Walid Aouni of Modern Dance Theatre Company honored in ceremony

CAIRO - 6 April 2018: Walid Aouni, founder/director of the Egyptian Modern Dance Theatre Company received an honor at the Cairo Opera House on April 3 in recognition of his efforts and to celebrate the Modern Dance Theatre Company’s silver jubilee.

Born in Tripoli, Lebanon on 1951, Aouni began his career during the 1980s in Beirut, where he studied Fine Art at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels. His very first dance theatre group came later that year, which he called the "Tanit Dance Theatre." By 1988, he had staged the inaugural performance for the Arab World Institute in Paris.

Aouni worked for a period of 9 years with world-famous choreographer Maurice Bejart, with whom he first visited Egypt in the 1990s. In 1993, Egypt's Minister of Culture at the time Farouk Hosny arranged to have Aouni establish his first dance group with the Cairo Opera House, which also proved to be the first of its kind in the Arab world.

Since then, he has worked for 25 years as a choreographer, scenographer and director, and has directed 25 shows for the Egyptian Modern Dance Theatre Company, alongside directing ceremonies for the Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Armed Forces. He has won various Egyptian awards such as the Shield of Egyptian Armed Forces in 1995 and 2002 and the Knight Medal of Honour from the Lebanese government in 1992.

The celebration began with a documentary going over the history of the Egyptian Modern Dance Theatre, which went through the history of the troupe and then a re-staging of their classic 1993 production "Icarus", based on the Greek myth of the boy with wax wings who dared to fly too close to the sun, suffering the consequences; this time performing a new version that is based on the unique vision of Aouni. It was performed once again on April 4th as well.

Speaking to Ahram Arabic, Aouni eloquently stated his life's purpose;
"I will continue to dance, because the world is dancing."