![\"\"](\"https:\/\/bp3.blogger.com\/_bnvJqTVkYMc\/SEiWJ3K-9yI\/AAAAAAAAAZk\/0LFbgol0uf0\/s320\/OBUSSY_P1.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Project participants say they are tired of women\u2019s issues being ignored or pushed aside in Egypt, but are also upset at the way that many in the West think about Arab and Muslim women.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m passive, weak, uneducated, veiled from head to toe, one of his four wives, work in the kitchen all day,\u201d says \u201cMuslim Woman.\u201d \u201cThat\u2019s what you think, right?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMy liberation won\u2019t come from the one who has oppressed me \u2013 bringing me democracy?\u201d retorts her companion on the stage. \u201cYou think you\u2019re really gonna send Condi to tell me how to be free?\u201d<\/p>\n
Since 2006, the project \u2013 named after the Arabic command, \u201cLook!\u201d \u2013 has collected stories from Egyptian women about some of the country\u2019s most taboo topics, including street harassment, sexual abuse, divorce, female circumcision, and the confusion that arises in a culture that discourages male-female interaction but makes women\u2019s primary social responsibilities marriage and childbearing.<\/p>\n
Each spring, these interviews are transformed into monologues that the group weaves together into a play.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe play brings up a lot of issues people here usually ignore, but in an entertaining way,\u201d says Yasmine Khalifa, one of the project\u2019s directors. \u201cPeople can have fun, they can have a laugh, and they don\u2019t feel attacked.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bussy was inspired by Eve Ensler\u2019s Pulitzer Prize-winning play \u201cThe Vagina Monologues,\u201d which played only once here in 2005 before running into trouble with the school.<\/p>\n
The actors, too, had problems with it \u2013 but for a very different reason: It didn\u2019t seem relevant to Egyptian society.<\/p>\n
\u201d \u2018The Vagina Monologues\u2019 had stories from Bosnia and all over the world, but only one story about the Middle East, which was about Lebanon,\u201d says Mariham Iskander, an energetic director at Bussy.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe felt like our region was mostly ignored,\u201d she says. \u201cThese weren\u2019t our stories, so we decided to write them ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
Armed with pens and notebooks, the Bussy Project set out to find more Egyptian voices.<\/p>\n
Although some monologues look at issues facing poor women, like troubles in the legal system and circumcisions, the project\u2019s elite roots still show.<\/p>\n
The majority of the play was recorded and performed in English.<\/p>\n
One skit is about a girl getting harassing messages on Facebook. In another skit, a girl recounting stories of childhood abuse tells the audience, \u201cit was Oprah Winfrey who encouraged me not to be silent.\u201d It is a reference unlikely to be grasped by the great mass of Egypt\u2019s rural and urban poor.<\/p>\n
The World Bank says that almost 20 percent of Egypt\u2019s population was living on $2 a day in 2005, and 44 percent of women are illiterate, according to the government\u2019s Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics.<\/p>\n
Figures compiled by the United Nations Children\u2019s Fund show that over 90 percent of the married female population has experienced some kind of circumcision.<\/p>\n
But the project\u2019s upper-crust origins do not make it a less powerful experience for the women involved.<\/p>\n
Sondos Shabayek, a director, joined the Bussy Project after watching one of the show\u2019s first performances in 2006. Watching it in the audience made her feel as if she was not alone in grappling with harassment and sexism on a daily basis.<\/p>\n
The play was a chance to talk.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor once, I felt like maybe I could express a big part of my life,\u201d she says. \u201cI had always thought, \u2018No, I can\u2019t ever let this show.\u2019 \u201c<\/p>\n
Editor\u2019s Note: The accompanying photo is of two performers in the play: Reem Amr on left and Passant Rabie on right. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This was written by Liam Stack, and was originally published at the Christian Science Monitor. Cairo \u2013 A young woman stands under the spotlight inside a small theater at the elite American University, looking defiantly into the audience. She is \u201cMuslim Woman,\u201d one of four actresses performing a skit of the same name put on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arttheater"],"yoast_head":"\n
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