Time to delight in your feet

More and more people in the UAE are using dance as a way to release stress, express themselves, get fit and make new friends. Dubai’s Capella Club, which just celebrated its first birthday, has a whopping 16 different styles of dance on offer, as well a range of other fitness activities. The club will be showcasing its star dancers at the Life & Style Show at Adnec in Abu Dhabi from Thursday to Saturday, offering opportunities for anyone to get up and join in with samba, Zumba and salsa. Here’s a breakdown of what the Capella Club has to offer.

Salsa

Salsa originated in Cuba but took on different styles in different parts of the world. That’s why there are Colombian, Costa Rican, Cuban, New York, Miami and Los Angeles forms of the dance. Luis Gabriel Usma, an instructor who has won the Salsa Cabaret Championship and came third in the World Latin Dance Cup, comes from Colombia but teaches LA-style salsa at the Capella Club. “Salsa LA is a kind of line dance and you usually move in a line from north to south, from one corner to another,” says the 31-year-old.

Tango

Usma also teaches couples and group classes of tango, which he says creates a very different mood. “I am more serious dancing tango, because it’s more about romance and sensuality. Tango is a small dance, but it’s one of the most complicated rhythms. Tango is all about technique and body expression. The couples have to learn to keep dancing in the same way, in tune with each other. “I know people in Dubai who get so stressed out in their jobs, but they come to our classes and they get rid of their stress by dancing it out. And they get to make new friends.”

Capoeira

Capoeira was developed in the 1500s by enslaved Africans in Brazil. Learning to fight and defend themselves was forbidden to those who were legally defined as property, so they would pretend they were dancing and singing in order to learn to kick and do acrobatics. “Most people still think of it as a dance, so we’re still doing a good job of disguising it,” explains the instructor Vikentiy Dyro, who goes by the capoeira name of Boto. “Capoeira is not only a martial-arts dance, it’s a very playful game; people form a circle and you take turns on musical instruments such as a drum, tambourine and cowbell. We also sing songs, so the students also get to learn some Portuguese in my classes.”

Flamenco

Flamenco is a form of Spanish folk music and dance from Andalusia in southern Spain, which incorporates singing, guitar playing, dancing and handclapping. The Spanish flamenco instructor Amalia Megias also performs her show Flamenco Emotions all over the world. “I teach flamenco and Sevillanas (flamenco with partners) during the class. People enjoy and start to understand, feel and love flamenco because it is a very passionate dance.”

Flamenco originated among gypsies in the 18th century and it is thought the word flamenco comes from the Hispano-Arabic word “fellah mengu”, meaning “expelled peasant”, referring to the ethnic Andalusian Muslims, who joined Roma gypsy groups to avoid religious persecution.

Pole fitness

Pole Fitness is a new fitness trend booming in the UAE. It combines dance and gymnastics and involves performing acrobatic stunts and choreographed routines with a vertical pole. The instructor Vlada Zhizhchenko, who began pole dancing in Moscow four years ago, says her students range in age from 18 to 60.

“Pole dancing is full of elegance, energy and femininity and it’s an extremely empowering form of exercise,” Zhizhchenko says. “It helps you lose weight, tone up and have fun while doing it. “Students build themselves up slowly, it takes a while before they can go upside down and suspend their whole body out with their arms, and all the crazy stuff I do. We have classes for total beginners as well as intermediate and advanced students.”

Belly Dancing

Belly dancing, which has different forms that originated in Egypt and Turkey, is good for preventing osteoporosis and spinal problems. Milla Tenorio of Brazil performed as a belly dancer in five-star hotels in Dubai for 10 years. Now, she loves watching the transformations in the ladies she teaches. “They find themselves beautiful and happy when dancing – it’s the moment they can really find themselves, no matter what shape they have. So we work on ladies’ self-esteem and confidence. It’s a very feminine class.”

Burlesque

Burlesque started in the 17th century in theatres as a form of comic parody and over the years has evolved into a dance and fashion made popular by modern burlesque dancers such as Dita Von Teese. Tenorio started teaching burlesque dancing a year ago after attending a burlesque school in Paris. “It’s been very successful and the ladies love it. It makes them feel beautiful and it’s a great workout. We dance to cabaret style songs from Broadway and Moulin Rouge.”

Samba

Samba is a dance form and musical genre made famous around the world by the Brazilian Rio Carnival. Tenorio admits that although it is popular in her native Brazil, she specialised in other dance forms for many years before attempting samba for the first time five years ago. Now she has fallen in love with it and has joined a samba group that performs all over the UAE and in other countries. “It’s a lovely kind of show, we dress up with feather boas, you do fast steps with your hips and feet to the sound of drums, it’s very dynamic,” she says.

• Capella Club will be at the Life & Style show from Thursday to Saturday, although most of the action will take place on Friday. Visit www.capella-club.com for the latest class schedule

artslife@thenational.ae

The specs

Engine: 1.5-litre turbo

Power: 181hp

Torque: 230Nm

Transmission: 6-speed automatic

Starting price: Dh79,000

On sale: Now

Key facilities

Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
Premier League-standard football pitch
400m Olympic running track
NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
600-seat auditorium
Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
Specialist robotics and science laboratories
AR and VR-enabled learning centres
Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills

The biog

Nickname: Mama Nadia to children, staff and parents

Education: Bachelors degree in English Literature with Social work from UAE University

As a child: Kept sweets on the window sill for workers, set aside money to pay for education of needy families

Holidays: Spends most of her days off at Senses often with her family who describe the centre as part of their life too

Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.

Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.

“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.

“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.

Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.

From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.

Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.

BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.

Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.

Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.

“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.

“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.

“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”

Email sent to Uber team from chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi

From: Dara

To: Team@

Date: March 25, 2019 at 11:45pm PT

Subj: Accelerating in the Middle East

Five years ago, Uber launched in the Middle East. It was the start of an incredible journey, with millions of riders and drivers finding new ways to move and work in a dynamic region that’s become so important to Uber. Now Pakistan is one of our fastest-growing markets in the world, women are driving with Uber across Saudi Arabia, and we chose Cairo to launch our first Uber Bus product late last year.

Today we are taking the next step in this journey—well, it’s more like a leap, and a big one: in a few minutes, we’ll announce that we’ve agreed to acquire Careem. Importantly, we intend to operate Careem independently, under the leadership of co-founder and current CEO Mudassir Sheikha. I’ve gotten to know both co-founders, Mudassir and Magnus Olsson, and what they have built is truly extraordinary. They are first-class entrepreneurs who share our platform vision and, like us, have launched a wide range of products—from digital payments to food delivery—to serve consumers.

I expect many of you will ask how we arrived at this structure, meaning allowing Careem to maintain an independent brand and operate separately. After careful consideration, we decided that this framework has the advantage of letting us build new products and try new ideas across not one, but two, strong brands, with strong operators within each. Over time, by integrating parts of our networks, we can operate more efficiently, achieve even lower wait times, expand new products like high-capacity vehicles and payments, and quicken the already remarkable pace of innovation in the region.

This acquisition is subject to regulatory approval in various countries, which we don’t expect before Q1 2020. Until then, nothing changes. And since both companies will continue to largely operate separately after the acquisition, very little will change in either teams’ day-to-day operations post-close. Today’s news is a testament to the incredible business our team has worked so hard to build.

It’s a great day for the Middle East, for the region’s thriving tech sector, for Careem, and for Uber.

Uber on,

Dara

COMPANY PROFILE

Name: Qyubic
Started: October 2023
Founder: Namrata Raina
Based: Dubai
Sector: E-commerce
Current number of staff: 10
Investment stage: Pre-seed
Initial investment: Undisclosed