{"id":12559,"date":"2011-11-23T17:28:40","date_gmt":"2011-11-23T13:28:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/?p=12559"},"modified":"2011-11-23T17:29:49","modified_gmt":"2011-11-23T13:29:49","slug":"arts-struggle-to-define-who-what-is-%e2%80%98tahrir%e2%80%99","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/middle-east-society\/middle-east-art\/arts-struggle-to-define-who-what-is-%e2%80%98tahrir%e2%80%99\/","title":{"rendered":"Art’s Struggle to Define Who & What is \u2018Tahrir\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Visual and literary arts enter the contested space where a nation defines “Tahrir.”<\/p>\n

Yesterday, I briefly mentioned Egyptian playwright\u00a0Laila Soliman\u2019s controversial summer 2011 theater projects<\/a>, and her attempts to write \u201can alternative version of history.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hers is just one of many artistic projects rushing out into the public squares, streets, theaters, bookstores, art houses, and elsewhere. Some are just riding the coattails of a (sometimes) popular movement. But others are struggling to define both what is Midan Tahrir and what is ta7rir (liberation).<\/p>\n

As Amany al-Shawky notes in Al Masry Al Youm, <\/em>the theatrical \u201cTahrir Monologues<\/a>\u201d project continues with a third season. The shows, which began last May, are now drawing packed houses, al-Shawky writes, for performances at the Rawabet and Jesuit theaters. The monologues<\/a>\u00a0feature theatrical memoirs from the Jan-Feb uprising.<\/p>\n

Novelists and poets are also\u00a0trying to articulate the meaning of revolution in print: There is Ahmed al-Sheety\u2019s One Hundred Steps of Revolution: Diaries from\u00a0Tahrir Square<\/em>,\u00a0\u00a0Ibrahim Abdul-Maguid\u2019s Days of Tahrir,<\/em>\u00a0poet Abdul-Rahman Youssef\u2019s Diaries of a Cactus Revolution,\u00a0<\/em>and many more. Acclaimed novelist Ahdaf Soueif will be adding her voice to this in early 2012 with Cairo: My City, Our Revolution <\/em>in English and in Arabic.<\/p>\n

Syrian novelist Samar Yazbek, now residing in Paris, has also just finished a revolutionary narrative about Syria, which will be out in French<\/a> in March 2012. An excerpt appeared in English in <\/a>The Guardian<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

From Libya\u2019s struggles came Khaled Mattawa\u2019s incredible poem \u201cAfter 42 Years<\/a>\u201c; I\u2019m not sure if an adequate Arabic translation has appeared.<\/p>\n

New publications like\u00a0Rolling Bulb<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>offer a mash-up of pioneering graphic arts and text. If anything, I am expecting some brilliant new graphic-novel work (or a new form entirely) to come out of Cairo. I will be surprised if the explosion of graphic arts and narrative doesn\u2019t bear some incredible fruit.<\/p>\n

Dina Adel, writing in <\/a>The Global Post<\/a>, <\/em>asserts that all this means art in Egypt (and perhaps beyond) is undergoing a renaissance, another Nahda. But perhaps this prediction, like so many other things, depends on how the coming months shake out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

M.LYNX-QUALEY: Dina Adel asserts that all this means art in Egypt (and perhaps beyond) is undergoing a renaissance, another Nahda…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":12560,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,80],"tags":[18282,378,18300,511,7704,18332,18291,4706,2144,1959,8481,18330,399,1541],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12559"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}