Pharaonic hip-hop and Hitler on Cairo Opera stage

27. March was the opening of The Egyptian National Theatre Festival on Cairo Opera stage. Me and 20 more dancers were part of the ceremony as dancing puppets. Sometimes work opportunities come very suddenly in Egypt. We were called to join the team on friday, had a rehearsal to study the dances on saturday and sunday, perfromed on wednesday.
The opening was a magical fantasy-style mix of dance, history, famous actors and social comedy. Here is how it happened.

Kaidi puppet

The overture (opening dance) was a mystical violin music with some effective drumming and we danced a lyrical jazz-modern choreography. But the idea of the dance was genious! We were theatre puppets becoming alive bit-by-bit, emerging from the stage decor as hidden art. We wore white costumes custom painted according to the decor from witch we emerged. At the end of the dance there was a big bang and huge pharaonic puppet arose from inside the stage. He was standing on a grave and with pantomine started chanting on the grave to awake the souls inside. Finally the grave door opened and what came out....
Aedel Emam (the currently most popular and respected still living actor in Egypt), Youssif Wahbi, Ismael Jesin and more well-known actors who are already dead, so they came out as zombies, each having some smart message to deliver, about the world, theatre, life, love and death. They were played by normal actors, who happened to be look-alikes for the famous ones.



And finally who woke up from the grave, still in his pajamas...Hitler himself!!! He actually represented the new autocratic dictatorship of Morsi (this is how the other dancers explained to me the situation) and new society and Aedel Emam represented the best of egyptian talents and free theatre and art. So this famous zombies sketch ended with these two fighting each other. The other actors came to help and Aedel Emam won.

Aedel Emam on my left, Hitler on the right

With my parter Salah

Then we enetered with the last dance of the opening, a fun dance mixing modern, hip-hop, pharaonic and bellydance and revolution-inspired demonstration in between:). It was called "Kullu dunja masrah" (All the world is a theatre), very entertaining for a dancer to perform, technical and funny with enough space for a dancer to improvize and enjoy herself.


Throughout the show me and my partner were always placed in the front and in the middle, because of our punctuality and focus in the rehearsals, our liability to perform and play a character. I give lots of credit to many of my professional fellow-dancers, but not all. Some hardly ever showed up to rehearsals and the night before the show panicked on stage to remember all the steps. A nice compliment I received the next day was by a friend of a friend who came to see the opening and and sent word for me..."the foreign dancer in the front in the middle outdances all the rest". Im only happy that my effort is seen and appreciated and its just too damn cool that egyptians are not shy to express their opinion or criticism;)