Upon arrival at the venue of the event, His Highness was received by Sheikh Mohammed bin Humaid Al Qasimi, Chairman of the Department of Statistics and Community Development; Sheikh Saud bin Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qasimi, Director of the Sharjah Digital Office; Major General Saif Al Zari Al Shamsi, Commander-in-Chief of Sharjah Police; Abdullah Mohammed Al Owais, Chairman of the Department of Culture; Ali Salem Al Midfa, Chairman of the Sharjah Airport Authority; Mohammed Obaid Al Zaabi, Head of the Protocol and Hospitality Department; Dr. Khaled Omar Al Midfa, Chairman of Sharjah Media City; and a number of officials and a group of artists.
His Highness the Ruler of Sharjah watched the opening performance of the festival, the Emirati play “Salloum Al Arab”, written by Sultan Al Neyadi and directed by Mohammed Al Ameri, and presented by the Sharjah National Theatre Group, with the participation of a number of the most prominent theatre artists in the country.
This play embodies the Emirati Bedouin environment with its customs, traditions, values and heritage, through three stories that have been passed down from generation to generation, because of the wisdom and expressions it carries within it, about generosity, courage and altruism that sing the noble meanings of the people of this good land.
The show included many performance arts, including narration, poetry, show, and the participation of horses and camels in the scenes, in addition to the use of a group of elements that contributed to providing a distinctive theatrical space that conveyed the idea and objectives of the text to the audience.
The festival witnesses the participation of five theatrical performances from the UAE, Egypt, Morocco, Syria and Mauritania, in addition to the presence of dozens of theatrical artists from most Arab countries.
The festival mixes new theatrical solutions, performance arts and traditional storytelling created by Bedouin societies. The festival site, which aims to highlight and enhance the aesthetics of the Arab environment, has been prepared in a large area in the Al Kihaif, so that it simulates, in its general form, a desert village, and participating performances are presented and watched by the audience in a space surrounded by dunes, valleys and tents.
In conjunction with the theatrical performances, the festival organises daily critical talks that shed light on the technical aspects of the participating performances and discuss their topics and techniques. The programme accompanying the nights of the festival also includes a variety of activities to exchange knowledge and visions and build bridges of communication and interaction between participants and guests.
The Sharjah Desert Theatre Festival organises an intellectual symposium titled "Desert Theatre and the Authentication of Arab Spectacle", in addition to exhibitions and competitions that celebrate Bedouin environments. The festival also holds dinner parties and daily performances that reflect the diversity of the popular heritage of the countries participating in this edition.
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