A three-day conference on “Theatre and Censorship” — organized by Egypt’s National Centre of Theatre, Music and Popular Arts — wraps up today:
An early report by performer-writer Dalia Basiouny noted that that “first day of the conference saw sharp exchanges of views by those opposed to and those who support censorship practices.”
The conference comes in an atmosphere of increasing censoriousness: The montly Al-Fann Midan festival seems permanently stopped, and book seizures, burnings, and bannings have taken on a larger role in the public consciousness, particularly with regard to books that have any apparent Muslim Brotherhood tie or those like Walls of Freedom that seem to “instigate revolt.”
But positively, the conference program brings together a wide range of viewpoints, including the Head of the Censorship Directorate, critics, researchers, and theatre professionals from Egypt, Lebanon, Tunisia, the US, the UAE, Germany, and Sudan.
According to Basiouny, “the discussion proved to be intense and emotional from the beginning, illustrating how hard it is to discuss a complex issue and ask questions which demand unsettling conversations.”
In his speech, Minister of Culture Abdel Wahed El-Nabawy apparently argued that censorship was “helpful to Egyptian theatre as it encouraged artists to create a wide range of theatre forms.”
Gamal Yacout, a writer and theatre-studies professor at Alexandria University, added that “as a society we need censorship at this transitional phase.”
Yet others, Basiouny wrote, spoke against these censorious notions. She cited the Tunisian participants as coming out most in favor of a free theatre: “The clear voice and vision of progressive Tunisian artists seemed to suggest that when it comes to issues of freedom and censorship, the answer is still ‘Tunisia!'”
Read the whole day one wrap-up at Ahram Online.
The complete programme is also available at Ahram Online.
And if you want to support uncensored theatre in Cairo, BuSSy is running an Indiegogo to create a safe, uncensored space.
This needs work, it is clear that issue clearly works on some deeper level. I say this because in all of the myriad of pieces you have put out, this is the one which means the most you. You don’t normally put out a piece which is rife with errors, and yet you do so with this one. this would mean either that you dashed something off in a hurry, but you have not made mistakes on other pieces, which means that there is something of an intensity at work. I hope to hear you define what it is is making you move this kind of stress in what is obviously a very carefully defined relationship. Normally, you maintain and even keel on whatever the issue of the day is in your coverage of Western Arabic, with all of the myriad of threads that you encounter; but not here.
I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you’re saying here. Are you taking issue with Dalia’s reporting or my reporting of her reporting, and what in particular? Thanks!