ARTS FOR ARABIC LANGUAGE DAY
To celebrate this year’s UN Arabic Language Day, the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi is to hold a Literature and Music Festival at Umm Al Emarat Park and at Manarat Al Saadiyat on Saadiyat Island.
The festival will be framed around performing arts and music, showcasing artists, scholars, writers and musicians; its programming includes musical and theatrical performances, plays, puppet shows and readings.
The aim of the festival is to promote creativity and originality, according to its organisers who hope it will illustrate how music and literature can inspire us. “It seems right to expand on Arabic Language Day and develop our own festival around this date reflecting our traditions and heritage, expressed through music and literature,” Saif Saeed Ghobash, director general, Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi said. “We have a programme of cultural entertainment that can be enjoyed by all.” Highlights include:
An evening of poetry reading and oud tunes, featuring recitals by Hamed Alawi AlHashmi and Ahmed AlMannaee, and music from Bait Al Oud – the region’s leading music academy.
December 18 at Manarat Al Saadiyat auditorium, Saadiyat Island Lebanese singer Jahida Wehbe will be accompanied by a band of 10 musicians from France, Lebanon and the UAE. They will perform songs, texts and poems by Arab and international poets and writers, including Al Mutanabbi, Rumi, Omar Khayyam, Mahmoud Darwish, Khalil Gibran and Ahlam Mosteghanemi, as well as translations of famous literarature in the western canon by Gunter Grass, Pablo Neruda and Federico García Lorca.
December 21 at Manarat Al Saadiyat
A shadow puppetry show entitled ‘The Gift’ will tell the story of an Asian elephant that was gifted to Carolingian emperor Charlemagne by the Abbasid caliph Harun Al Rashid in 801. The play follows the journey of the elephant (the gift) from Baghdad to its new home in Europe as a token of friendship from the Middle East to the West. December 23 at Umm Al Emarat Park’s Children’s Garden
All activities are free to the public. They will be held from December 18 to 23. UN Arabic Langauge Day takes place on December 18, the day on which, in 1973, the UN General Assembly approved Arabic as an official UN language.