The creation of a performance branch by Sharjah Art Foundation (SAF) solidifies the organization’s long-standing commitment to commissioning and supporting multimodal performance acts and the broad communities they engage.
Hoor Al Qasimi, the president and director of the SAF, made this announcement on Tuesday. Tarek Abou El Fetouh, the Foundation’s Director of Performance and Senior Curator, will serve as the division’s director. Abou El Fetouh, who was born in Cairo, currently resides and works in Sharjah.
Abou El Fetouh has launched ground-breaking initiatives in the Arab world and aimed to foster dialogue among practitioners on a regional and global scale.
Commissions, co-productions, touring projects, residencies, and site-specific projects will be organised and presented by the Sharjah Art Foundation Performance Department as part of seasonal programmes in venues and public areas all throughout Sharjah.
The Performance Department will invite regional, national, and international artists to take part in ongoing residencies during which they will prepare for and create site-specific projects and commissioned performances that will be presented in a variety of venues, streets, squares, and unusual locations throughout Sharjah.
Diverse communities in Sharjah are involved in the development of projects, which are created with their help and are intended to interact with them in every manner possible.
Additionally, the programme will give participants from the UAE and the larger Gulf region opportunities to learn from a wide range of international artists working in theatre and performance through workshops, talks, and educational programmes created with local partners like the Sharjah Theater Department and Sharjah Performing Arts Academy.
The Sharjah Biennial 10: Plot for a Biennial music and performance programme, which took place in 2011, and the 2019 Sharjah Biennial 14: Leaving the Echo Chamber, which was curated by Claire Tancons, both featured specific performance programmes.
The Foundation has assisted in organising performances by regional artists around the world, including commissions by Tarek Atoui, which had their world premieres at Performa 5 in New York (2011) and Serpentine in London (2012); Wael Shawky’s “Song of Roland,” which had its world premiere in Hamburg in 2017 and toured internationally; and Radouan Mriziga’s “7,” which had its world premiere in Brussels in 2017.
