Alaa Krimed is a luminary of the Middle East's contemporary dance scene. For the better part of the last decade, the Palestinian choreographer has been an ardent advocate of the art form through his Sima Dance Company, which he founded in Damascus in 2003. On a path that has been full of displacement, dance has remained his anchor as he first left Syria to avoid the war, then Lebanon to avoid the instability, to finally find a place for his creative practice to be nurtured in the Emirates.
Philip Rachid has always found solace in hip-hop, be it the music, the dance, or the aesthetic. As a half-Bulgarian, half-Iraqi Kurdish kid growing up in Amsterdam he felt like an outsider and soaked in the messages of hip-hop's global culture to help him expand his creativity. But it was in the UAE that Rachid found a way to combine all his different creative mediums into one.
This episode of Recorded is brought to you in Partnership with the NYUAD Art Gallery and Arts Centre.