It’s monday evening after rehearsal. We’ve plumbed down our bodies on the plastic chairs of the outdoor ahua (coffee) as usual. The four dancers, choreographer Samir, me, and one extra chair loaded with our bags. On the little round table in between us some packaging from our takeout meals, two cups of tea, one lemonade and one shay b blaban (tea with milk), two packs of cigarettes (one of them mint), half a bag of chips, an ashtray and a bunch of notepads and markers. Our conversations are interrupted by the sounds of diesel scooters, and from time to time I have to bend sideways to avoid the side mirror of a passing car. Hours after sunset it’s still too hot. In the background we hear the ever-present honking cars. On an average evening in downtown Alexandria, surrounded by shishas and cats, our debate intensifies.
The dancers have prepared notes on all the questions and unclarities they still have, based on the process so far. Samir and I listen and try to answer them as best as we can. The conversation spins and twists, derails into sidetracks and becomes a collage of personal stories, political perspectives, memories, examples, cultural comparisons and, of course, jokes. (The Egyptian sense of humour is golden).
At times I have to reel myself in not let my fatigue of the past few days transform into defensiveness. There are moments where it feels like the dancers are putting Samir and me on trial – and rightfully so! Because this position that we are in, as European choreographers claiming to give voice to Egyptian dancers in their own country, has often been abused in the past. And thus we all find ourselves in a web of colonial traces, intercultural dynamics and language barriers. Because interviewing women in English just to have their stories translated back into Arabic is obviously not the most efficient and transparent way.
Yet there’s something interesting in the types of confessions that can emerge when talking to a complete outsider, someone far removed from you everyday life, your culture. Perhaps there is some safety, too, in communicating in a language that is not your mother tongue. You take more time to translate and place your words, you’re more patient with each other as you collaborate with your conversation partner to find the best expressions. There’s a bit more room for “testing the waters”, and it’s easier to take a step back and say “give me some time to think about how to best phrase this”.
In the process of linguistic and cultural translation, clarifications can arise and nuances can surface that normally would remain unaddressed. Like when our dancers tell us “maybe that’s interesting for you, but for us it’s so normal!” Initially, this gives the impression that we’re getting it all wrong. But there is something about surfacing what is normally taken for granted. Bringing to the stage something that is perceived so ordinary, not worthy of the theater. Yes, I explain to the dancers, we are incorporating extraordinary stories into the work. The stories of women who did something incredible, who broke free from a system, who revolutionized their lives and that of those around them. But we want your small everyday details too. These everyday adjustments that you make to keep doing what you love, they show resilience too. These little moments of bouncing back, taking another road when the one in front of you is closed. Resilience is a quality that you all carry and that does not only come out in the form of fights or protests.
It’s not something, either, that’s always joyful, full of pride and celebration. If these words came up a lot in our rehearsals, it’s by lack of other, more accurate words for the mixed feelings that we want to convey. Because passing a test after four failures, making a career switch, opening a business – these celebratory events are almost tangible examples of resilience. But so is putting on headphones to not have to hear your harassers, moving out from your family’s house for your sanity, finding ways to cook a meal for your children when money is low. These may not be moments filling you with pride and celebration, but rather with regrets, or mixed feelings at best. But doing what has to be done shows resilience too. Sometimes resilience means destroying the limitations imposed on you – and sometimes it’s finding your own little breathing room within them.
A little mishap can shift our artistic choices from representing the resilience of these women, to imposing our interpretations of their stories onto them. And yes, the theme of resilience, as a framework to collect and present their stories, is already an imposed perspective. But it’s a well-informed one, developed over time from a profound curiosity for these women’s lives. Paired with an admiration of their persons, but without putting them on an oversimplified pedestal. Through the theme of resilience we hope to acknowledge the full humanity of the dancers we work with and the women we have interviewed. In a way that emphasizes agency over victimhood and does not reduce their person to either heroine or damsel in distress.
Continuous dialogue, cross-referencing our ideas with human encounters and existing studies, close collaboration with a translator, open studios for the local community. These are all tools we work with to make sure our art is informed by a collaborative research that does justice to the people we are trying to represent.
I feel honoured to see our dancers so actively engaging in decisions about the performance and what it represents. It shows their commitment to the art but also their community and its future.