When I first encountered Egyptian artist Wael Shawky’s 45-minute video Drama 1882 at the 2024 Venice Biennale, I felt hypnotized, utterly defenseless, as though I had stepped into a different density of time. Shot in an historic theater in Alexandria, the musical features 150 costumed performers, enacting eight highly stylized scenes drawn from the late 19th-century ‘Urabi revolt in Egypt. That conflict, I later learned, went on for three years (1879–82) and was crazily complex, with Turkish, French, British, and Egyptian factions vying for control of Lower Egypt. Today the whole dispute bears the name of Ahmed ‘Urabi, an Egyptian colonel who won popular support with the rallying cry “Egypt for Egyptians!”