When film scholars reflect on the golden age of cinema, it's generally safe to assume their comments pertain to Hollywood between the 1920s and the 1960s, a fabled era in which opulent West Coast studios reigned supreme. Even in those heady Hollywood years, however, movies were being produced throughout the world, including Egypt, where filmmakers achieved their own golden age with a trove of enormously popular films starting in the early 1940s and spanning the next three decades. Shot primarily in Cairo, these works imbued narrative formulas with distinctively Egyptian sensibilities, including indigenous and captivating music and dance. Inspired by such pieces, Jawaahir Dance Company has crafted a new production, "Golden Nights on the Silver Screen." Reinforcing company's mission to promote the rich diversity of Middle Eastern dance, the production pays homage to the cinematic history of Egypt through a series of mesmerizing sequences, some derived from specific films, others freshly imagined as contemporary variations on classic styles. Enhancing the transformative choreography will be an aural backdrop from the Georges Lammam Ensemble, a renowned group of Arabic musicians lauded for textured rhythms that recall—without being beholden to—traditional arrangements. The combined result intends to restore luster to faded celluloid images viewed not as artifacts, but as living expressions of a too-often overlooked cultural history.
Wednesdays-Sundays, 8 p.m. Starts: Sept. 22. Continues through Oct. 2, 2011