to be. The park is usually overcrowded on the weekends and a free performance means fewer seats, lots of children and a possible traffic jam before you leave. The word ‘circus' seemed to have done the trick for many of us who showed up to the wonderful performance at the Geneina theatre, forgetting all of the above. The theatre hosted the M Circus from Belgium as well as the Radwan show from Tunisia and each performance lasted about an hour. The crowd reacted very positively to both, a testimony to the nostalgia and enthusiasm most of us feel when we think of the circus. Even if we have never seen it, circus culture evokes powerful images that many find fascinating. The show from Belgium's M Circus featured an ordered chaos in the form acrobatics, juggling, bicycle tricks, live music, a little bit of comedy and more. Things became a little hectic towards the end but the performance was well coordinated and went off without a hitch. Fortunately for the crowd, well coordinated did not mean ‘stiff', and most people were interacting enthusiastically with the performers; something the performers themselves found a pleasant surprise. “The crowd here is very friendly and very nice. They are a great audience, they cheer you on and interact with you. We get a lot more encouragement from the people here than we do back home in Belgium," said Wout, one of the performers, who mentioned laughing that the performers had enjoyed a trip to the pyramids and had done all the “touristy stuff". The park itself is a wonderful venue for most performances and what is a more fitting venue for a circus than Cairo's most famous park on everyone's day off? Perhaps a challenge to the philosophy of the festival was access to the park. The festival organisers had told us that all the events would be free, because they believed the circus tradition needs reviving and therefore all performances needed to be available to everyone. It seems logical to assume that a public park in one of Cairo's most impoverished neighborhoods, badly in-need of green spaces, would be priced accordingly or would even be free to access. But access to the park costs EGP7; a price many people, including those who live near the park, either will not be able to afford or will simply not want to pay. “I think the price should come down or perhaps they could give a discount, especially given that it is a Friday. The performance was worth it though. The idea of these young but modern clowns, not dressed in typical clown outfits and entertaining different people across different ages and classes is wonderful. The performers had a refreshing energy to them and the show was pretty funny", said Manar Mohsen, one of the attendees. In any case, many of the future performances will be in public spaces that do not require an entrance fee, like the opening ceremony that took place in Abdeen square, or at least in venues that are better priced to accommodate all audiences. If the performance was an indicator of shows to come, then the festival has some very good days ahead and we strongly recommend you check it out and let it bring a smile to your face.
