The NYU Abu Dhabi Arts Center is back in full swing after the pandemic caused it to offer fewer events for two years. The organisation unveiled the schedule for its eighth season, which includes the return of the much-liked two-day music festival, the Barzakh Festival, as well as all live performances and physical cinema screenings.
The season, which runs through April, will showcase local, regional, and worldwide talent, according to the center’s creative director Bill Bragin.
The theme of the season, “tales,” he added, “invites audiences and artists alike to travel on a rich artistic trip that may be new and unfamiliar, comfortable, difficult or unexpected, but always dynamic and diverse.
Find out about the key highlights of the center’s winter programme here; additional artists will be revealed in the future.
1. The gigs
The Red Theater will host yet another diverse lineup of performances by musicians that specialise in everything from Arabic hip-hop to electronic music and jazz.
Meklit, an Ethiopian-American singer-songwriter, will perform her multimedia piece Movement at the season premiere on Thursday, September 8.
2. A world music festival
The Barzakh Festival, a locally produced world music festival in the UAE, will also make a triumphant return on Friday and Saturday, February 3 and 4, at the East Plaza of NYUAD.
Arooj Aftab, who this year became the first Pakistani musician to win a Grammy Award — the Best Global Music Performance award for her song Mohabbat — will perform on the opening day. Together with the Algerian band Lemma, the singer will perform in Abu Dhabi, fusing North African rhythms with Urdu poetry.
3. Theater and dance performances
Set and Reset, a celebrated 1983 work by choreographer Trisha Brown, is performed by the American Candoco Dance Company.
The performance, which is on September 17th, will include a lovely score by experimental musician Laurie Anderson and will bring up significant issues regarding dance and disabilities.
4. The big finish
Due to a performance by Moroccan circus group Groupe acrobatique de Tanger, the season will close in vibrant fashion.
An “otherworldly collection of acrobatic feats, figures, colours, music sketches, head-spins and choreography” is how their new production Fiq! is characterised.