Sharjah Art Foundation returns for a second season; Events, dates and times revealed – News

After the success of last year’s edition, the program has announced eight performances

Sharjah Art Foundation announced the second season of Perform Sharjah, inviting the community to find new experiences while exploring the city’s heritage houses and art spaces.

Following the success of last year’s edition, the program returns for its second season with eight performances, presented in Sharjah from October 19, 2023 to February 11, 2024. Curated by performance director and senior curator Tarek Abou El Fetouh, this year’s compelling line. The poster includes performers from different fields and artistic disciplines.

While the first season featured performances in streets and squares, the second edition interacts and reflects on the extensive urban development project that began 30 years ago in Sharjah to restore, rehabilitate and rebuild the city’s historic area with art and culture in the middle. .

In parallel with the preservation of heritage, this project prioritized the construction of infrastructure for artistic and cultural activities and events. Many buildings were reused as meeting places for intellectuals, artists, poets, writers and theater creators and spaces where they could share their creations with the public.

Taking place primarily in these restored heritage homes and spaces, Perform Sharjah’s second season takes audiences on an artistic journey through the city that begins and ends in its historic centre, a vital space in the imagination of its inhabitants and their lives. daily.

The program presents works that interact with transmitted heritage and modern archives of recent decades. Examines their role in the contemporary imagination, focusing on how artists explore questions of identity, cultural details, epistemology, and alternative histories.

Season two performances include the following:

Metamorphosis #2 by Essia Jaïbi and Jalila Baccar

(October 19-22, 2023, Dar Al Nadwa, Calligraphy Square)

In Metamorphosis #2, Essia Jaïbi revisits the memories recorded in her mind since childhood. She locks her mother, Jalila Baccar, in the glass-walled dressing room of an imaginary theater and pressures her to address the audience.

Conceived as a confrontation between two generations, the performance addresses art, theater and cultural activism that evolve into a critique of Tunisia’s political, cultural, economic, environmental and health systems, as well as the rights of minorities and People with disabilities.

In addition to acting, Baccar will conduct a master class for professional actors from the UAE and the wider Gulf region. She will work intensively with participants and offer acting instruction through readings of her first script as a playwright. In Search of Aïda debuted in 1998 during an event organized by the Beirut Theater to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Nakba. In her work, she shares her story of her search for her missing Palestinian friend Aïda.

Now, 25 years after that first performance, Baccar will train young actors to read his epic text, which highlights the current tragedy endured by Palestinians, both inside and outside Palestine. The masterclass will conclude with a presentation open to the public.

The return by Rayyane Tabet

October 27, 28 and 29, 2023; 24 and 25, November 26, 2023; February 3 and 4, 2024 The Flying Saucer

The return traces the 50-year journey of a marble sculpture depicting a bull’s head, using interviews as well as inventory lists, photographs, legal documents and other evidence presented to the New York Supreme Court from years-long investigations .

Finally returned to Lebanon, the sculpture is now on display at the National Museum in Beirut.

Hunkaro by Mohit Takalkar co-presented by Ishara Art Foundation

November 4 and 5, 2023, Calligraphy Square

In modern society, where listening to others is often replaced by the consumption of visual media, Hunkaro (meaning “verbal affirmation” in Marathi) invites the audience to practice the precious gift of attention through active and participatory listening.

The performance weaves together three stories of human trials and tribulations, united by the vital importance of hope and the impossibility of living without it. Using traditional vocal and singing techniques, the stories are told in different styles, languages ​​and dialects by six professional actors.

In the absence of musical instruments, performers emphasize the aesthetic value of language and the importance of the spoken word.

Singing Youth by Judit Böröcz, Bence György Pálinkás and Máté Szigeti

January 5-6, 2024, Bait Al Serkal, Arts Square

Representing three young people, Singing Youth is a large commemorative statue made by the Greek sculptor Memos Makris, a political refugee in Hungary. In 1953, the statue was installed in front of a sports stadium in Budapest, where it still stands today, having survived the collapse of communism and then the demolition of the stadium and the construction of a new one in its place.

In this a cappella performance, also titled Singing Youth, a theater maker, visual artist and composer come together to bring the sculpture to life. Made up of excerpts from newspaper articles, interviews and statements made by politicians over the years, the lyrics present the sculpture as a witness to political turmoil, current events and the use of arts and sports for political purposes.

4 by Tao Ye

January 7, 2024, Sharjah Academy of Performing Arts

Tao Ye’s choreographic works explore the potential of the human body beyond the limitations of performance or dramaturgical narrative. In her performance titled 4The choreography is abstract and the bodies express pure phenomenal movement.

A quartet of fluid bodies flows in powerfully controlled motions around a magnetic center point. Without rest, they perform a fixed pattern of movements, as if seeking to achieve unity. The central point keeps them united, but they cannot bridge the distance that separates them. Minimal changes in movement are masterfully incorporated throughout the performance, luring the audience into a slowly building trance. The music features energetic, energetic vocals crashing against the sound of a plaintive string instrument, generating a powerful energy that energizes the anonymous figures moving on the bright white stage.

Maybe all dragons through Berlin

From January 13 to February 4, 2024, Bait Al Serkal, Arts Square

Perhaps All the Dragons puts an interesting spin on the ‘six degrees of separation’ theory: the idea that all people are six or fewer social connections away from each other.

In an intimate setting, spectators are seated at a large oval table, each facing a single screen. Apparently ordinary people appear on its screens, each of whom narrates an unusual but true story in a filmed monologue: a philosophical proposition, a scientific detail or an anecdote. The themes that emerge in these stories are eclectic: together, they balance on the edge of believability.

Libya by Radouan Mriziga

January 27, 2024, Bait Obaid Al Shamsi, Arts Square

In LibyaRadouan Mriziga collaborates with dancers to craft transgenerational shared stories and epistemologies from an Amazigh perspective, where memories of the body play a fundamental role.

North African music, dance, landscapes and cave paintings depicting prehistoric dance movements are among the interconnected elements that make up a complex choreographic adventure. Layers of meaning are revealed before us, drawing the characteristics of a future imagined and shared from an Amazigh point of view.

maybe here by various artists

February 9-11, 2024, Bait Al Serkal, Arts Square

Borrowing its title from Khulood Al Mualla’s fourth book of poetry, Rubbama Huna, maybe here explores the orbits of contemporary imagination through a variety of live performances. This event will feature artists from various disciplines sharing their works with the public, inviting the public to experience something that may be intellectual, emotional or aesthetic in nature.

Over three days, 16 theatre-makers, contemporary dancers and installation and video artists, as well as poets and writers, will perform their works simultaneously and repeat throughout the night in a marathon of artistic productions. Audience members can select between four and six short shows (10 to 20 minutes each) to attend per night.

Along with performances, Perform Sharjah will offer a wide range of learning opportunities in theater and performance through workshops and talks led by participating artists with local partners and cultural professionals.

Admission is free, although prior reservation is required. Tickets can be booked at the Al Mureijah Square box office, in the performance halls or on the website.

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