Theaters of Citizenship SERIES EDITORS: This series publishes books in theater and performance studies, Patrick Anderson and focused in particular on the material conditions in which Nicholas Ridout performance acts are staged and to which performance itself might contribute. We define “performance” in the broadest sense, including traditional theatrical productions and performance art, but also cultural ritual, political demonstration, social practice, and other forms of interpersonal, social, and political interaction that may fruitfully be understood in terms of performance. Theaters of Citizenship Aesthetics and Politics of Avant- Garde Performance in Egypt Sonali Pahwa Northwestern University Press Evanston, Illinois Northwestern University Press www.nupress.northwestern.edu Copyright © 2020 by Northwestern University Press. Published 2020. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Names: Pahwa, Sonali, 1976– author. Title: Theaters of citizenship : aesthetics and politics of avant-garde performance in Egypt / Sonali Pahwa. Other titles: Performance works. Description: Evanston : Northwestern University Press, 2020. | Series: Performance works | Includes index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019022943 | ISBN 9780810141759 (paperback) | ISBN 9780810141766 (cloth) | ISBN 9780810141773 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Experimental theater— Egypt— History— 21st century. | Street theater— Egypt— History— 21st century. | Theater— Political aspects— Egypt— History— 21st century. Classification: LCC PN2971.5 .P34 2020 | DDC 792.02209620905— dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019022943 Except where otherwise noted, this book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. In all cases attribution should include the following information: Pahwa, Sonali. Theaters of Citizenship: Aesthetics and Politics of Avant-Garde Performance in Egypt. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 2020. The following material is excluded from the license: Images, previously published material described in Acknowledgments. For permissions beyond the scope of this license, visit http://www.nupress. northwestern.edu/. An electronic version of this book is freely available, thanks to the support of libraries working with Knowledge Unlatched. KU is a collaborative initiative designed to make high-quality books open access for the public good. More infor- mation about the initiative and links to the open-access version can be found at www.knowledgeunlatched.org. This book is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Nehad Selaiha, an inspiring mentor to performers and scholars alike. Contents Acknowledgments ix Chapter 1. Theaters of Citizenship: Youth, Performance, and Identity in the Late Mubarak Era 3 Chapter 2. After the Festival: The Intertwined Rise of Cultural and Political Avant- Gardes 19 Chapter 3. Live from Cairo: Youth in the Time of New Media 47 Chapter 4. Making Women Matter in Avant- Garde Theater 73 Chapter 5. Instrumentalizing Performance in Self- Help Citizenship 95 Chapter 6. Remembering Utopia: Social Theater and Arts Festivals after 2011 117 Conclusion: Revolutionizing Cultural Citizenship 139 Notes 145 Bibliography 161 Index 171 Acknowledgments This book germinated in a chance encounter with Egyptian theater while I was studying Arabic at the American University in Cairo in the summer of 1999. I had read a review of director Mohamed Sobhi’s Carmen in the English- language weekly Cairo Times, and decided to test my fledgling Egyp- tian colloquial Arabic by going to watch the play at a downtown theater. I understood very few lines. The satire of Hosni Mubarak’s pseudodemocratic regime felt powerful nonetheless, and it inspired me to think critically about the aesthetic, affective, and political dimensions of theater. In the years that followed, several mentors have helped me understand theater as a cultural phenomenon under dictatorship. At Amherst College, Deborah Gewertz and Jamal Elias nurtured my inter- est in Egypt and anthropology with the kind of advising I only aspire to emulate. Amherst’s dean of the faculty and Religion Department together funded my first trip to Cairo, where I researched my senior honors thesis on youth culture. Tayeb el- Hibri was a patient Arabic teacher, particularly when Egyptian youth slang deformed my classical Arabic. My gratitude also goes to my Egyptian sisters Rula and Rania Zaki, who took in a naive college stu- dent and did much to help her settle into Cairo. Their friendship over the years has made them the nicest kind of extended family. Later, at Columbia University, Brinkley Messick and Lila Abu- Lughod were staunchly supportive advisers to a project they understandably found quixotic. Outside the Department of Anthropology, courses with Gayatri Spi- vak and Peggy Phelan were key to refining my ideas. The late Pierre Cachia also shared his wisdom about performance in the Cairo of his childhood. Elli- ott Colla, Deborah Kapchan, and Rosalind Morris offered further feedback and stimulating critique. The loyal friendship of Sofian Merabet and Ruchi Chaturvedi amplified New York’s charms. Sofian has continued to read drafts and encourage me through the project’s twists and turns, for which I am ever grateful. I owe a further debt to Nadia Latif and Ben Sampson for their sup- port during a spell of writing when I navigated four flights of stairs with a broken foot. An International Predissertation Fellowship from the Social Science Research Council (2001– 2) was transformative in allowing me to spend a year in Cairo under the tutelage of Dr. Nehad Selaiha, dean of the Arts Criticism Institute at the Academy of Arts. When the Theater Institute’s administrators would not let me enroll, Dr. Nehad took me under her wing and introduced me to ix x Acknowledgments everyone in the independent theater movement. She was the most forma- tive influence on this book, and I regret that she is no longer alive to see it. Her friends and protégés have remained my guides through Cairo’s theater world ever since: Nora Amin, Sameh Ezzat, Hassan el- Geretly, Hany El- Metennawy, Rasha Abdel Moneim, Hamada Shousha, Reham Zein, and others. Moreover, Abeer Ali, Ahmed el- Attar, Hazem Azmy, Mirette Mikhail, Khaled el- Sawy, and Effat Yehia have been enormously helpful and insight- ful colleagues. Their patient answers to my questions (sometimes by email from New York) shed much light on my path to understanding their work. Their theater world as I describe it is now past, but I hope my analysis does justice to it. I was lucky to learn at the start of my anthropological career that rela- tionships made in “the field” keep a research program alive with the allure of going back to meet old friends. Sameh and Reham were my compan- ions at many plays and introduced me to many corners of downtown Cairo. Elisabetta Ciuccarelli, Jakob Lindfors, Lucia Sorbera, and Matteo Vivian- etti were youthful coconspirators in various urban adventures. Later, Yasser Abdellatif, Iman Mersal, Sara Sedrak, and Randa Shaath enlivened evenings at the Greek Club and Estoril with their company. Nadia Naqib’s welcom- ing home and warm friendship still make it a pleasure to go back to Cairo. It is my biased belief that Middle East studies scholars are second to none in their collegiality. For their intellectual insight and encouragement, I am indebted to Margaret Litvin, Kamran Rastegar, and Jessica Winegar in par- ticular. The Middle East Studies Association meeting has been a welcome refuge from the misconceptions about the region in the larger academic world. It was always nice not to have to explain here that the Arab world did have theater. The supportive feedback of Arabist colleagues was crucial in helping me move from a defensive stance about studying Egyptian theater to a more nuanced scholarly argument. My shift from cultural anthropology to theater studies would not have been possible without the interdisciplinary community of the University of California, Los Angeles, program Cultures in Transnational Perspective, where I was lucky to hold a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship. Program leaders Françoise Lionnet and Shu- mei Shih were role models of intellectual openness and human generosity with sharp rigor. Theirs was the most diverse academic group I have ever been part of. Sue- Ellen Case welcomed me to the theater department and taught me a great deal about performance studies. As an affiliate of UCLA’s Department of Anthropology, I also learned much at its linguistic anthropology colloquium. And my fellow Mellons were the most amazing scholars and individuals. Alessandra Di Maio, Kris Manjapra, Sarah Valentine, Sze Wei Ang, and especially Marcela Fuentes made Los Angeles a formative place and epicenter of academic cool. I am grateful to Françoise and Shu- mei for organizing reunion conferences that allowed us to meet there later in our careers. Acknowledgments xi I enjoyed a further postdoctoral fellowship at the program Europe in the Middle East— the Middle East in Europe at Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin. The Theaterwissenschaft Institute at the Free University graciously hosted me at its office, where I benefited from the wisdom of Erika Fischer- Lichte, Lina Saneh, and Farah Yeganeh. Meanwhile, Georges Khalil assembled a wonderful community of Middle East scholars. Haytham Bahoora, Yasmeen Hanoosh, Nadya Sbaiti,