All Day

Cirque Du Liban: Fontana

Yas Island Abu Dhabi

Cirque du Liban comes to Yas with "the first travelling water circus in the Middle East ... live entertainment, breathtaking artistic performances in a tailor-made aqua theatre, waterfalls cascading, artists diving and performing mind-blowing Aquatic experience". The previews look great, [... more]

From AED 100

Youth Takeover 2024

Jameel Arts Centre Al Jaddaf, Dubai

The Jameel's annual handover of the arts centre to a selected cohort of young visionaries starts on Saturday 4 May and runs to Monday 27 May. There will be multiple artwork and installation "interventions" across the ground floor of the [... more]

Free

The Gracefulness of Daily Life

Zidoun-Bossuyt Gallery 796 Jumeirah Street, Dubai

A group show for Saudi artists associated with Gharem Studio, Riyadh (including its founder and the co-owner). Works on display include photography, printmaking, video, installation and sculpture; "in this show you will discover that studios are places through which you [... more]

Star Wars: A New Hope in Concert

Dubai Opera

The second (of four) presentations in Dubai Opera's Film Music Week features a screening of the first Star Wars movie from 1977 (feeling old yet?), featuring one of John Williams' most stirring scores. It's accompanied live by the Armenian State [... more]

From AED 275

Entrusted Ground

NYUAD Art Gallery Saadiyat, Abu Dhabi

The final performances of this 40-minute dance performance, conceived as part of artist Gözde İlkin’s installation in the current NYU Abu Dhabi Art Gallery exhibition In Real Time (which ends on 9 June). It's a collaboration between İlkin, choreographer Aslı [... more]

Free, but pre-register

Writing Workshop | Object Lessons: Bad Diaspora Poems

Alserkal Arts Foundation Warehouse 50/51, Alserkal Avenue, Dubai

Led by poet and researcher Momtaza Mehri, this writing workshop traces what diaspora means as a space of both collectivity and tension. Paryicipants are invited to "write around, and through, objects that represent the inward facing, closely-held relationship we have [... more]

Free, but pre-register

Circa: Duck Pond

The Arts Center @ NYUAD NYUAD Campus, Saadiyat Island, Abu Dhabi

A second performance (of three) for this exuberant take on Swan Lake (with a hint of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Ugly Duckling) that mixes the enchantment of the ballet with the thrill of the circus. Australia's Circa Contemporary Circus is [... more]

AED 155

Alserkal Community Lane Takeover

Alserkal Avenue Al Quoz 1, Dubai

Alserkal Avenue is being taken over for this weekend's evenings by a food festival involving the Avenue's own F&B outlets and a mass of invited incomers. Should be good – and the highlight of the first evening will probably be [... more]

Free

Artist Talks | Sheher, Prakriti, Devi

Alserkal Arts Foundation Warehouse 50/51, Alserkal Avenue, Dubai

Ishara Art Foundation presents talks by Gauri Gill, Shefalee Jain and Mariam Suhail with their first public presentations in the UAE – the ongoing exhibition Sheher, Prakriti, Devi, which Gauri Gill has curated. Moderated by media and culture theorist Rashmi [... more]

Free

Soiree Stand-Up Parisien

Alliance Française Dubai Dubai

A second evening of top Francophone comedy with Nassim Mellah, Benito, and Malcolm & Syphax. There's drinks and nibbles at 6.30pm, the show starts at 7pm. AF members pay AED 100, the rest of us AED 125.

AED 125

Natalie Perez and Ina Charuashvili

Dubai Opera Studio Downtown Dubai, Dubai

The elegant French mezzo-soprano is joined on piano by Ina Charuashvili for the latest in this series of recitals for the Global Notes series, a programme curated by Amira Fouad that features young stars from around the world with a [... more]

tbc

Aurie Styla: The Aurator Tour

Theatre by QE2 Queen Elizabeth 2, Port Rashid, Dubai

Award-winning comedian, actor and writer from London with a load of style, a Spirit of the (Edinburgh) Fringe Award for 2022, a distinctive voice (he's the worldwide voice of Pintrest, among others), and a neat line in wit for tech [... more]

From AED 125