El fann Sas
A Musical performance by the Upper Egypt Choir Poems by Fuad Haddad
Music: Wagih Aziz
Choreography: Tamer Fathy
Costumes: Monia Fath El Bab
With support from Culture Resource (Al Mawred Al Thaqafy), the Upper Egypt Choir presented its new production “El Fan Sas” on 27 and 28 January 2005 at El Hanager Arts Center in Cairo. The production is based on poems by Fouad Haddad.
This new performance by the Upper Egypt choir depends on three outstanding aspects: The first one is the lyrics of the songs taken from the poetry of Egypt’s great colloquial poet Fuad Haddad, whose poems paint vibrant pictures of life in Egypt. The second aspect is the composition of the music by the talented composer Wagih Aziz, which depends on a strong oriental basis and reaches out to recall familiar traditional Egyptian tunes. And last but not least is the choir itself, with the beautiful and variant voices of its boys and girls and their newly acquired talents in acting and dancing. Tamer Fathy’s choreography adds liveliness and fun to the show and highlights the choir members’ dancing abilities.
The Choir:
The Upper Egypt Choir started in a small village in Menya – Upper Egypt in 1987 and then it expanded into more villages and the number of its members reached 75 boys and girls. In 1993 the choir presented its first operetta “Let’s build a home” in a number of Egyptian cities. The following year, the choir presented another operetta called “Wooden Horse”.
In 2001 and 2002, the members of the choir received acting, dance and mime training by professional Lebanese artists. They were also trained on gathering and performing folk stories and traditional songs. The fruitful product of this training was a musical, theatrical performance called “The Story Market”, which was presented last year in Cairo on Al- Hanager theatre and in Alexandria on the Jesuits theatre.
