There’s a lot going on this week in Cairo and Alexandria.
On Wednesday, for example, you can attend the artist talk and closing of This is Not Parallelogram, an exhibition of irregular geometric sculptures (Mohamed El Maghraby) and drawings (by Mohamed Abdallah) at SOMA in Zamalek, or go to a screening of Atef al-Tayeb’s posthumous film Gabr al-Khawater (the title translates roughly as “The act of comforting” and it is set in a mental hosptal) at the Contemporary Image Collective.
And the 7th Cairo Video Festival in a Nutshell event is a blessing for those daunted by the sheer volume of works shown at the festival itself. A selection of 23 films is screened over two nights (this Tuesday and next), from Egypt and around the world, at Medrar in Garden City. Also in Cairo, you can pass by the ongoing events of Cairotronica.
Beyond Egypt, there’s a series of readings in solidarity with imprisoned writer and journalist Ahmed Naji on May 12 around the world, including London, Paris, Beirut, Kampala, Turin, Amsterdam, Oslo, Frankfurt, Kuwait, Boston and New York. Search online for an event near you.
Alexandria’s esteemed site-specific performing arts festival Nassim al-Raqs is back for its sixth edition. Since 2011, the program has invited Egyptian and foreign performing artists to come together to create pieces for various sites the city. It has expanded beyond its initial dance focus into other performance arts, and the program this year sounds exciting and diverse. Choreographer and dancer Mohamed Foad opened the festival on May 5 with Fragile Road in the Shalalat Garden, followed by a picnic. There are excursions dubbed “City Sounds Walks” and solo shows in several stations by Omar Adel, Shaymaa Shoukry, Marta Vallejo and Nikolaus Gansterer. Another event sees writer and Gudran staff member Abdalla Daif discuss the stories of African migrants before they took on the decision to immigrate. Neither the time nor place of the performances are announced and will only be revealed to registered spectators. Information on times and locations can be found here. Running until May 10.
Photo by Tarek Ali, courtesy Nassim al Raqs
The cafe that goes by the name of Kafein is having a celebratory architecture-themed Sunday by hosting both an exhibition opening and a magazine launch and anniversary.
The exhibition is of work by students on the spatial aesthetics pre-master course in architecture and urban design at the German University in Cairo, which combines architecture theory, philosophy and visual arts. It’s titled The Otherness of Places: Analytical Reflections and Mappings on Heterotopia in Cairo, opens at 6 pm and is up through the end of July.
Cairobserver
A couple of hours later, at 9 pm, Kafein will mark five years of Cairobserver, Mohamed ElShahed’s energetic web and print platform focused on Cairo’s architecture and urbanism. It will also be your chance to get your hands on a free copy of the latest print issue, a glossy small-format number gathering a diverse set of writers.
Kafein is at 28 Sherif Street, downtown Cairo.
On Sunday, the American University in Cairo hosts Wayward Ideologies: Psychic & Social Defenses in the Face of Hate discourses and Practices, a talk by Gilles Bibeau, emeritus professor in anthropology at Canada’s Université de Montréal, at Tahrir’s Oriental Hall. In a globalized world, ideologies are increasingly enmeshed in hate discourses and practices, Bibeau argues, and they infiltrate the thinking of both the dominant and the excluded. Beibeau brings into play the ideas of several canonical philosophers and anthropological studies that connect collective systems of meaning with identity construction. He also discusses ways to move forward, away from ideological illusions toward thoughts and practices open to political and religious plurality. (6 pm.)
The Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo continues its Palestine month with a talk on Thursday by Jason Beckett, an AUC professor specialized in international law, legal and political theory and the myth of international development. Under the title Framing the Occupation? The Questions of Palestine and International Laws, Beckett will engage with Israeli arguments that the Palestinian Territories are not occupied, the legal counter-narrative of apartheid, the roles of the domestic and military laws of Israel, the backdrop provided by Public International Law, and the surprising possibilities of resistance offered by EU Administrative Law. But his main focus will be the Israeli judicial management of the transition from international humanitarian law to human rights law. (6 pm, limited seating.)
Palestine month also includes a screening of Dror Moreh’s The Gatekeepers (2014), in which six former heads of Israel’s domestic secret service agency reflect on their actions and decisions, on Sunday.
Both talks are free and in English. The Oriental Hall is at AUC’s Tahrir campus, entrance on Mohamed Mahmoud Street (take your ID or passport), while the NVIC is at 1 Dr. Mahmoud Azmi Street in Zamalek.
Another exciting seaside cultural event this week is the launch of the first edition and website of the non-periodical cultural and architectural publication Tara El-Bahr. The Alexandria-based publication’s 2014 pilot issue had a stronger architectural focus, but its now focused on analyzing cultural and artistic practices in the city in addition to its architecture and everyday life. Through reviews, event coverage, translations and photography, Tara El-Bahr has an online platform in addition to irregular print editions. Tara al-Bahr is supported by Gudran Association for Art and Development and Ebticar Project.
The launch event is on May 11 at 7 pm at El-Cabina, 1 Mamar al-Central Street, parallel to Safia Zaghloul Street, Raml Station, Alexandria.
Formed in Amman in 2013, 47SOUL call themselves an “electro-mijwez, shamstep, choubi band” and they focus lyrically on freedom and equality. In fact they are the creators shamstep, which mixes traditional Palestinian dabke with deep electronic beats. The results are diverse: Some songs are stirringly rai-like, others more guitar-focused and contemplative, some more digital like a rousing video game. The musicians — Z the People (vocals & synths), El Far3i (derbakeh, vocals), Walaa Sbeit (percussion, vocals) and El Jehaz (guitar & vocals) — come from Syria, Palestine, Lebanon and Jordan. If 47SOUL are your cup of tea, you’re lucky to have them for two concerts this week in two very different settings: once at the Geneina Theater in Al-Azhar Park, the next day at Cairo Jazz Club.
On Friday at 8:30 pm 47SOUL perform at Geneina Theater, on Saturday at 10 pm they perform at Cairo Jazz Club, 197 26 July Street, Agouza, Cairo (entrance LE50, reservation required).
