Tips from the culture desk: From an apathetic dancer to a corrupt intellectual

If you're interested in great film, accordion music, the Cairo Contemporary Dance Center, photographer Randa Shaath, or artist, musician and writer Hassan Khan, this is going to be a good week.

The Sea is Behind - Sunday

Acclaimed Moroccan director Hicham Lasri’s third feature film, The Sea is Behind (2014), screens as part of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina’s fiction film forum for African cinema. Surreal, black-and-white and with a raucous Moroccan rock soundtrack, it concerns the disintegrating world of an apathetic man who works as a cross-dressing traditional dancer. It won the special jury prize at the 4th Luxor African Film Festival. In Moroccan Arabic with English subtitles.

7 pm, February 21, Biblioteca Alexandrina. See Facebook event here.

Randa Shaath’s Indelible - opens Sunday

Cairo-based photographer Randa Shaath shows 40 color photographs of the everyday made over the past two years, under the title "Indelible." Shaath has worked as a photographer for Al-Ahram Weekly and Agence France Press, and was photo editor for the privately owned Al-Shorouk newspaper for six years, but this isn’t the first time her thoughtful, carefully crafted images have crossed over into a contemporary art context. She represented Egypt at the Bienal de São Paulo in 2006, and has shown her work in various European institutions.

Opens at 7 pm on February 21, runs until April 5. Gypsum Gallery, 5 Ibrahim Naguib, Ground Floor, Apt 2, Garden City, Cairo. See Facebook event here.

Youssra El Hawary - Thursday

Youssra El Hawary became famous with a musical version of Waleed Taher’s humorous political poem El Soor (The Wall) in 2012 and made the heartbreaking track Babtasem (I Smile) for Mohamed Khan’s 2014 film Factory Girl. Having recently returned from a long musical residency program in France, the songwriter, accordionist and singer, is playing a concert with her band at the Greek Campus, and it looks like it’s going to be very well attended.

8.30 pm, February 25 at The Greek Campus, 28 Falaki Street, downtown Cairo. Tickets LE 40, available here.

Hassan Khan events in Alexandria - Thursday to Monday

For five days starting Thursday, Hassan Khan makes a public appearance in a different mode each day in Alexandria. Part of the program is organized by Gudran Association for Art and Development under the title "Three Approaches to Hassan Khan," while an artist talk focused on three of Khan’s artworks is organized by artist Faten El Disouky at the Museum of Fine Arts.

On Thursday at 7 pm, Khan’s new solo electronic music performance called "PHONE TONE GENERATOR & PEDALS" at Al Cabina. On Friday at 7 pm, a talk about the figure of Egypt’s “corrupt intellectual” (see his texts on the subject here and here), followed by an open discussion, also at Al Cabina. On Saturday at 7 pm, a screening of his 46-minute film Blind Ambition (2012), a low-fi epic of nine episodes set in Cairo, at Wekalet Behna. On Sunday at 6 pm, his artist talk at the Museum of Fine Arts, and on Monday at 7 pm a conversation with Alexandrian film and art writer Ali Al-Adawy on “The 1990s: A New Perspective.”

Dance in Transit tour in public spaces - Thursday to Monday

Mahatat for Contemporary Arts in collaboration with the Cairo Contemporary Dance Center is touring Port Said, Damietta, Mansoura and Cairo this weekend with a performance designed for public spaces. Choreographed by the center’s founder and artistic director Karima Mansour — in collaboration with the dancers Nermin Habib, Shady Abdel Rahman and Ibrahim Abdou — it plays on the physical and social interactions that occur on Egyptian streets. The performance is part of a wider programme run by Mahatat called Art in Transit, where they tour Port Said and the Delta cities with artists four times a year. Outa Hamra, Masl Theatre Troupe, Teatro Independent Theatre troupe and others have participated.

In Port Said on February 25, Damietta on February 26, Mansoura on February 27 and Cairo on February 29, all in public spaces. Exact locations to be announced on the Facebook event.