Khaled Al -Ruwaie
In 1991, the Al -Sawari Theater is established so that the experimentation movement is now more clear and influential, believers in this movement have become more vigilant and the audience has become more stop to watch the different, and the theatrical movement in Bahrain is silent except from an attempt here and there, but the length of the nineteenth decade was the focus of everyone’s attention and the magical recipe for the new youth movement in the theater.
The experimentation movement in Bahrain was the natural influence of the entire cultural movement, so a cultural sector is not without the pioneers of the experimental movement had a prominent role in it.
At the level of cognitive, training, media, and forms of handling in terms of musical employment, technical employment of publications and forms of organization for events, the youth of the experimentation movement had the upper hand in all of this.
This is historically, as for the technically, the experimentation movement has been associated with the Sayyari Theater, which is credited with provoking new artistic forms in the theater, cognitively and technically, and he is credited with spreading life on the theatrical movement by training the new youth and establishing the first youth festival in the Gulf as a case outside The new concepts about the theater locally and Arably, and it was that it was broadcasting his Arab reputation as one of the most important theatrical movements in Bahrain and also emerges as a critical case inherent in the history of the Arab theater, so his performances were written about it with critical visions and studies, so he established a different audience with his taste and sensory nature.
During this period, the establishment of this group represented a coup in the collective awareness of the theater at the level of the workers and at the level of the audience. For the first time in the history of the theater in Bahrain, the audience is classified as (Al -Sawarya audience) until the accusations were affected that the maids were removed from the audience from the showrooms, given that its shows are vague and unpleasant to the audience. In addition, this band undermined the concept of production in the theater.
There is no longer a problem in theatrical production, as it focused on the issue of the poor theater as a productive case and as a idiomatic.
The other thing, which is the most important. Especially after the Clubs Festival stopped in 1994 and the School Theater Festival in 1994. According to the description of the late critic, Mohamed Al -Banaki, is that the Al -Sawari youth were the main hint in the movement of the cultural scene, so you see them in the theater, the exhibitions of the book and cultural events. Until the band’s production of performances within ten years reached more than 50 theatrical performances.
In this contract, despite the other teams affected by the new theatrical movement, Awal Theater maintains the production of productive and mass performances. In 1991, the play “Market Al -Maqsas” continues to about 40 nights, a number that the theatrical scene did not accustom to in Bahrain. The first theater, according to administrative experience, has these productive elements.
As for the island theater, it is adopted by the style of fixed entities. The administrative and technical elements were the same for dozens of years, which relaxed the wheel and made them stand forever.
In the other half of the nineteenth decade, the establishment of another group, Gilgamesh, which was established as a show group by a group of young people who practice the accompanying dance in the plays. As the circumstances of the establishment of the band were unclearly defined until the theatrical group was directed, as is the case with the other teams.
Officially, the Culture and National Heritage Sector at the Ministry of Information has strengthened external posts through festivals and forums in the Arab world, but the most prominent event is to organize the discussion seminar on the theater in Bahrain on September 14-16, 1997 and over three days in the Bahrain Club. One of the fruits of this session was the return of the theatrical composition competition and the inauguration of the distinguished show competition that will see the light at the beginning of the new millennium.
On the student level, the theater club at the University of Bahrain, which was founded in 1990, contributed to supplying the theatrical movement with many student elements, as the university witnessed continuous theatrical works that had an impact inside and outside the university, after agreeing with the artist Ibrahim Khalfan to be a special supervisor on the university’s theater club.
The clubs are also a qualitative shift, after they were presenting their performances in the festival organized by the General Organization for Youth and Sports at the time. The clubs themselves found the stagnation only to the Isa City Club in particular, which was maintaining its theatrical activity. The year 1994 was the last festival.
As for the school theater festival, which lasted for about 16 years, he also witnessed his last reign in festivals in 1994. Theatrical activities were limited to school initiatives whose departments wanted to produce theatrical performances in addition to the official participants of the Ministry in the Gulf theater festivals.
The mysterious recession «2001 – 2011»
In this contract, Bahrain witnessed many social, political and cultural transformations. The most important of which was the inauguration of the His Majesty Reforming Project, which opened the way for many changes. The openness was comprehensive to several levels and the appetite of society was extremely open.
Culturally and technically the amazement was the best description in front of the amount of variables. The theatrical, the theatrical groups did not engage in this openness until it seemed not concerned, as it watched the mass recession from the galleries and heading to the halls of political associations. The scene seemed confusing to them. Even the fans of the elites who were filling the halls went without a return to the concerns of politics. The mystery surrounded this stage.
Say the production of theatrical groups and it was not understood then why? The theater themselves went to municipal and political work and there were no signs of return. Whereas, the golden period was before them openness to the establishment of the new entities on the one hand and the renewal of legislation and laws on the other hand .. The country was originally prepared for all these variables established by the reform project.
In this contract, the production of theater groups is declining. On the other hand, the Culture and National Heritage Sector at the Ministry of Information is organizing the Awards for Excellence for theatrical Business throughout the year, which is one of the outcomes of the seminar in 1997, while Awal Theater begins to establish its annual festival in 2005.
But before that and in 2004 the first repercussions of the departure of the Al -Jazeera Theater began from the theater scene in Bahrain and turned to a cultural center in 2013.
In the year 2005, the Ministry of Information is paid to establish two groups at the same time, namely the Al -Bayader Theater and the Rural Theater, whose founding came as a fruit for the state’s orientation in establishing civil entities and within the directions of the reform project of His Majesty. In the same year, the most prominent event in this contract may be the opening of the cultural hall as the latest hall equipped for theatrical performances in Manama instead of the Bahrain Cultural Hall in Isa.
In 2007, theatrical groups are calling for an invitation from the Al -Sawari Theater to establish a union for civil theatrical teams, which became famous in 2008. It is the year in which civil cultural institutions were called, including theaters, to the “Culture in Bahrain-Reality and aspirations” conference, during the period from May 11-12 in Al-Oruba Club, which also came out with several recommendations, in an indication that these conferences were written on it to be held every ten years.
In 2006, the Ministry of Education dates back to the inauguration of its school theater festival as a student activity, unlike the same festival in the 1980s, and the shows became limited to the morning period only. But on the other hand, this contract witnessed the suspension of theatrical works at the Salman Cultural Center after several works at the level of the children’s theater or the puppet theater, which had a great role in providing the theatrical movement with the young women.
Compensation for deficiency «2011 – 2021»
The follower may call this contract to the festivals. This may draw attention to an important issue, which is to compensate for the deficiency .. The theatricals have paid attention to the audience’s departure from the showrooms in the second decade, and it must be – unintentionally – to be the festivals celebration as a way to attract the audience again.
However, before the continuation of the festivals of the Ministry of Culture at the time, it announces the opening of the Bahrain National Theater in 2012 under the patronage of His Majesty the King, which is the first in Bahrain in terms of size, efficiency and architectural design.
Where he won the year 2015 the honor award in architecture presented by the American Foundation for theater Technology (USitt), as the national theater was chosen for the award for its exceptional design that combines the creativity of the present and the last of the past.
In this contract, a first festival continues in its sessions. As for the Al -Sawari Theater, it resumes its youth festival in 2012 after a break for approximately 12 years, but this time with external partnerships until the announcement of those in charge of it to become international in 2018. As for the Gilgamesh Theater, it is initiated to establish the Dyroida Festival for only two sessions.
On the level of the official institution, the Ministry of Youth and Sports, in 2015, the Khaled Bin Hamad Festival for Youth Theater as an alternative to the Club theater, which stopped in the nineties of the last century, encouraged many workers in the theater and clubs in particular to work in the festival courses, but this festival was written only for five courses.
But what is remarkable about this contract is to revive the theatrical Union in 2018 after an absence of eight years, according to a new basic system and consultations that spanned for a whole year. As a result, the Federation, funded by the Arab Theater Authority, organized its first version of the Bahrain theater festival, which is the first in the history of the theater in Bahrain.
In the year 2020, a first theater celebrates the fifty years since its establishment. But the most important here is to take the decision to build its entirely new headquarters as part of an investment project that benefits the same division. In the same year, the Official Gazette publishes the decision of the Bahrain Authority for Culture and Antiquities to publicize the Inki Center for Performing Arts as the first private center in the Arabian Gulf.
.. And what after!
All of that narration, its importance stems from the fact that it rearranges history technically in the first place and documentation, and if the theatrical movement had a national archive, the critical reading would be more worthy and rich, and for this it will always have to revive the memory if we want to see the theater movement in Bahrain.
The “majestic century” is not a metaphor but a fact, because it witnessed within it everything that a cultural project can pass through from the passion and extinguishing, from the rise and stillness. A horn wrote by the theater with their sweat, performed it with their bodies, and carved it in the memory of society with their sincerity. A horn did not pass without a trace, because the theater in Bahrain was not a passing event.
