Dance in Egypt has both a privileged and complicated situation. Egyptian society has an ambivalent relationship to dance, whether it is folk dance, ‘oriental’ or ‘balady’ dance, classical ballet or contemporary dance. The society as a whole is familiar with folk dance, and is generally proud of this legacy, whereas ‘balady’ dance suffers from a rather negative image, because of its connection to night practices and cabaret, which put into question its respectability, for a part of the population. Even if it is controversial today, this legacy remains very present in the collective imagination.
Western dance, or classical ballet, has a special position in Egypt. Introduced in the 1960s by the political power, it was seen as the official art, in the same way as the folk dance. Today, the Cairo Opera House has a permanent ballet company, with a school.
The presence of contemporary dance is much more recent, and goes back to the mid-1990s. It was introduced through events organized by foreign cultural centers present in Cairo and Alexandria, such as the French Institute, the Goethe Institute, the British Council, and also through the American University of Cairo. The Cairo Opera also has a permanent ‘modern’ dance company, which offers aesthetic pieces astride between American modern dance and jazz.
Since the late 1990s, a new independent scene of choreographers began to emerge, following workshops offered by cultural centers, which confronted Egyptian artists, especially from the theater, with aesthetics still unknown locally. Today, the contemporary dance scene is mainly the result of the training offered by the Cairo Contemporary Dance Center, under the direction of Karima Mansour since 2012. Two annual artistic events, the D-CAF festival in Cairo since 2012 and the Nassim el Raqs Festival in Alexandria since 2011, also offer this new emerging scene spaces for the dissemination of their creations.
Creating in public space in Egypt
It would be difficult to provide a general definition of the situation of public space in Egypt. I can only refer to my experience as co-director of the Nassim el Raqs festival between 2011 and 2015, and rely on personal observations that I have made during the eleven years spent in the country, from 2005 to 2016.
I have seen, at least in the city of Alexandria, that public space is saturated and requires permanent negotiation from artists and cultural operators accompanying the projects.
Regularly used for family events, weddings, funerals, as well as for occasions such as store openings, or spontaneously by traders and coffee vendors, public space becomes an extension of private space whose delimitation is sometimes tenuous.
On the other hand, the use of public space for artistic creations takes on a dimension considered more political, which can easily make the services in charge of the public domain cringe. The question often asked is ‘why?’, And at times it may be difficult to justify the artistic nature of the works presented to authorities concerned with the political nature of an artistic act in the public domain.
Access to public space is complicated by long and uncertain authorization requests, involving different levels of government and security services. A long process of mediation and pedagogy is necessary vis-à-vis the authorities. This long-term work, however, has borne fruit in the case of Nassim el Raqs, who managed, in few years, to establish a relationship of trust with the authorities, based on the quality of artistic proposals, consistency, and the longevity of the project. The motivations of Egyptian artists who create in public space in Egypt, at least in view of the artists we have been able to accompany, are multiple:
public space is seen as both an alternative to the lack of venues (such places are lacking in Egypt), as a meeting place between audiences distanced from the cultural offer and choreographic works that have little publicity, but also as a place of political advocacy, especially in the current climate of mistrust towards the authorities, which increasingly restrict the means and spaces of expression.
Such artistic incursions into public space do not date from the revolution, the process had already started before 2011, but the latter has amplified this need to reclaim public space, even if we are recently witnessing the opposite phenomenon take place, for reasons related to growing security constraints.
-Lucien Ammar-Arino
Centre Rézodanse – Egypte [Alexandria, Egypt] combines in one location a space for training as well as a place where several artistic and cultural projects are developed and implemented. Founded in 2008, Rézodanse defends dance as a valuable and respectable art form deeply rooted in Egyptian heritage, as having a key role to play in education and contributing to the cultural diversity of Egyptian society. The centre organises training programmes and awareness building campaigns to support the local performing arts scene. www.rezodanseegypte.com
-by Meryem Jazouli, choreographer and director of Espace Darja
The united nations square
First of all it is useful to briefly present this place located in the center of Casablanca that, like many Moroccan cities, consists of an old medina and a new city. Between the two, the United Nations Square creates a link, like a bridge between the past and the present. Recognizable thanks to its cupola nicknamed “Kora Ardia”, it is the meeting point of the city’s main arteries and is one of the most important squares in Casablanca.
This square is therefore a meeting point, a place of passage, and a gathering spot for all casablancans without exception (be they near or at the outskirts of the city).
However, it is not only the emblematic situation of this square that determined my choice, but also the particularly symbolic relationship between the medina and the new city. This motivated my desire that a choreographic gesture be placed between them, as if to prolong the link.
Dancing with the architecture of the city as a backdrop, I quickly decided to make SHAPERS exist in the heart of Casablanca, it seemed to me an opportunity to challenge the dancers (even for a short time) to apprehend a history and, for some of them, their history through a danced gesture.
How do you make a gesture, your gesture, in a space like this?
How do you give it enough life to echo that architecture, this framework and in the public mind?
With generosity, sobriety and a lot of presence, the dancers learned to carry, transmit, question and even to react to the public around this choreographic object which they defended relentlessly.
It was not a question of confronting the square, but rather of trying to become one with it, to dive into it with poetry, sensitivity and emotion. The dancers had the humility and ambition to give it another dimension, one that art allows when it meets all these conditions.
The close relationship offered by the United Nations Square (in this case between dance and an audience), allowed us to fulfill one of the major objectives of the SHAPERS project: making dance, carried by young performers, accessible and common ( through shared space).
For the dancers of this project, the United Nations Square also offered the opportunity to meet and understand the cultural diversity of this city (that the majority discovered for the first time). They learned to observe, touch and be touched by all the spaces they occupied and they learned to do so with curiosity, sensitivity and respect.
All of these adjustments and movements allowed them to ask questions, questions necessary when you are a young artist approaching public space through the practice of dance.
How do we exchange with others but also between us dancers?
What traces can we or do we want to leave in the places we cross?
What difference do we cultivate or not?
And finally, how could a symbolically strong public square participate in personal and professional trajectories?
These are, briefly and perhaps incompletely, the reasons that led me to choose the United Nations Square as a “scene” for the first steps of SHAPERS.
Espace Darja [Casablanca, Morocco] founded by choreographer Meryem Jazouli, is a place for artistic residencies and cultural experimentation, locally known as a platform for dialogue, encounters, and performances. Its aim is to develop contemporary dance in Morocco. www.espacedarja.com
Mes de Danza is an international festival of contemporary dance in Sevilla. Project partner and artistic director of the festival, Maria Gonzales chose to situate this performance in three very different places – at the Pavilion of the future at the historical Sevilla World Fair site, in the Sevilla penitentiary center, and in Cordoba, in front of the C3A: Contemporary Creation Center of Andalusia.
“The locations of each performance were radically different from each other, allowing the piece to explore different subjects and contours as well as to confront different audiences. In Seville, the performance was in the former site of the 1992 Seville World Expo, an abandoned place that came alive through SHAPERS. The other performance in Sevilla in the penitentiary center encountered a particular audience.
The third location, in Cordoba, radically in contrast with the ’92 Expo site, was a recently inaugurated space, the Andalusian Center of Contemporary Creation.
The choice of such divergent spaces highlighted the richness of this artistic project, offering the dancers challenges of different nature in each space.”
– Maria Gonzales, Artistic director of Mes de Danza
Mes de Danza [Seville, Spain]. Since its first edition in 1994, the main objective of Mes de Danza Festival is to explore dance in its widest and most varied approaches and trends and to link audiences -both familiar and unfamiliar with dance- to the performances. Beyond its role as a festival, Mes de Danza has contributed to shape and strengthen the local dance scene in Andalusia and Spain. www.mesdedanza.es
SHAPERS was presented as part of the 24th Edition of the MES DE DANZA Festival in Sevilla from October 28th – November 2nd, and in Cordoba on November 5th at:
– The Pavilion for the Future from the 1992 International Exhibition, designed by the architect Oriol Bohigas, in Sevilla, October 28th
– The Sevilla penitentiary, on November 2nd
– The C3A: Contemporary creation Center, in partnership with Casa Arabe, in Cordoba, November 5th
The choreographer and dancers adapted the piece to the location at the Pavilion for the Future during two days rehearsing on-site.
“The locations of each performance were radically different from each other, allowing the piece to explore different subjects and contours as well as to confront different audiences.
In Sevilla, the performance was at the former site of the 1992 Seville World Expo, an abandoned place that came alive through SHAPERS. The other performance in Sevilla, at the penitentiary center, encountered a particular audience.
The third location, in Cordoba, radically in contrast with the ’92 Expo site, was a recently inaugurated space, the Andalusian Center of Contemporary Creation. The choice of such divergent spaces highlighted the richness of this artistic project, offering the dancers challenges of different nature in each space.”
-Maria Gonzales, Artist director of the Mes de Danza festival
Mes de Danza [Seville, Spain]. Since its first edition in 1994, the main objective of Mes de Danza Festival is to explore dance in its widest and most varied approaches and trends and to link audiences -both familiar and unfamiliar with dance- to the performances. Beyond its role as a festival, Mes de Danza has contributed to shape and strengthen the local dance scene in Andalusia and Spain. www.mesdedanza.es
A detailed account by Smirna Kulenović of the Zvrk Festival conference:
The conference Choreographic art and training in public space took place in the building of the Main Train Station of Sarajevo on September 28th, as a part of ZVRK Festival of Contemporary Dance and Performance. Its goal was to gather local and international professionals from the fields of contemporary choreography, dance and performing arts, but also cultural workers who tackle the issue of Commons in their work within public space.
Some of the leading speakers of the conference included the critic and journalist Jean-Marc Adolphe (France), choreographer and an artistic director of ZVRK festival – Jasmina Prolić (Bosnia and Herzegovina), choreographer and artistic director of Ex Nihilo – Anne Le Batard (France), Meryem Jazouli from Espace Darja (Morocco), María González from Mes de Danza festival (Spain), artistic director of Nassim el Raqs – Emilie Petit (Egypt), Fanni Nannay from PLACCC Festival (Hungary), choreographer Žak Valenta from the International Festival of Dance (Croatia), art director of Street Arts Festival Mostar – Marina Đapić (Bosnia and Herzegovina), choreographer Foofwa d’imobilité (Switzerland) and dancers of the SHAPERS project.
Conference in a train station, Zvrk Festival, September 2017
The act of placing this conference within the open space of the Main Train Station could be seen as an artistic performance by itself, site-specifically created in the context of a paradoxical situation happening in a vivid yet abandoned space. Vivid, in terms of passengers that circulate through its halls to reach the train platforms – but abandoned in terms of lack of any initiatives that would use its open interior as a common good. This abandoned atmosphere within the Main Train Station has been at least shortly transformed on September 28th, by creating new movements and sounds in an artistic discussion that tackled possibilities of transforming, outreaching, bypassing, shifting, and expanding the artistic freedom in public space.
An introduction speech to the conference was given by the French critic and journalist Jean-Marc Adolphe, explaining the importance Shapers – an international project aimed at bringing contemporary dance to unusual locations. During times when Europe can be seen as a fortress trying to protect its walls from the invaders, it becomes extremely important to broaden its borders and work on more inclusive methods of creating cultural projects. In order to do so, an in-depth approach should be accepted with long-term commitment on education and exchange between local and international artists and citizens. With this comes the idea of inhabiting public spaces instead of just passing through them, on a real and metaphorical level – an idea that’s being developed by the project Shapers through contemporary dance. Contemporary choreographic practice here becomes not just a form of art, but also a form of activism, a fight for freedom that’s not only an artistic choice but an actual necessity. In Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, this necessity becomes even more obvious with thousands of refugees that had to flee during the war in the 1990s. But these were times when Europe still welcomed war refugees and gave them a chance to live and work within its borders, far from today.
Photo credit : Zoran Lesic Performance during the ZVRK festival in Mostar, Bosnia & Herzegovina
Contemporary Dance as Responsible Inhabiting of Public Space
How to truly inhabit public space through artistic practice? How can choreographed movements of performers who place their bodies in new contexts always take in mind the unique stories of life happening next to them? How can they engage instead of just performing, how can they cooperate amongst each other and the citizens? Choreographer Žak Valenta from the International Festival of Dance (Croatia) concluded that
in-situ performances should be created by well-prepared artists capable of observing everything as language, paying special attention to understanding the adequate context, history, and background of the chosen location. Art, if understood this way, can influence not just individuals but also the political ties of a city or a whole region, by opening up spaces of freedom, exchange, and expression.
New questions about the responsibility of the choreographer were raised in order to put focus on creating works that allow space for the performers to dance together and develop solidarity while dancing with others. This approach could be observed in the artistic choices taken in project SHAPERS – Contemporary dance in unusual locations and serve as a positive example of interaction and direction of movements amongst people in the local community, as well as the artists. On the other side, this kind of responsible artistic practice can also be observed in the work of Foofwa d’imobilité who directly engages with citizens by allowing them to take part in the performance Dance Walk, operating as a community dance marathon in various cities including Sarajevo, Mostar and Banja Luka in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Now! The Necessity of Politically and Socially Engaged Art
On the other side, responsible artistic practice in public space also means constant observation of the socio-political situation within its creational context. It is extremely important to be able to act and react with art, and have the courage to move artistic practices further into the field of political engagement or activism when necessary. Artistic director Fanni Nannay uses her example of PLACCC Festival (Hungary), which had to shift its focus from being “just colorful and playful” during its beginnings in 2008. Since then, the Hungarian government has changed from giving full support to their activities to becoming right-wing, strict and dictatorial. Following this change, the festival also made its program more radical and politically engaged. PLACCC constantly kept promoting site-specific art in public space, but it remained open to change and adapted its activities when it became necessary to react to the autocratic government with its strict laws and regulations.
One of the main focuses of the festival now lies in critical examinations of how public space and public decisions are interconnected and communicating this topic to a wide audience. Public space needs to remain open, needs to include citizens in both physical and intellectual spaces of freedom and mutual cooperation.
Speaking about the context of Bosnia and Herzegovina is also very important at this moment since the country’s political situation, history, and social issues remain so complex and almost constantly misunderstood and untruthfully communicated by the international media. For an example, the artistic director of ZVRK festival – Jasmina Prolić reminds us how during the war in Bosnia, almost all French media stated that there was a “civil war” happening in the country, while the reality was completely different.
Artists here have to do things by themselves, to react and create their own space since the government provides no support to its citizens, continues Marina Đapić, artistic director of Street Arts Festival in Mostar.
For six years now, she kept bringing international and local artists together in a city destroyed by the war which is now completely transformed through the festival’s activities. Her inspiration came from the architecture of Mostar, full of buildings left empty, destroyed and haunted. These same spaces are now reoccupied and reused, recreated through street art and street performances that bring new life and new hope to the city and its people. Young people are overcoming the fear of the “other” by working together on artistic projects that aim to reoccupy spaces like the old military base Konak, or the avant-garde cultural center OKC Abrašević. These are all proofs of how art can actually trigger political change and unite, despite the nationalist divisions so present within the political structures in Mostar.
“Public space is the only choice we have” became one of the most important statements during this conference, coming from ZVRK Festival’s assistant and cultural worker from Mostar, Jasmina Kazazić, who reminds of the non-existent contemporary dance scene in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Here, contemporary dance artists never had the chance to “step out of the auditoriums and theaters”, as it was already the case with the dance company Ex Nihilo in 1994. Here, in 1994, buildings were burning, houses were bombed and civilians were killed in the public space, killed while trying to do their daily activities. Maybe the fear of using public space, so present within Bosnia and Herzegovina, becomes more understandable when we keep this in mind. Here, contemporary dance artists still have to fight to prove that what they are doing is even considered to be art, they have to go out on the streets to show their passion and practice because the street is the only place they have, the only place in which they can feel accepted. On one side, in some European countries creating art within public space can be “poetic”, but on the other, this can be seen as an extremely radical, political and revolutionary act.
Morocco is another example of this kind of approach to working within public space, and Meryem Jazouli from Espace Darja (Morocco) reminds how
working with contemporary dance in Morocco means really fighting the law that forbids groups of people to gather in the streets. Cultural workers here necessarily have to be activists, they first need to occupy the space in order to be able to artistically inhabit it, because this also is the only choice they have.
Architecture as a Silent Choreographer
A powerful location that hosted performances by Shapers was also Alexandria, Egypt. The choreographer and artistic director of Ex Nihilo – Anne Le Batard (France) reminded us of their choice to use a tight and busy square as the contextual background for choreographers and dancers to develop their artistic practice in. This tight square as an architectural element wasn’t just about using the space for innovative movements, adds the artistic director of Nassim el Raqs – Emilie Petit (Egypt), it was also about thinking how to involve the passer-bys in the performance. The questions asked were should they involve them in the performance at all, and if yes – what would be the most natural, most organic way to address their movements within such a busy space, without disturbing their daily life, while trying to add up new dimensions and possibilities to it.
Premiere of the dance piece, during Nassim el raqs #7, on the esplanade of Abu el Abbas el Mursi Mosque, Alexandria. Organized by Momkin-espaces de possibles and Centre Rézodanse – Egypte
This is, of course, one of the most important questions that should guide the creation of any public space performance.
The passer-bys are the most complex part of the whole context since they are the audience who didn’t choose to take part in a performance or watch it, and therefore have to be treated with respect and understanding, while constantly having in mind the various possibilities of different backgrounds they come from.
Choreographer Foofwa d’imobilité (Switzerland) adds how during his Dance Walks he always tries to create an atmosphere of trust, so that citizens involved can fully be able to be themselves amongst others, without feeling the pressure to create dance moves of outstanding acrobatic or artistic quality. The artistic quality here lies in the capability of the choreographer to create such an atmosphere amongst all people involved in the workshop.
The Dance Walk is a hybrid construction between dancing and walking that puts focus on using the body itself to create new bonds with the public space around us, allowing new forms of inhabiting it poetically. It operates as a marathon that constantly changes location, since the dancers move throughout the city, chaning theiry rythms, speeds and shapes while using the experience as a spiritual practice rather than a performance made for an audience. Here, the chosen locations also become silent choreographers of the dance, since they shape the dynamics and bodies of the dancers involved.
Choosing the right locations within the city of production also needs to be one of the priorities while choreographing the work. Therefore, not only central locations should be taken as platforms for operation, and an in-depth research of all neighborhoods should be done, which is a research that doesn’t only consist of walking through the city, but also creatively engaging with the locals and getting informed about the actual necessities which could be addressed artistically in certain spaces.
But what is Art in Public Space Today?
In the end, there is no easy answer to what public space is today and what art in public space should be – other than it is up to us to remain constantly sensitive to the life happening around us, whether we are creating a work of art or just inhabiting the space by doing our daily activities. This sensitivity is essential both to artists and all citizens who should constantly be reminded of their role in shaping the material and intellectual forms of public space. Occupation of public space sometimes becomes the only form of expressing our own freedom of existence, which is actually to be found in the ways we are allowed to use this space as an extension of our own being, moving beyond the private sanctuary of our homes.
In times when Europe and the whole world moves into right-wing political approaches which aim to exclude all differences and become narrow-minded fortresses, it is up to artists to find creative ways of expanding not just their own freedom of movement and thought, but freedom of all other people by doing responsible and socially engaged work.
What kind of times are these, when
To talk about trees is almost a crime
Because it implies silence about so many horrors?
(Bertolt Brecht, To those born later, 1940.)
Smirna Kulenović
Zvrk [Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina], an association promoting education and new dance initiatives in Bosnia and Herzegovina, launched for the first edition of the Zvrk Festival in 2009. This organisation was founded as the result of a common goal among cultural actors and artists in Bosnia and Herzegovina to develop dance at a local level, through teaching, outreach initiatives, and performances. https://zvrkart.com/
Smirna Kulenović[Contemporary Art Gallery Brodac & the movement for Art in Public Spaces Dobre Kote]is a young artist, activist, curator and art historian with a professional educational background in art history and philosophy. Smirna works as a curator of an autonomous contemporary art gallery “Brodac” in Sarajevo, and is a founder/creative director of the Movement for Art in Public Spaces “Dobre Kote”.
Following an artistic residency from February 29th to March 6th at l’Espace Darja in Casablanca, Meryem Jazouli, the choreographer and artistic Director of Espace Darja, chose to present the very first steps of the dance creation and the cooperation’s project at the core of the city center of Casablanca: The United Nation Square, right in front of the Medina (the original city). This space reflects the city itself and is crossed every day by thousands of people coming from and going everywhere…
The public performance was made possible thanks to a partnership with the French Institute of Casablanca.
Espace Darja [Casablanca, Morocco] founded by choreographer Meriem Jazouli, is a place for artistic residencies and cultural experimentation, locally known as a platform for dialogue, encounters, and performances. Its aim is to develop contemporary dance in Morocco. www.espacedarja.com
The 4 Ex Nihilo dancers (Anne Le Batard, Jean Antoine Bigot, Corinne Pontana and Rolando Rocha) led a creation residency with the eight SHAPERS dancers from February 29th to March 8th at Espace Darja in Casablanca, Morocco.
A few weeks after the whole team gathered for the first time in Marseille, the squares and streets of Casablanca offered new atmospheres and spaces to observe, to react to, to dance in, and to create for.
Meryem Jazouli, the choreographer and artistic Director of Espace Darja, chose to present the very first steps of the dance creation and the cooperation’s project at the core of the city center of Casablanca: The United Nations Square, right in front of the Medina (the old city). This space reflects the city itself and is crossed every day by thousands of people coming from and going everywhere…
“How do you make a gesture, your gesture, in a space like this?
How do you give it enough life to echo that architecture, this framework and in the public mind?
With generosity, sobriety and a lot of presence, the dancers learned to carry, transmit, question and even to react to the public around this choreographic object which they defended relentlessly.”
-Meryem Jazouli, Espace Darja
This public performance was made possible thanks to a partnership with the French Institute of Casablanca.
Espace Darja [Casablanca, Morocco] founded by choreographer Meryem Jazouli, is a place for artistic residencies and cultural experimentation, locally known as a platform for dialogue, encounters, and performances. Its aim is to develop contemporary dance in Morocco. www.espacedarja.com
A workshop and audition with Anne Le Batard, Jean-Antoine Bigot, Corinne Pontana and Rolando Rocha from the dance company Ex Nihilo was held at the Cité des arts de la rue in Marseilles, France from January 17th to 18th 2017.
This phase was followed by an artistic residency for the creation of the choreographic piece at the Cité des arts de la rue, with all of the 8 participating dancers.
Following the audition, two French dancers were selected for the training program and the creation of the choreographic piece, SHAPERS:
Ex Nihilo [Marseilles, France] is a contemporary dance company, directed by Anne Le Batard and Jean-Antoine Bigot, founded on a common aim: to make public space a favoured space for creation and performance, placing encounters with a particular context and the people using an environment, such as inhabitants, an audience, and passers-by, at the centre of their artistic approach. www.exnihilodanse.fr
Concept design / filming protocole: Nicolas Bôle, Djela Samba.
Post production: Nicolas Bôle
Filming the environment, looking at the city we are in
The ‘square of the 7 lamp posts’ is a key place in the history of the festival Nassim el Raqs. The company Ex Nihilo created the performance Mashy in 2013, and since, we call the garage and its surrounding area “Garage Mashy”.
Its inhabitants and workers have become friends and accomplices since that moment. Washing the tires to prepare them for our work, giving advice on the choreography, setting up the space to make the work easier, the Garage Mashy has become one of the most enjoyable places for creation or for rehearsals for Nassim el raqs and Ex Nihilo.
