Download THEATRE EMANCIPATES THE PUBLIC SPACE: EGYPTIAN

THEATRE EMANCIPATES THE PUBLIC SPACE: EGYPTIAN STREET
THEATRE ANALOGISES, REPRESENTS, AND CONTRIBUTES IN
THE STRUGGLE TOWARDS DEMOCRACY
Rasha KHAIRY DAWOOD
Academy of Arts, Egypt, [email protected]
One of the most striking aspects of the 2011 Revolution in Egypt was protestors’
improvised sketches of political parody in Tahrir Square. Since then, many newlyfounded troupes have performed in major Egyptian cities. Egyptian laws criminalise
gatherings of more than ten citizens in any public place without an official licence.
Therefore, in addition to its political critique, street theatre intrinsically breaches the
strict limitations on accessing public space.
As the conflict about the ownership of the streets is coming to a head, my paper
investigates street theatre as a revolutionary action and a theatrical practice. While
contemporary street theatre revives human and puppet improvisational performances
of the nineteenth-century travelling troupes in Egypt, practitioners mingle these
traditional forms with aspects of foreign political drama. My paper studies this old/new
practice as an example of the socio-political function of theatre at a decisive
moment/space of national dispute.
As Egyptian streets are the battlefield and the reward for both the political and
theatrical activities of the struggle, my paper modifies Habermas’ notion of the
‘bourgeois public sphere’ by combining Alain Badiou’s reading of the Egyptian
Revolution as a ‘historical riot’, within which all different types of people participate,
with Jeffery Alexander’s description of 2011 demonstrations as an ‘emerging civil
sphere of the nation’ protected by ‘an impermeable shield’ of Egyptian masses. My
theoretical approach to study street performances counterbalances Bakhtin’s theory
of carnival in the public square with Foucault’s discussions about space and power.