Shubbak Festival: Boris Johnson gives us his Arabian nights
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Your support makes all the difference.Proposed and championed by London's Mayor, Boris Johnson, the Shubbak Festival, starting on Monday, will inject a huge dose of Arab arts – some of it contentious or radical – into the capital. Even those familiar with the work of Arab artists such as Mona Hatoum, and the new and widely praised novelists Hisham Matar, Mohammed Achaari and Raja Alem, will encounter vivid strands of groundbreaking creativity. The most topical moment will be provided by Ramy Essam, whose song "Irhal" – which translates as "leave" – became the anthem of the anti-Mubarak Egyptian revolt.
The HSBC-sponsored festival is proof that artistic relationships between London and the Arab world are becoming increasingly dynamic – not least through the presence of established organisations such as the AM Qattan Foundation, the Serpentine Gallery's Edgware Road Project, the Arab British Centre, The Delfina Foundation, Saqi Books and the Rose Issa Gallery. More recent British-Arab artistic links have involved major new initiatives including the Dubai International Film Festival and the Mathaf modern Arab art project in Qatar.
London can brace itself for some starkly experimental artworks and performances. Theatre productions will include the Palestinian ShiberHur company, with their adaptation of Kafka's short story, In the Penal Colony, at the Old Vic. The festival will also stretch, in effect, to the Edinburgh Festival, where the experimental Beirut-based theatre group led by Maya Zbib will appear. Zbib has been mentored, via a Rolex Foundation grant, by the radical American theatre and opera director Peter Sellars.
At the ICA, under the title Interference, there will be a series of Arab cultural explorations, ranging from "otherness" to the relationships between art and politics. Arab cinema will include films by Ahmed Bouanani, a seminal figure in Moroccan cinema, whose work will be shown at Tate Modern. In addition to the short films on urban life during the 1960s that made his name, there will be a screening of Mirage, a legendary experiment in Moroccan cinema that conflates folk tales and pop symbolism to produce a visual and narrative mystery. On the fine-art front, the leading Egyptian artist Wael Shawky will be among nearly 100 Arab artists in the festival.
Shubbak: A Window on Contemporary Arab Culture, various venues, (www.london.gov.uk/shubbak) 4 to 24 July
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