Chairman of the National Cultural Centre

Dr. Abdel-Moneim Kamel

Born in Cairo, Abdel-Moneim Kamel graduated from the Cairo Academy of Arts and obtained his PhD. Trained by Russian experts, he started his career in classical ballet at the age of eighteen.

His roles included Albert in Giselle, Don Basil in Don Quixote, the Prince in Sheherazade, Siegfried in Swan Lake, the prince in The Fountain of Bakhchisaray, and Hamlet.

He appeared as a guest dancer in the Bolshoi and Kirov Theatres, New Siberia Theatre, Sofia Theatre, N.H.K in Tokyo, the National Theatre of Maracaibo, and he had a 2-year engagement at La Scala, Milan as a soloist. Later he was appointed artistic director of the Cairo Ballet Company, which in 1989 moved to the Cairo Opera House. There, he started choreographing and directing contemporary ballets such as El Nil, Carmen Suite, Osiris, Carmina Burana and he produced his own version of Swan Lake, Romeo and Juliet, Don Quixote, Nutcracker, Le Corsaire, Giselle and Cinderella. Recently, he successfully tried his hand at opera directing for the Cairo Opera House with the Merry Widow.

In 1998/99 he directed the Cairo Opera House production of Aida at the pyramids platform.

Finally, Abdel-Moneim Kamel was appointed artistic counsellor to the previous chairman of the National Culture Centre of Cairo and artistic director for music, opera and ballet before he himself became chairman in August 2004.

In 2007, he received the “Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres” from the French minister of culture and communication, the Honour of “Grande Ufficiale” of the Republic of Italy, and the State Prize of Arts from the Egyptian Government.