Festival

Festival

Theatre of war?

8 April 2026
It might not have escaped your notice that Dubai is about to witness two short play festivals. You might think the world of 10-minute theatre is a bit too circumscribed for this kind of arm-wrestling, but it is happening – [ … ]
Festival

Tamaas times

28 January 2026
It’s part of the job of a new arts centre to create new traditions – regular, loyalty-building events that deliver something understandable and familiar while exemplifying what the organisation stands for. In its 11 years of operation, NYUAD’s Arts Center [ … ]
Festival

Ten-minute showdown

21 January 2026
Just how many short play festivals does one town need? The answer may become clearer during April and May, when Short+Sweet Dubai goes head to head with X Fest DXB. The backstory is that The Junction in Alserkal Avenue, which [ … ]
Festival

Making contact: the Tamaaas Festival

9 February 2025
Tamaas means ‘contact’ in Arabic (and Farsi too, as it happens). That’s a neat summary of what we should expect from an arts centre – contact as communication and connection, but also contact as collision. Maybe we’ll get all three [ … ]
Dance

At the Frontiers of movement

10 December 2024
As an art form, contemporary dance is mercifully free of constraints. Unlike theatre or poetry, it doesn’t depend on a particular language. Unlike music, it doesn’t utilise a particular form or structure based on scales or tempos. Dance has the [ … ]
Festival

Films for a greener future?

29 August 2024
It’s good to see collaboration between the UAE’s cultural entities. In the case of national cultural representatives, with a role to play in introduction, exchange, and connection, there are often some very specific contributions that they can make in introducing [ … ]