Icelandic Performance in the ‘City of the Dead’

11 December 2021

11 December 2021 was a rather chilly day in Cairo, but not nearly as cold as Iceland. The performers and costume designer of the Icelandic troupe “Marble Crowd” decided that in their performance in the Sultan Qaitbey neighbourhood, titled “Trash and Treasure”, two Icelandic troll monsters would wander the streets of the ‘Desert of the Mamluks’ to the tune of the local Zaffa music, looking in vain for snow.
The light-hearted performance followed a creative workshop with the local children who helped in making the costumes from leftover trash.

“Marble Crowd” is an informal art collective ensemble based in Reykjavík, who have been working together in various line-ups for more than a decade, performing in Iceland, Germany, Finland, Poland, the Faroe Islands, and also in Egypt. where they gave a performance at MASQ in October 2019. This was the second time the “Marble Crowd” performed at the Maq‘ad of Sultan Qaitbey (MASQ) cultural hub, this time supported by the Nordic Culture Fund.