Sharjah 24: Perform Sharjah returns this January with a second season of performances. Originally scheduled to open in October 2023, the programme was postponed in response to the devastating genocide unfolding in Gaza and in solidarity with the struggle against the illegal occupation of Palestine. The relaunch this month foregrounds works that deal with the Palestinian struggle and creates spaces of encounter between artists and local publics, needed now more than ever.
Building on the success of last year’s iteration, the 2024 season consists of eight performances, presented across Sharjah from 13 January to 18 February. Curated by Director of Performance and Senior Curator Tarek Abou El Fetouh, this year’s programme features a compelling line-up of performers from different artistic fields and disciplines.
While the first season staged performances in streets and squares, the second edition engages with and reflects on Sharjah’s extensive urban development project, begun 30 years ago, to restore, rehabilitate and rebuild the historical area of the city with art and culture at its centre. In parallel with the preservation of heritage, this project prioritised the construction of infrastructure for art and cultural activities and events. Many buildings were repurposed as both meeting places for intellectuals, artists, poets, writers and theatre makers and spaces where they could share their creations with the public.
Mostly staged in these restored heritage houses and spaces, the second edition of Perform Sharjah takes audiences on an artistic journey across the city, connecting with the imagination of its inhabitants and their daily life. It engages with transmitted heritage and modern archives from the last few decades, examining their role in the contemporary imagination and focusing on how artists explore issues of identity, cultural particulars, epistemology and alternative histories.
The performances for the second season include the following:
In Search of Aïda by Jalila Baccar
13 January 2024, Sharjah Performing Arts Academy
The programme begins with readings from In Search of Aïda, the results of a masterclass for professional actors from the UAE and the wider Gulf region led by Tunisian and Arab theatre icon Jalila Baccar. She works intensively with the participants and offers instructions in acting through readings from her first script as a playwright.
Debuting in Beirut in 1998 to commemorate 50 years of the Nakba, In Search of Aïda highlights the ongoing tragedy endured by Palestinians, both inside and outside Palestine. In the play, Baccar shares the story of her search for her missing Palestinian friend Aïda.
4 by Tao Ye
13 January 2024, Sharjah Performing Arts Academy
Tao Ye’s choreographic works explore the potential of the human body beyond the limitations of representation or dramaturgical narrative. In his performance titled 4, the choreography is abstract, with the bodies expressing pure phenomenal movement.
A quartet of fluid bodies flows in powerfully controlled movements around a magnetic central point. Relentlessly, they perform a fixed pattern of movements, as if seeking to achieve oneness. The central point keeps them together, but they cannot breach the distance between them. Minimal shifts in movement are masterfully built in throughout the performance, drawing the audience into a slowly growing trance. The music features brisk and energetic voices beating against the sound of a plaintive string instrument, generating a powerful energy that stimulates the anonymous figures moving on the bright white stage.
Tao Dance Company was the winner of the Silver Lion at the Venice Dance Biennale in 2023.
Metamorphoses #2 by Essia Jaïbi
19–21 January 2024, Dar Al Nadwa, Calligraphy Square
In Metamorphoses #2, Essia Jaïbi revisits the memories seared into her mind since childhood. She locks up her mother, Jalila Baccar, in the glass-walled dressing room of an imagined theatre and pressures her to address the audience.
Devised as a confrontation between two generations, the performance tackles art, theatre and cultural activism, evolving into a critique of Tunisia’s political, cultural, economic, environmental and healthcare systems as well as the rights of minorities and people with disabilities.
Libya by Radouan Mriziga
26 January 2024, Bait Obaid Al Shamsi, Arts Square
In Libya, Radouan Mriziga collaborates with dancers to elaborate on transgenerational shared histories and epistemologies from an Amazigh perspective, in which the memories of the body play a pivotal role. North African music, dance, landscapes and cave paintings depicting prehistoric dance moves are among the interconnected elements that inform a complex choreographic adventure. Layers of meaning are uncovered, drawing the features of an imagined, shared future from an Amazigh point of view.
The Return by Rayyane Tabet
27 and 28 January 2024, The Flying Saucer
The Return traces the 50-year journey of a marble sculpture depicting a bull’s head, drawing on interviews as well as inventory lists, photographs, legal documents and other evidence presented to the New York Supreme Court from investigations that lasted for years. Eventually restituted to Lebanon, the sculpture is now on display at the National Museum in Beirut.
Singing Youth by Judit Böröcz, Bence György Pálinkás and Máté Szigeti
2 February 2024, Sharjah Institute of Theatrical Arts (SITA)
Representing three youths, Singing Youth is a larger-than-life memorial statue by Greek sculptor Memos Makris, a political refugee in Hungary. In 1953, the statue was installed in front of a sports stadium in Budapest, where it still stands today, having survived the collapse of communism and later the demolition of the stadium and the building of a new one in its place.
In this acapella performance, also titled Singing Youth, a theatre professional, visual artist and composer team up to bring the sculpture to life. Composed of excerpts from newspaper articles, interviews and statements made by politicians over the years, the lyrics present the sculpture as a witness to political upheaval, current affairs and the use of arts and sports for political ends.
Perhaps Here by various artists
9–11 February 2024, Bait Al Serkal, Arts Square
Borrowing its title from Khulood Al Mualla’s fourth book of poetry, Rubbama Huna, Perhaps Here explores the orbits of contemporary imagination through a variety of live performances. Artists from diverse disciplines share their works with the public, inviting audiences to experience something that could either be intellectual, emotional or aesthetical in nature.
Over three days, 16 theatre makers, installation and video artists as well as poets and writers perform their works simultaneously on repeat throughout the evening in a marathon of artistic productions. Audience members can select between four and six short shows [10 to 20 minutes each] to attend per night.
Hunkaro by Mohit Takalkar (Co-presented with Ishara Art Foundation)
17 and 18 February 2024, Calligraphy Square
Hunkaro–meaning ‘verbal affirmation’ in Marathi–invites the audience to practise the precious gift of attention through active, participatory listening.
The performance interweaves three stories of human trials and tribulations, tied together by the vital importance of hope and the impossibility of life without it. Using traditional singing and vocal techniques, the stories are narrated in different styles, languages and dialects by six professional actors.
In the absence of musical instruments, the performers emphasise the aesthetic value of language and the importance of the spoken word. Hunkaro won seven awards across 13 categories at the prestigious Mahindra Excellence in Theatre Awards (META) in Delhi in 2023.
Workshops and Talks
In conjunction with the performances, Perform Sharjah will offer a wide range of learning opportunities in theatre and performance through workshops and talks led by participating artists with local partners and cultural practitioners.
Ticketing Information
Admission is free; however, prior booking is required.
Tickets can be booked at the box office, performance venues or online at sharjahart.org.
The box office is located at the Information Centre, Al Mureijah Square.
Saturday to Thursday, 9:00 am–9:00 pm
Friday, 4:00 pm–9:00 pm
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