Reda Abdel Aziz looks at his performers, "You! Stay - at - the - centre. That way." He stresses each word while pointing to the spot where the two boys are standing. 

"Take care of little details." He points at a line of oscillating girls behind them. "Little details make a difference. Appearances matter," says Abdel Aziz, and moves the boys to the centre of the formation. They nod in reply.

As we watch the founder and main dynamo of the troupe called Al-Sameteen (The Silent Ones), we discover the great effort that all participants are exerting to meet his expectations. The task is particularly challenging to the troupe's members who are mostly deaf, many born to families of consanguine marriages or victim of medical mishaps. 

They are brought together by Abdel Aziz and work on their shows at the Ibdaa (Creativity) Centre for Arts Development in their hometown Mahalla. 

The troupe's performances vary in genre and content, from tackling themes based on Pharaonic stories and symbolic depiction of social issues set in theatrical format, to folkloric dances. Such was the case of the rehearsals followed by a performance staged last week at El-Horrya Lil Ebdaa (Freedom of Creativity) centre in Alexandria.

The beginnings of the troupe go back to 2005 when Abdel Aziz was teaching theatre at a special needs school in Mahalla. He was curious about the deaf world and began by teaching musical rhythm to youth who had never heard music. At the school he found his first dancers, like Basma Farid who was 11 at the time. Now 22, Farid is an evolution of her own and is capable of training the performers during Abdel Aziz's absence.

Yet since their founding, the road for Al-Sameteen was not always a bed of roses. After five years of activities, in 2010, Abdel Aziz announced he was about to give up on his troupe as the culture ministry showed no interest in promoting them. In 2012, however, the new minister of culture, Saber Arab, decided to support financially and morally the troupe, bringing it under the ministerial aegis. 

Today, Al-Sameteen has around 15 performers and is supported by the Cultural Development Fund, a ministerial body that helps them organise performances in state-owned cultural venues across Egypt. Moreover, the troupe participated in dance festivals in Egypt, India (2013) and Italy (2013). 

Rehearsals

Both Abdel-Aziz and Farid do not consider the fact that the performers are deaf as something particularly special; they rather search for special tools to transform their different abilities into an onstage production. 

"They are like any other theatrical troupe," Farid clarifies. 

Al-Samteen were not born to be on stage; rather "They were brought to it out of their isolation," Abdel Aziz tells Ahram Online, and swiftly directs his attention to Farid, giving his remarks on the rehearsal's progress.

As the troupe rehearses "Cleopatra," one of the three pieces presented by them last week, the Pharaonic guards arch their hands and rock side to side. It's mechanical, and the boys try to hold their giggles. 

Abdel Aziz watches the scene and asks them to focus on keeping their hands arched at right angles, like little lotuses. 

He picks up Faten, their newest addition and Farid's little sister, and adjusts her hands. Unlike the rest of the dancers, she can hear him. 

"Sometimes I get scared of him, but I know he worries for us," Faten tells me through writing.

While Abdel Aziz adjusts music backstage, the performers abandon their rehearsal and mob me, signing to me, grabbing my notebook and writing their names, the names of their siblings, their ages, between 12 to 22. 

Mahmoud Emara, 15, taps my shoulder and shows off his smooth robot moves. Hend Sameh says she is not worried about the performance; she has been with the troupe for two years and knows it well. 

I ask Ahmed Hamdan, 22, a veteran of four years, how he feels about the music. He signs that he can not really hear it. No one of them can. 

"Reda discovered us," they write down in my notebook, yet their futures will probably take them away from dance.

"They marry early and usually leave the troupe," Abdel Aziz explains before returning to the rehearsal. The performers assume their places and continue their silent dance. 

"One, two, three, four ... " Abdel Aziz taps the tempo while taking Gamal Yasser's hand. 

This "bone connection" method Abdel Aziz coined is the result of his background as a percussionist, and research into Beethoven's own struggle with hearing loss. 

"In a movie about Beethoven I saw him placing his head on the piano to feel vibrations as he played, and that was it." 

Abdel Aziz's method is based on "cultivating" rhythm within those deaf performers by systematic tapping on their hands and shoulders until they memorise the tempo of their routine. In the beginning, it took Abdel Aziz three years to teach the performers. 

"It is a beautiful feeling," Farid writes to me explaining how she feels free when she dances. 

"I feel like a queen, an artist loved by people. I do not feel deaf."

Farid plans to perform her own choreographed Indian dance, an inspiration she picked up on their tour in India where her lead as Cleopatra made the audience cry. 

"It is about teaching and feeling," she explains, describing her routine.

Reda attacks a girl performer: "Be scared! I am attacking you! And not ... " and he grimaces his mouth in a bored expression. 

They are rehearsing a play about violence against women. Reda is tough, he pushes them to the limit. "I make them feel and live the experience, I explain to them why he is hitting her, I explain to her why she is scared."

But this time he is not happy about their performance and decides to cancel this segment. 

Raise the curtain

Most of the performers were a family burden, or even a shame.

Now minutes before their performance, they are backstage changing into elaborate Pharaonic costumes. Behind the curtain their excited relatives take over the little theatre. 

"It is more than just an art experiment, there is a challenge, there is innovation. When we were in Italy, Italians told me it was art against logic; they should not be dancing," Abdel Aziz whispers as the curtain raises. 

Mohamed Al-Gayar, 15, appears vicious as Octavius. He battles Pharaonic guards as little Pharaonic girls, including Hend and Faten, tremble in fear. Then Antonio, played by Gamal, stands up to him. The two Romans circle each other like a pair of wolves. Antonio defeats Octavius in the end, stares at his sword, then plunges it into his armpit. He falls, sword protruding, motionless as Cleopatra (Basma Farid) kills herself in despair. 

Two teenage Tanura dancers swirl and swirl to Arabic tunes and the audience is intrigued. Mohamed Hamdi and Ahmad Hassan are not completely deaf, Reda tells me, which is why they have a separate act. 

Basma Farid changes backstage into a devil for a final short piece. Farid appears on stage in a black outfit accompanied by her red evil minions. Devil Basma is in character, she swallows invisible pills, smokes and injects invisible narcotics with a young man until he's tormented by her evil minions in this staged spiral of drug addiction. A deaf angel appears and defeats devil Basma, whisking a poor soul away.

The audience applauds.

At the end, Reda comes out to thank the attendees. He says he is honoured to present the troupe to such a cultured audience. Many of the relatives are deaf and stare at him. The sweaty performers are hugged and kissed by their relatives, the sign language is ecstatic.

Two buses arrived to take the young stage stars and their happy relatives back home to Mahalla. 

I asked the performers how they feel while dancing. "Happy," they simply wrote.