Ballet Carmen by the Antonio Gades Company at the Cairo Opera House
The performance was staged to a full house on four consecutive evenings between 25 and 28 October.
While to some, “Carmen” was the keyword for spending an evening at the opera, others also recognised name of the famed Spanish company, which has visited Egypt before, its last performance in Cairo having taken place in 2010, and whose international reputation is strong enough to fill halls anywhere.
Ballet Carmen’s plot, choreography and lighting are the work of the late master flamenco dancer and choreographer Antonio Gades, with Carlos Saura. It premiered in 1983, as part of a dance-theatre trilogy that also incorporates Blood Wedding and Flamenco Suite choreographed by Gades.
Gades’ Carmen is a multilayered structure of realities, a base on which he builds up the nobility and deep emotion of the gypsy girl from Seville. Together with Saura, he manages to extract many captivating colours out of the story, with the music embraced by very simple scenography.
Read more about this performance here
Ballet Carmen (Photo: Antonio Gades company / Luca di Bartolo, courtesy of the Cairo Opera House)
Cairo Now: City Incomplete! at Dubai Design Week
‘Cairo Now! City Incomplete’ is the title of the display curated by Mohamed El-Shahed, founder of Cairobserver architecture and urbanism blog, that brought Egyptian designers and creators from different fields for the first time together in one site: the Dubai Design Week (DDW), the largest annual design event in the Middle East running between 24 and 29 October.
A total of 65 Egyptian innovators across the fields of product design, furniture design, graphic design, typography and architecture, were displayed in a 180 meter space, so that visitors get an intense immersion of what Cairo’s creatives are up to.
The exhibit was an opportunity to look at Cairo’s budding design initiatives in context, their relationship with the city and their surroundings, and what they make of the resources available to them. Because these designers have no means of connecting, they have previously operated solo, in the vacuum of the city, some only based online or through social media.
As the official closing date approached, it was announced that the exhibition would be extended for an additional month, a definite testimony to the exhibition’s success.
Read more about the event here
Cairo Now: City Incomplete! display at Dubai Design Week in Dubai Design District (Photo: Soha Elsirgany)
Dubai Intl Film Festival presents Egypt's Clash for Golden Globe consideration
In early days of November, the Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF) announced that it would present Mohamed Diab's Clash (Eshtebak) to the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) for Golden Globe Awards consideration.
The recommendation came within the DIFF's newly launched annual initiative to present two exceptional Arab films to the HFPA for the Golden Globe Awards.
The second film that will see DIFF's support is Halal Love (Bil Halal), directed by Lebanese filmmaker and television director Assad Fouladkar.
(Photo: still from film Clash)
Gidon Kremer and his Kremerata Baltica Chamber Orchestra tour Egypt
The famed Latvian violinist and his orchestra toured Egypt, performing in Luxor on 1 December, in Cairo on 4 November and in Alexandria on 6 November. Kremer, founder of Kremerata Baltica, is one of the most celebrated violinists in the world.
The concerts were part of the ensemble's Middle East tour (and part of their anniversary world tour) and after their Egypt performances, the orchestra headed to Jordan.
Their journey is a celebration of the 20th anniversary of the orchestra's inception and Kremer’s 70th birthday.
According to the orchestra's website, "Kremerata Baltica, an educational project with a long-term vision, was Kremer’s 50th birthday present to himself – a way of passing on his wisdom to young colleagues while making no compromises on artistic standards as he nurtured and inspired musical life in the region."
Violinist Gidon Kremer (Photo: AFP)
9th Panorama of the European Film
In its 9th edition, the Panorama of the European Film run from 2 November to 12 November. Organised by Misr International Films in partnership with the European Union and Zawya, the festival was presided over by Marianne Khoury, with artistic director Stephanie Sicard.
Drawing cinephiles and mainstream movie goers alike, Panorama has been bringing European films to the Cairo film scene since 2004.
This year's programme brought to Cairo 43 feature films, 11 documentaries, and a selection of short films from 32 countries. A number of directors will join Q&A sessions during which they will discuss their films.
The films were screened in Cairo, Alexandria, Ismailia and Port Said.
New to the Panorama this year was a section titled “Urban Lens: Spotlight on Berlin," which included five films revolving around the featured city.
Also new was the Panoranimation section which included a series of long and short animated films that employed a variety of animation techniques and brought back to the big screen some classic stories.
Check our section dedicated to the Panorama here
Opening of the 9th Panorama of the European Film (Photo: Amina Abdel Halim)
Ordinary People: One-woman play
Ordinary People, written, performed, and directed by Zainab Magdy, was staged at the Jesuit Centre from 22 to 26 November.
Ordinary People is the outcome of Hilfe das Volk kommt (Help! The People are Coming!), a playwriting residency organized by the Literature Colloquium Berlin in partnership with the Maxim Gorki Theater and supported by the Robert Bosch Stiftung (Berlin). Magdy staged the play—a one-woman show— in Berlin in October, before bringing it home to an Egyptian audience this month.
With a simple set of desk, small lamp, laptop, and a chair, combined with a screen in the back showing video art of scenes, and anonymous facebook posts that harmonize with the performance, Magdy fills almost 50 minutes with many stories and memories, transitioning smoothly between dreams and reality.
In the performance, the audience followed two parallel lines: Magdy's own history and losses, and those of others, which have merged somehow in Magdy's memory.
Read more about the play here
Zainab Magdy performing Ordinary People in Jesuit theatre. (Photo taken by: George Beshara)
Beethoven's Choral Symphony in Alexandria
On Saturday, 26 November, one of the greatest classical music works, Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No 9 (The Choral Symphony) was performed by the artistic forces of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina to the full house of listeners.
Conducted by Hisham Gabr, the performance of the symphony combined the BA Chamber Orchestra, BA Youth Orchestra, BA Symphonic Choir and soloists soprano Mona Rafla (Egypt), alto Rodica Ocheseanu (Romania), tenor Khalil Saeed (Tunisia) and baritone Haithem Hadhiri (Tunisia).
The great pinnacle of Beethoven’s greatness, the work is admired by musicians and music lovers alike, mainly due to the final cantata that comes in its last, fourth movement, Ode to Joy sung to the poem by Friedrich von Schiller.
The evening also included Borodin's Polovtsian Dances from the composer's opera Prince Igor.
Check our photo gallery here
Beethoven's Choral Symphony at Bibliotheca Alexandrina, 26 Nov 2016 (Photo: Butheina Shalan)
BuSSy and Nazra stage 'The Forced'
The performing arts project BuSSy and Nazra for Feminist Studies co-staged on 26 November 'The Forced', a play about victims of sexual violence at the Cairo's Goethe Institute.
Nazra produced the play as part of its contribution to the "It Happens" campaign against rape as part of the international "16 Days of Activism" raising awareness on violence against women.
In this compelling performance, storytellers recounted stories of forms of sexual violence from parents, partners, relatives or strangers to adults or even children.
Using personal testimonies, The Forced distinctively and expressively reflects the multi-faceted accounts of sexual violence survivors, touching on various feelings of fear, worries, and shame experienced by the victim not only towards their abuser but also towards society in large.
Shedding light on a horrifying but taboo subject, The Forced, through intimate and sometimes graphic details, highlights that sexual violence could happen to anyone.
The BuSSy Project, which originally started as a theatre group at the American University in Cairo in 2006, aims to document and give voice to censored and/or untold stories about gender in various communities in Egypt.
The Forced, by BuSSy Project and Nazra for Feminist studies, a performance of personal testimonies of sexual violence (Photo Courtesy of: Randa Khorshid)
Keizer at Mashrabia Gallery
Graffiti artist Keizer's latest exhibition was held at Mashrabia Galley of Contemporary Art between 16 October and 30 November.
In its official press release, the gallery said Keizer is "known for tackling global issues, oppression and social injustice; the anonymous artist brings back his uncompromising, subversive thought and his provoking art to Downtown, where his revolutionary art was born."
"Keizer's versatility is his greatest asset, making us wonder about what’s next; today, he finds himself a world-renowned artist, whose works have helped to deliver not only art, but also awareness, cultural appreciation and critical recognition to the masses by not locking them into restricted paradigms of thinking or confided mental landscapes.
(Photo: fragment from the Keizer Anthology exhibition's promotional material)
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