Poésies d’Afriquia is a collaboration between Ahmed El Attar and Teymour El Attar, falling somewhere between an African poetry recital and a theatrical performance. This tension, existing in the association of an esteemed director and a non-actor, is the starting point of this piece. Thus, the selection of poems was guided solely by the sensitivity of the father and his son, who gathered 11 poems by 11 poets from seven different African Countries.
The process was slow due to extensive research, the need to avoid rhythmic redundancy, and the desire to present the fluidity of poetic expression. The preliminary selection consisted of 18 poems, which was then narrowed down to 15, and ultimately to 11 for the sake of dramaturgical cohesion.
The initial task for the director was to maintain this cohesion and allow for a precise expression structure without solidifying the sensibility of the texts or the interpreter, avoiding a descriptive or demonstrative approach. For the performer, the task was to learn how to be on stage without acquiring too much acting technique, in order to rely more on the power of the texts and to find his own iteration of acting expertise.
This one-on-one work aimed to let the texts speak without forcing their meaning. Support was found in the music of Ramsi Lehner, envisioned from the conception of the performance to provide depth and multiplicity to the movements of the African voices.
In the end, the performance consists of three parts, lasting 45 minutes, where everything is done to become a conduit for the intimate voice of the presented poems.
The show was created in Cairo in 2021 and presented at the MC93 (House of Culture in Bobigny) in June 2021 as part of Season Africa 2020. It was also presented in Cairo in 2022 at the French Institute and Rawabet Art Space and performed at the Recrétéâtrales in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso at the end of November 2023.
Ahmed El Attar is an Egyptian independent theatre director, playwright, translator and cultural manager, is the founder and artistic director of Orient Productions, a leading Cairo-based production company, which provides a range of services for a number of projects in the fields of entertainment, arts and culture.
He is also the founder and artistic director of Studio Emad Eddin, a unique project that provides training spaces for independent artists in the performing arts, the Temple Independent Theatre Company, the Downtown Contemporary Arts Festival (D-CAF), Egypt’s largest annual international multi-arts festival, the The Arab Arts Focus, a project that helps produce and market Arab performing arts around the world, and Maktabi Creative Office Spaces, Cairo’s only creative space for cultural workers.
Attar holds a BA in Theatre from the American University in Cairo (1992) and an MA in Cultural and Arts Management from the Sorbonne Nouvelle (2001).
Attar’s work has been presented at major theatres and festivals in Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Sweden, Portugal, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, France, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Croatia, Montenegro, United Kingdom, South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, Russia, United States and United Arab Emirates.
In January 2022, El Attar joined the board of directors of the International Performing Arts Community (ISPA), making him the first Egyptian to join the board of the world’s largest performing arts network.
In 2018, he was awarded the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et de la Culture by the French Ministry of Culture for his contribution to theatre.
