The AD’Art artist collective with an exhibition celebrating the Sorbonne’s 20th anniversary – new works exploring heritage, knowledge transmission, and cultural dialogue, through "diverse and personal artistic perspectives". The collective : Anne-Caroline Schoeller Anne-Marie Lacroix Raffy Annunziata Tricarico Camille Lamelliere [... more]
In a cotton-farming village in Sudan, teenage Nafisa is raised on heroic tales of British colonisers. But when a young businessman arrives from abroad with a new development plan and genetically engineered cotton, Nafisa becomes the centre of a power [... more]
A deeply personal portrait of childhood, family fractures, and the fragility of recollection from award-winning filmmaker Sophy Romvari, who drew on her own experiences for her feature debut – a deeply personal portrait of childhood, family fractures, and the fragility [... more]
Guggenheim Abu Dhabi is preparing the local audience for its 11 December opening with a series of events “for the public to engage with artists, ideas and conversations that are shaping the new museum”. The mini-package closes with artist Rachid [... more]
A performance workshop with Youness Atbane in advance of the UAE premiere of his work Untitled 14km on 1 and 2 October: "through collective experimentation, participants will explore how everyday objects can be displaced from their usual functions to generate [... more]
Mad Cat’s standup team at their regular stop at the Easy Tiger bar in Abu Dhabi’s Al Ain Palace. The door price of AED 99 includes two drinks …
"An exhibition exploring the perception and relationship between the viewer and the artwork ... an invitation to discover what may appear when we take the time to look beyond the surface." The two French artists offer a dialogue between the [... more]
Funeral Home Comedy, a newish name on the standup circuit, has added to the comedy options in Abu Dhabi – well, on Yas – with a a full night of laughs from top names (Roxy, Obaid, Ash Ahmed and Luca) [... more]
Monaiseer’s solo show examines history through cycles, repetition and flows, while testing the unstable boundary between imagination and reality. The title references the current status of the Doomsday Clock and its measurement of humanity’s proximity to catastrophe; notions of war, [... more]
The UAE premiere of a multidisciplinary work by the Moroccan artist Youness Atbane that combines dance theatre, performance, and installation in a satirical examination of how contemporary art engages with questions of identity – particularly what is framed as “Arab [... more]
Mohamed Abdelwahab was one of the voices who helped shape the musical heritage of the Arab world, a pioneering composer who blended traditional Arabic melodies with Western influences and so helped to redefine the sound of Arabic music today. This [... more]
A standup open mic where fresh and regular comics take the stage; newbies are getting three minutes, the more established comics get six. There's a minimum spend of AED 70.
Two interconnected exhibitions, both curated by Mo Reda and supported by the Department of Painting and Printmaking at VCUarts Qatar. Together, The Ongoing Performance of Melancholia and Songs in Solitude mark the culmination of a two-month residency at Bayt AlMamzar; [... more]
The projects exhibition for seniors of Zayed University's College of Arts and Creative Enterprises – usually among the best student/grad work you see in the UAE. Covers animation, graphic design, interior design and visual arts. To 8 October.
The second evening for this work that combines dance theatre, performance, and installation in a satirical examination of how contemporary art engages with questions of identity – particularly what is framed as “Arab identity”. Atbane constructs an imagined exhibition at [... more]
... not when you have three comedians on the stage, eager and willing to hear your problems and turn them into funny scenes and stories on the fly. Fully improvised, totally interactive. The first runout for this show a couple [... more]
An exhibition born out of the question: how will this time be remembered and who will tell the stories of the people who live here? It's one of the outcomes of Kutubna’s initiative Documenting Culture in the Gulf in a [... more]
A series of brand new and unstaged plays, the public outcome of the first performance residency hosted at Bayt AlMamzar; run by theatre group 63Kolektib, the residency paired six emerging playwrights with six early- to mid-career directors to develop six [... more]
A series of conversations around the Global Positioning System exhibition: artists and researchers will discuss cartography and navigation as instruments of power that enable transport and trade, shape worldviews, annotate belonging and transformation. Speakers include Fatma Al Ali, Vikram Divecha, [... more]
Improv with a twist (probably of the knife in the heart). "Our Sinister plans are coming to fruition. For one night only, we will turn your Smile into consent, as we host an Insidious night of improvisation for the Psycho [... more]
Improv "where anything can happen and the audience becomes part of the show". Which is sort of how improv is defined, though in this case the title suggests there may be an extra element of ray guns and Star Wars [... more]
The Comedy Kix team does The H Dubai ("your Saturday is now sorted"). There's a AED 75 minimum spend.
Classy comedy with Abz Ali, featuring Luca Cupani and Obeid. Hosted by Roxy Yekta.
An ambitious large-scale group exhibition dedicated to mapping and navigation systems, "telling stories of fast cars and donkeys, spinning globes and street barricades, cosmic highways and broken bridges ... delves into topographies, transit lines and simulated landscapes to engage critically [... more]
A group exhibition for six artists – Aya Afaneh, Sarah Afaneh, Sarah Brahim, Amir Hazim, Yoonsik Chico Park, and Andrew Riad – exploring how language is formed through the body, voice, gesture, and mark making practices. Each contributes a distinct [... more]
The first institutional solo exhibition by Emirati artist Juma Alhaj is the culmination of his participation in 421 Arts Campus' Artistic Development Program. Grounded in reading, journaling, and philosophical inquiry, it explores themes of reflection, solitude, and self-discovery; the exhibition [... more]
A group show curated by Deniz Kirkali and Elham Puriya Mehr that brings together works in video, sound installations, and performance that explore “alternative infrastructures for knowledge-making such as whispers, murmurs, hums, gossip, and storytelling”. The artists include Aliaskar Abarkas, [... more]
A beautiful restoration of this family classic for its 55th anniversary, based on the Roald Dahl book and staring Gene Wilder having a lot of fun with his role as the magical maker of scrumptious sweets. Charlie Bucket (Peter Ostrum), [... more]
This epic study of family, love, and betrayal is one of Visconti’s most revered works; it's also one of the defining films of a new realism in Italian cinema, unafraid to confront the hypocrisies of the ruling class, the squalor [... more]
Sharjah Art Foundation’s Music and Sound Club is a series of fortnightly hands-on workshops and meetup sessions form anyone interested in music and sonic arts. This second workshop is a two-parter – on 4 and 18 October – that introduces [... more]
Yet another strong-looking bill for this month's Laughter Factory tour: Marlon Davis – one of the UK’s rising comedy talents, breezily confident and good at observational comedy George Zach – standup whose credits extend beyond the comedy club circuit to [... more]
The Mad Cat team does the rather cool Moon Bar at the Sana Restaurant in Mina Al Salam – a great venue: quite intimate, few distractions. Featuring surprise drop-ins, fresh material, and “the kind of intimate room where sitting in the [... more]
The UAENO's tribute to a pioneering composer who blended traditional Arabic melodies with Western influences comes to Sharjah with a concert that invites audiences to rediscover familiar works in a new symphonic setting.
With Amin and Obaid. "Two comedians take turns on the stage, and by the end of the night you’ll still be trying to figure out how these two ended up on the same bill ..."
Another fine Cinema Space choice: winner of a Caméra d’Or Special Mention at Cannes and the 2026 BAFTA award for Outstanding Debut Feature, My Father’s Shadow is a stunning debut for the British-Nigerian filmmaker Akinola Davis Jr. Set in 1993 [... more]
Mad Cat Comedy’s only open mic night: comedians test new jokes, new performers take the stage, and dog lovers are welcome to come along for a fun evening in JVC. Only 20 seats available. Free entry!
A grunge-ish evening for the opener of the Fridge Concert Series, though headliners PeachPuffs are closer to a UK-style indie band with their sharp songwriting, good melodies and stage presence. They can play, too, and they have a new single [... more]
Mad Cat’s standup team at their regular stop at the Easy Tiger bar in Abu Dhabi’s Al Ain Palace. The door price of AED 99 includes two drinks …
This 12th edition of the Sharjah Calligraphy Biennial has the theme 'Balance' and features 297 works by 145 artists from around the world. It's always an interesting visit because of the range of styles and techniques on show, covering traditional [... more]
A Comedy Kix gig with a strong bill – Imail Abdi, Valentina Danubio, Ahmad Kasidcomedy, Saeed Alnahdy and Enoud Metaweaa. Note that is a non-smoking room, and there’s no FnB – but you can bring your own booze (!) and [... more]
Andrew Eisenberg, Associate Professor of Music at NYUAD and Head of the Music Program there, combines oral history, ethnography, and musical analysis to explore how musicians in twentieth-century Mombasa used Arab and Indian musical influences to navigate questions of identity, [... more]
A conversation moderated by Sarah Almehairi exploring Moza Al Mazrouei's artistic practice across sculpture, film, mixed media, writing, and curation. Moving between research and fiction, observation and participation, the discussion touches on authorship, selfhood, and the structures of power that [... more]
The Courtyard’s popular evening of elimination improv. Ten actors converge for a night of scenes, songs and games based on audience suggestions. After each round you score the players on a scale of 1 to 5, and the one with [... more]
An exhibition conceived and curated by Prof Omar Kholeif, featuring Sonia Balassanian, Jai Chuhan, Luísa Correia Pereira, Lalitha Lajmi, Irene Scheinmann and Omar Kholeif himself. Developed from nearly two decades of Kholeif’s research, writing and relationships with artists, the exhibition [... more]
For more than five decades, the Syrian artist, poet, and critic Talal Moualla has approached the image not simply as representation, but (says the gallery) “as a form of thought ... Moving between painting, criticism, poetry and research, his practice [... more]
The projects exhibition for seniors of Zayed University's College of Arts and Creative Enterprises – usually among the best student/grad work you see in the UAE. Covers animation, graphic design, interior design and visual arts.
Sharjah Art Foundation’s Music and Sound Club is a series of fortnightly hands-on workshops and meetup sessions form anyone interested in music and sonic arts. Bridging the analogue and the digital, this session encourages you to craft hybrid musical works [... more]
In conjunction with the NYUAD Art Gallery's current exhibition All Manner of Experiments, the Gallery has organised a special screening of Ilana Navaro's well-regarded documentary exploring how late 19th- and 20th-century artists from the region developed alternative modernities. The film [... more]
It’s 20 years since Back to Black was released, so there’s a reasonable hook for this performance by “the original musicians who performed alongside Amy on stages around the world and helped shape her distinctive sound both live and in [... more]
Mad Cat Comedy's regular Thursday stop in Silicon Oasis promises "insane laughs every week". The door price of AED 99 includes one drink and popcorn.
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