{"id":60567,"date":"2025-02-09T23:51:32","date_gmt":"2025-02-09T19:51:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magpie.ae\/staging4\/?p=60567"},"modified":"2025-02-13T14:11:28","modified_gmt":"2025-02-13T10:11:28","slug":"making-contact-the-tamaaas-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magpie.ae\/staging4\/making-contact-the-tamaaas-festival\/","title":{"rendered":"Making contact: the Tamaaas Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Tamaas means \u2018contact\u2019 in Arabic (and Farsi too, as it happens). That\u2019s a neat summary of what we should expect from an arts centre \u2013 contact as communication and connection, but also contact as collision. Maybe we\u2019ll get all three on 13 February from the Tamaas Festival from The Arts Center at NYU Abu Dhabi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bill Bragin, Executive Artistic Director at The Arts Center, says the festival is about more than just music \u2013 \u201cit\u2019s about creating a space for artists from around the world to come together and celebrate their cultures \u2026 Tamaas Festival is a celebration of artistic innovation, cross-cultural exchange, and the power of music to unite us all\u201d. But whatever the ambitions, it is mostly about the music: different styles, to be sure, and laden with different influences and cultural overtones. But at base it\u2019s just great music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Festival is basically two consecutive gigs, featuring a wildly eclectic mix of heady music from a multiplicity of musical traditions \u2013 a real demonstration of the variety that the world can offer, none of which remotely feels esoteric or exclusive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It all kicks off in the open air at The East Plaza from 7pm to 10pm, with Afro-Cuban funk from Cimafunk<\/strong> and DIY electronica from the Congolese collective KOKOKO!<\/strong>; at 10pm, things move inside to the Black Box theatre for Egyptian electro shaabi from Abosahar<\/strong> and Maghrebi rap\/EDM from A\u00efta Mon Amour<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The deal is that each concert is priced separately, at AED 105, but there\u2019s a AED 150 combo ticket that gets you into both. And while you\u2019re waiting you can check out the NYUAD Night Souk around the East Plaza \u2013 40 stalls selling handmade soaps, candles, jewellery, artwork, and more, open from 4pm to 10pm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Full info is here<\/a>; get tickets here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

KOKOKO! The East Plaza, 7pm-8.30pm<\/mark><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

KOKOKO!\u00a0is an\u00a0experimental\u00a0electronic music\u00a0collective based in\u00a0Kinshasa. The group performs in a variety of different languages, including\u00a0Kikongo,\u00a0French,\u00a0Swahili and Lingala (in\u00a0Lingala their name suggests knocking on doors); their lyrics focus on political problems within their often troubled country. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

KOKOKO!\u00a0Is known for a raw, experimental, and often improvised sound, blending traditional Congolese rhythms with electronic music and found noises, sometimes created on homemade, unconventional instruments made from scrap \u2013 altogether emblematic of the vibrant, often chaotic energy of Kinshasa. \u201cQuite unlike anything else you\u2019ll hear\u201d said one reviewer; expect energetic performances alongside the storming sonics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the current single Mokili from last summer\u2019s album ‘Butu’<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cimafunk The East Plaza, 8.45pm-10pm<\/mark><\/strong><\/mark><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Cimafunk, better known to his mum as Erik Iglesias Rodr\u00edguez, delivers an electrifying blend of Afro-Cuban rhythms and funk, a mix of traditional Cuban music \u2013 particularly son and rumba \u2013 infused with the funk and soul influences he absorbed growing up. He\u2019s a real showman and always provides a high-energy performance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is La Pmada from his 2024 album ‘Pa’ tu cuerpa’.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A\u00efta Mon Amour The Black Box 10pm-11pm<\/mark><\/strong><\/mark><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A\u00efta Mon Amour is a project that reimagines Morocco’s rich A\u00efta music through a digital lens. A\u00efta is a traditional form of Moroccan folk music sung by the Chikhates, women guardians of a centuries-old tradition; it is a rural expression of the feminine voice, the musicians being male. A\u00efta, meaning ‘cry’ or ‘call’ in Moroccan dialect Arabic, embodies both the call of the warriors and the lament of love, and singer Widad Mjama has long been fascinated by it. A\u00efta Mon Amour \u2013 a duo made up of Mjama and the Tunisian multi-instrumentalist and producer Khalil Epi \u2013 takes this traditional music and blends it with electronica to build bridges between past and present, to deconstruct the perceptions that define the genre, and to make it resonate in the contemporary, digital age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is L\u2019Hedawiyet from the brand new album ‘Abda’.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abosahar The Black Box 11.15pm-midnight<\/mark><\/strong><\/mark><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Abosahar (sometimes Abo Sohar, occasionally ABOsohar) grew up with no formal music training. As result his music[making was an idiosyncratic DIY-interpreted form of shaabi, a genre of popular working-class music which evolved from Egyptian baladi that was already soaked in an unavoidable DIY ethic. Abosahar started making music on his computer, and used the computer\u2019s keyboard as an instrument \u2013 \u201cI have to be musically trained to play an actual keyboard, and I\u2019m not\u201d he told an interviewer a while ago. \u201cI\u2019m all about simplifying things, that\u2019s what my trooby style is about.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\u2019s come on since then, deploying hard hitting beats, idiosyncratic ways with synths and keyboards, introspective lyrics, quirky samples, hypnotic melodies. This the electro shaabi he calls \u2018trobby’, an amalgamation of the words ‘true’ and ‘being\u2019 \u2013 “my music is more than style, it is my life-story translated into sounds and melodies. My sadness, madness, my happiness\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He has a lot of good stuff on Soundcloud, but here’s FRINDES Trobby Music from the album ‘Trobby Music’<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tamaas means \u2018contact\u2019 in Arabic (and Farsi too, as it happens). That\u2019s a neat summary of what we should expect from an arts centre \u2013 contact as communication and connection, but also contact as collision. Maybe we\u2019ll get all three [… more]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":60572,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[124,33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-festival","category-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/magpie.ae\/staging4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/magpie.ae\/staging4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/magpie.ae\/staging4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magpie.ae\/staging4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magpie.ae\/staging4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/magpie.ae\/staging4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60567\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magpie.ae\/staging4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/magpie.ae\/staging4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magpie.ae\/staging4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magpie.ae\/staging4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}