THE TIMES

Defying darkness with dance

Throughout the civil war that destroyed Beirut, one dance company thrived. Now it is visiting London, writes Debra Craine.

The heart of this once-beautiful city has the unreal air of a film set: surreal cityscape of blitzed buildings, a nightmarish Hollywood vision of post-Armageddon futurism. But this is real, the result of almost two decades of civil war. There is barely a structure that is not pockmarked with bullet holes; refugees hole up in the squalid remnants of bombed-out concrete apartment blocks along the infamous Green Line that separated east from west Beirut. Around Martyr’s Square the Mediterranean palm trees and elegant French colonial architecture are nothing more than a memory forever etched in the 20-year-old postcards the souvenir-hawkers insist on selling.

But the horror of 17 years of war is behind the city now: the violence is over, peace and security have been restored, protected by the armed checkpoints that monitor the Lebanese at almost every turn. Meanwhile, a new prime minister - a billionaire property developer - is trying to rebuild the shattered country with a massive construction programme. The new optimism even extends to talk of restoring the country’s once fashionable tourist industry.

The signs of a population determined to enjoy life again are everywhere: the burger bars and nightclubs which line the main road into the Cannes-like suburb of Junieh, the billboards for The Bodyguard and Death Becomes Her which decorate the concrete landscape. But the most visible sign of cultural life, if the ubiquitous billboards are to be believed - is a dance company. Since the war ended two years ago, the Caracalla troupe has been performing every weekend in Beirut. And in a country where theatrical dance was virtually unknown before it, Caracalla’s popularity is even more surprising.

The company is named after Abdul Halim Caracalla, a wealthy Lebanese who founded it in 1970 after studying at the London Contemporary Dance School. He, at least, has no doubts as to the company’s artistic significance. “The Arab world is very rich in petrol, yet very poor in culture,” he asserts. “We represent culture for the Arab world.”

Certainly the Caracalla Dance Company is the most travelled artistic export: it has been to Brazil, Japan, America and Europe, spreading good will along the way. “We are hoping to raise the identity of Lebanon, to show we are not the worst guerrillas in the whole world,” its director says.

His dancers were among the first casualties of the war. They were coming out of the theatre after a performance late one night in 1974 when suddenly they found themselves caught up in the opening gunfire. One dancer was killed, one paralysed, a third was seriously injured and died later.

“We had no idea what was going on, but we knew it was serious,” says Caracalla. “So we started to move, like pieces on a chessboard. When war broke out in one section of Beirut, we moved to another. When war broke out all over Beirut we moved around Lebanon. When war broke out all over Lebanon, we moved outside Lebanon.”

What kept the peripatetic troupe going? “The artist has no choice but to continue; our best ballet was made during the war. You need to prove to ourself that you can control the darkness with your art.”

The production he brings to London celebrates happier days: an oriental version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Caracalla’s fascination with Shakespeare goes back to his days in London when he discovered the dramatist at the RSC. “I am obsessed by Shakespeare. It’s strange for an oriental man to adore such a mind But for me Shakespeare illumines our reality to ourself; for the whole human race not only for yesterday, but for today and tomorrow.”

Dream is not his first excursion into the Bard: with a canny understanding of his audience, he started with Taming of the Shrew. “For Arab people to accept me I started with a subject near to their hearts. The Arabs have a saying, in which the man says to the woman: ‘I have the authority, you have the power’. They love Shrew - they adore the theme.”

His latest production is a hotch-potch of styles: modern, folk and oriental, all delivered at a frenetic pace by two dozen dancers in elaborately colourful costumes. The score is an equally exotic brew: a bit of William Tell, “Frère Jacques”. string quartets, even a tango.

But it is the element of fantasy which comes across strongest in Caracalla’s Dream. “Fantasy is very close to the heart of an Arab audience. With modern life being so fast, with technology, computers, robots, now is the time people like to go back to fantasy. We need to believe in it again; fantasy helps us deal with the reality of life.”

Debra Craine
18 March 1993