RAQS ART AWARDS CREATIVE CATEGORY TOPICS
Inspiration Themes
The Creative category is your stage to experiment, tell stories and show your own artistic voice. Choose one of the themes below, or let them inspire your own idea. We are looking for originality, a clear concept, and respect for the culture this dance comes from.
1. Ehsaas: The Language of your Heart
This theme is about the essence of Ehsaas (إحساس) - that means feeling, sensation, or the inner sense of something. We invite you to dance from the inside out, pour your heart and personal story into movements and share it with us.
EXAMPLES:
Giving body for a single emotion: longing, nostalgia, hope, pride, grief, joy, humour, etc.
A conversation between you and the music. How does one phrase of a singer's voice or one note of the instrument move you?
What happens between people: a farewell, a reunion, a letter never sent...
Silence and breath, passion and speed, how do they speak to the audience, what do you tell through them?
2. Folklore Remix
This theme is about the living tradition of dance itself - the present and the future. Take the movement vocabulary of a folkloric style and transform it. Explore, play, fuse and reinvent, while honouring where it comes from. Show us what this folklore could look like today, or tomorrow.
EXAMPLES:
Deconstruct a style: take the signature steps of one folk style (Saidi, Fallahi, Khaleegi, Nubian, Dabke, Iskandarani, etc.) and build something unexpected from them.
Fusion with purpose: let a folk style meet another dance language (contemporary, flamenco, hip hop, your own national folk dance, etc.) and find what they have in common.
Folklore in today’s world: a folk style danced to modern music or in a modern setting.
Props, reinvented: find new ways to move with the assaya (cane), the melaya, the shamadan, the water jug, etc. Respect the prop’s origin, but surprise us.
3. Echoes of History
This theme is about storytelling. Bring a real person, moment or era from the history of Raqs Sharqi to the stage. Become a character, recreate a scene or pay tribute. Use any style, traditional or contemporary, that best tells your story.
EXAMPLES:
The Awalim and the Ghawazee: the lives of the professional artists of 19th-century Egypt.
The golden age of Cairo’s cabarets and cinema: Badia Masabni’s Casino Opera and the stars it launched.
Legendary voices: a tribute to Umm Kulthum, Abdel Halim Hafez, Warda, etc., inspired by their lives and/or their songs.
The pioneers: Mahmoud Reda, Farida Fahmy and the birth of staged Egyptian folklore.
A historic place: Andalusia, the Silk Road, old Alexandria, the streets of Khan el-Khalili…
4. “Smile, ya Habibi!”
This theme is about Humour and Character. Egyptian culture has a wonderful sense of humour, from the classic black-and-white comedies to the playful, cheeky attitude of baladi itself. This theme invites you to make the audience smile! 😀
EXAMPLES:
Characters from the neighbourhood: the gossiping neighbour, the proud aunt at a wedding, the overconfident taxi driver, the bride’s mother who has opinions about everything…
A scene from an old Egyptian comedy film: bring the spirit of the black-and-white classics to life.
The Aragoz: Egypt’s traditional puppet theatre, with its cheeky hero and comic dialogues.
“Behind the scenes”: the funny side of being a dancer, such as the costume that won’t close, the music that starts too early, or the last-minute rehearsal.
A comic duet or group piece: a dance battle, a misunderstanding, or a dance lesson gone wrong.
Remember: laugh with the culture, not at it. Humour that comes from real characters and everyday life is always funnier than stereotypes.
A note on authenticity:
Please build your piece on real culture, people and history, not on clichés. We encourage you to avoid the "exotic fantasy" images of the East, or a mix of random costumes from different countries. Research your topic, and give the jury a short explanation of your concept (2–3 sentences) so they can follow your idea.