Sharjah Desert Theater Festival highlights the aesthetics of popular biographies

Sharjah, December 15 / WAM / The activities of the ninth session of the Sharjah Desert Theater Festival continued, and the activities of the third day of the festival began, in the presence of Ahmed Bourahima, Director of the Theater Department at the Department of Culture, Director of the Festival, with the session “Desert Theater and the Aesthetics of Arab Folklore,” moderated by the artist Abdullah Rashid.

In the first intervention, entitled “The Aesthetics of Value in the Form and Content of Desert Theater,” Egyptian critic Abdel Razek Hussein expressed his admiration for the festival’s experience, describing it as an effective platform for restoring Arab heritage and approaching it artistically, noting that Arab folk tales, biographies, and epics represent an essential source for building the plot, ideas, and characters in desert theater performances, due to their dramatic, linguistic, and aesthetic dimensions, as well as their embodiment of the values ​​of heroism, chivalry, and Arab social morals.

He explained that presenting performances in the open desert space constitutes a departure from the typical closed theatres.

Tunisian researcher Youssef Mars, in his intervention “The Site of the Popular Biography in the Desert Scene,” addressed the Hilali biography as an example, highlighting its theatrical potential by combining narration and diagnosis, stressing that presenting the show in the form of an “episode” allows for the engagement of the audience and enhances their interaction, thus contributing to the creation of an integrated theatrical experience in its content and form.

Omani researcher Dr. Wafa Al Shamsi, in her intervention “Desert Theater and the Aesthetics of Folktales,” emphasized that popular stories have a high ability to transform into live performances that are in harmony with the open desert space, noting that their epic, heroic, and collective character represents an important tributary to the development of performance and directing techniques in natural environments. She considered desert theater a cultural project that restores consideration to the aesthetics of place, man, and memory.

In the program of performances, the play “Al-Zeer Salem” was presented in the evening, written and directed by Jamal Yaqout, and performed by the Egyptian “Creativity Group” troupe, in the presence of Abdullah Al-Owais, head of the Culture Department and head of the festival, and a number of artists and those interested in theater. The performance was followed by a critical discussion in which researcher Ayman Hammad from Egypt spoke, where the participants praised the theatrical text and the scenography that added an aesthetic dimension to the public scene.

At the conclusion of the competition, Ahmed Bourahima, the director of the festival, honored the presentation team and the director of the cash competition.

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