{"id":164949,"date":"2018-05-25T17:54:16","date_gmt":"2018-05-25T21:54:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=164949"},"modified":"2018-05-25T17:54:16","modified_gmt":"2018-05-25T21:54:16","slug":"in-egypt-a-marionette-maker-strings-together-memories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/05\/25\/in-egypt-a-marionette-maker-strings-together-memories\/","title":{"rendered":"In Egypt, a marionette maker strings together memories"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Mohamed<\/a>
Mohamed Fawzi Bakkar spends hours or even days designing puppets inspired by Egyptian life \u2014 farmers, street vendors, butchers and the occasional celebrity. (Mohamed Fawzy Bakkar\/Facebook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

CAIRO \u2014 In\u00a0a\u00a0tiny Cairo workshop, Mohamed Fawzi Bakkar designs and builds marionettes from scratch, hoping to revive\u00a0a\u00a0traditional art.<\/p>\n

The 32-year-old spends hours or even days designing puppets inspired by Egyptian life \u2014 farmers, street vendors, butchers and the occasional celebrity. He devotes special care to the faces, hoping to make them as unique and realistic as possible, and then he puts on shows.<\/p>\n

Puppet shows were traditionally performed for adults and children alike, often as nightly entertainment during Ramadan, the holy month when Muslims fast from dawn to dusk, which began last week.<\/p>\n

The art form has deep roots\u00a0in\u00a0Egypt.<\/p>\n

When the Ottoman Sultan Selim the Grim sacked Cairo\u00a0in\u00a0the 16th century, he was said to have been so amused by\u00a0a\u00a0puppet show depicting the hanging of the vanquished Mamluk ruler that he sent the puppeteer to Istanbul to perform it for his son, the young Suleiman the Magnificent.<\/p>\n

The most famous show of recent times was \u201cEl-Laila El-Kebira,\u201d or \u201cThe Big Night,\u201d first performed\u00a0in\u00a01961. The show recreates\u00a0a\u00a0mawlid \u2014\u00a0a\u00a0popular street festivals held\u00a0in\u00a0honour of local holy figures \u2014 with folk songs and dancing. The characters include\u00a0a\u00a0village leader,\u00a0a\u00a0lion tamer and\u00a0a\u00a0belly dancer.<\/p>\n

On\u00a0a\u00a0recent night at\u00a0a\u00a0cultural centre\u00a0in\u00a0Cairo, Bakkar performed\u00a0a\u00a0marionette\u00a0version of an Umm Kulthum concert, with\u00a0a\u00a0puppet standing\u00a0in\u00a0for the famed Egyptian diva, who dominated the airwaves across the Arab World from the 1930s until her death\u00a0in\u00a01975.<\/p>\n

He laments that there are only two venues for performing puppet shows\u00a0in\u00a0Cairo and only\u00a0a\u00a0couple dozen\u00a0marionette\u00a0artists.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all dream of having an academy\u00a0in\u00a0Egypt\u00a0that would teach the art of puppetry and to have\u00a0a\u00a0theatre\u00a0in\u00a0every city,\u201d he said. \u201cI really dream of having my own theatre.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CAIRO \u2014 In\u00a0a\u00a0tiny Cairo workshop, Mohamed Fawzi Bakkar designs and builds marionettes from scratch, hoping to revive\u00a0a\u00a0traditional art. The 32-year-old …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":164950,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[2849,51247,51249,51248],"class_list":["post-164949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-art-and-culture","tag-egypt","tag-marionettes","tag-mohamed-fawzi-bakkar","tag-puppet","mauthors-ahmed-hatem","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/164950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}