I like to think that I admire different types of art - dance, music, and visual arts - especially since I'm not a very artistic person, I really enjoy it when I can appreciate other people's work. Dance is a form of art I struggle with, mainly because I am co-ordination challenged but also because I am a little in awe of the ability of dancers to contort their bodies in such weird motions. It makes my knees hurt just watching them. The fact that they can give meaning to these movements I find incredible - when I get it, that is.
Determined to put more dance in my life, I dragged a friend downtown to the famous Gomhoria Theatre a few weeks ago to watch a young troupe perform a modern dance called It's Not Even Tuesday!, part of the Egyptian Dance Festival.
The theatre is old but impressive, with beautifully ornate walls and a very high ceiling, gold detail and red seats. The audience slowly swelled with all sorts of people - a few foreigners on what seemed to be a very high-class tour and other dancers who all knew each other and looked excited. I really didn't know what to expect, but I had watched enough So You Think You Can Dance to know there would be some tight pants and wistful arm movements.
The curtain went up and on a dark stage a line of 11 people stood in front of a microphone. Each one took a turn telling a short but sad story. These were related in Egyptian dialect, and usually in a self-deprecating way. The rest of the performance was the stories retold in a series of vignettes of elaborate dance moves combined with either western or Arabic music. The dancers were varied in size and height, but were all talented, agile and able to bring us into their story.
I admit I didn't understand much. I am not very good at translating dance movements, but I thoroughly enjoyed the creativity and the realism of the small stories - a break-up, a couple falling in love, a woman having an abortion/losing a baby by popping a balloon inside her shirt - it was all very thought provoking. My favourite vignette involved two dancers dressed in black and seated side by side, speaking and moving in perfect unison. They were acting out the break-up of an engagement, and it was visually satisfying to see their movements mimic each other so finely, and to hear their voices in perfect unison. Needless to say they received much warm applause.
My only disappointment was that some of the dancing wasn't equally well co-ordinated. Performers who were supposed to be in sync were obviously a split-second off. Even though I can't dance, I know when dancers are supposed to move together. They also spoke a little too fast and the music tended to drown out their soliloquies.
All was immediately forgiven, however, when the troupe came out to meet the audience and answer questions. Virtually all were under 25 and half had never performed in a major production like this on stage in front of a large audience before. Whatever minor movement "errors" there may have been melted away in my eyes when I heard this, In addition the dancers had all contributed to writing and choreographing the piece.
The group apparently met one day on the banks of the Nile and sat up late to discuss what they wanted to convey. They shared stories and from this came the idea of a series of break-ups, mixed with miserable school experiences and problems with parents and jobs. The troupe then simply turned these experiences into dance.
The lead dancer and director later told me that they had all realised that each story they came up with had happened on a Tuesday. The piece is supposed to be set on a Sunday, hence the title - It's not even Tuesday! As each dancer talked about their experience learning the moves, it was refreshing to see young Arabs excelling at something they obviously love and to watch them use modern dance to express the everyday frustrations many members of the audience would be going through. As the director said, she just wanted everyone to leave thinking: "I am not alone!"
Hadeel al Shalchi is a writer for the Associated Press, based in Cairo
Some of Darwish's last words
"They see their tomorrows slipping out of their reach. And though it seems to them that everything outside this reality is heaven, yet they do not want to go to that heaven. They stay, because they are afflicted with hope." - Mahmoud Darwish, to attendees of the Palestine Festival of Literature, 2008
His life in brief: Born in a village near Galilee, he lived in exile for most of his life and started writing poetry after high school. He was arrested several times by Israel for what were deemed to be inciteful poems. Most of his work focused on the love and yearning for his homeland, and he was regarded the Palestinian poet of resistance. Over the course of his life, he published more than 30 poetry collections and books of prose, with his work translated into more than 20 languages. Many of his poems were set to music by Arab composers, most significantly Marcel Khalife. Darwish died on August 9, 2008 after undergoing heart surgery in the United States. He was later buried in Ramallah where a shrine was erected in his honour.
Premier Futsal 2017 Finals
Al Wasl Football Club; six teams, five-a-side
Delhi Dragons: Ronaldinho
Bengaluru Royals: Paul Scholes
Mumbai Warriors: Ryan Giggs
Chennai Ginghams: Hernan Crespo
Telugu Tigers: Deco
Kerala Cobras: Michel Salgado
Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom
Director: James Wan
Starring: Jason Mamoa, Patrick Wilson, Amber Heard, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II
Rating: 2/5
Indika
Developer: 11 Bit Studios
Publisher: Odd Meter
Console: PlayStation 5, PC and Xbox series X/S
Rating: 4/5
Company profile
Company name: Fasset
Started: 2019
Founders: Mohammad Raafi Hossain, Daniel Ahmed
Based: Dubai
Sector: FinTech
Initial investment: $2.45 million
Current number of staff: 86
Investment stage: Pre-series B
Investors: Investcorp, Liberty City Ventures, Fatima Gobi Ventures, Primal Capital, Wealthwell Ventures, FHS Capital, VN2 Capital, local family offices
Company Profile
Company name: Hoopla
Date started: March 2023
Founder: Jacqueline Perrottet
Based: Dubai
Number of staff: 10
Investment stage: Pre-seed
Investment required: $500,000
TWISTERS
Director:+Lee+Isaac+Chung
Starring:+Glen+Powell,+Daisy+Edgar-Jones,+Anthony+Ramos
Rating:+2.5/5
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Famous left-handers
- Marie Curie
- Jimi Hendrix
- Leonardo Di Vinci
- David Bowie
- Paul McCartney
- Albert Einstein
- Jack the Ripper
- Barack Obama
- Helen Keller
- Joan of Arc
COMPANY PROFILE
Company name: Almouneer
Started: 2017
Founders: Dr Noha Khater and Rania Kadry
Based: Egypt
Number of staff: 120
Investment: Bootstrapped, with support from Insead and Egyptian government, seed round of
$3.6 million led by Global Ventures
Film: Raid
Dir: Rajkumar Gupta
Starring: Ajay Devgn, Ileana D'cruz and Saurabh Shukla
Verdict: Three stars
My Country: A Syrian Memoir
Kassem Eid, Bloomsbury
FROM THE ASHES
Director: Khalid Fahad
Starring: Shaima Al Tayeb, Wafa Muhamad, Hamss Bandar
Rating: 3/5
A QUIET PLACE
Starring: Lupita Nyong'o, Joseph Quinn, Djimon Hounsou
Director: Michael Sarnoski
Rating: 4/5
Getting there
The flights
Emirates and Etihad fly to Johannesburg or Cape Town daily. Flights cost from about Dh3,325, with a flying time of 8hours and 15 minutes. From there, fly South African Airlines or Air Namibia to Namibia’s Windhoek Hosea Kutako International Airport, for about Dh850. Flying time is 2 hours.
The stay
Wilderness Little Kulala offers stays from £460 (Dh2,135) per person, per night. It is one of seven Wilderness Safari lodges in Namibia; www.wilderness-safaris.com.
Skeleton Coast Safaris’ four-day adventure involves joining a very small group in a private plane, flying to some of the remotest areas in the world, with each night spent at a different camp. It costs from US$8,335.30 (Dh30,611); www.skeletoncoastsafaris.com
COMPANY PROFILE
Company: Eco Way
Started: December 2023
Founder: Ivan Kroshnyi
Based: Dubai, UAE
Industry: Electric vehicles
Investors: Bootstrapped with undisclosed funding. Looking to raise funds from outside
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6.30pm: Maiden Dh 165,000 1,600m
Winner: Superior, Connor Beasley (jockey), Ahmad bin Harmash (trainer)
7.05pm: Handicap Dh 185,000 2,000m
Winner: Tried And True, Pat Dobbs, Doug Watson
7.40pm: Maiden Dh 165,000 1,600m
Winner: Roy Orbison, Fernando Jara, Ali Rashid Al Raihe
8.15pm
Handicap Dh 190,000 1,400m
Winner: Taamol, Dane O’Neill, Ali Rashid Al Raihe
8.50pm
Handicap Dh 175,000 1,600m
Winner: Welford, Richard Mullen, Satish Seemar
9.25pm: Handicap Dh 175,000 1,200m
Winner: Lavaspin, Richard Mullen, Satish Seemar
10pm: Handicap Dh 165,000 1,600m
Winner: Untold Secret, Xavier Ziani, Sandeep Jadhav
Book Details
Three Centuries of Travel Writing by Muslim Women
Editors: Siobhan Lambert-Hurley, Daniel Majchrowicz, Sunil Sharma
Publisher: Indiana University Press; 532 pages
SPECS
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EMIRATES'S REVISED A350 DEPLOYMENT SCHEDULE
Edinburgh: November 4 (unchanged)
Bahrain: November 15 (from September 15); second daily service from January 1
Kuwait: November 15 (from September 16)
Mumbai: January 1 (from October 27)
Ahmedabad: January 1 (from October 27)
Colombo: January 2 (from January 1)
Muscat: March 1 (from December 1)
Lyon: March 1 (from December 1)
Bologna: March 1 (from December 1)
Source: Emirates