One Night Standup’s in the news

Thanks to the folks at the National.

• One Night Standup will continue to be a monthly free-to-the-public event. For more information, visit www.facebook.com/OneNight StandUp

The Emirati comedian Abdulla “Abz” Ali is not afraid to push boundaries in his stand-up comedy routines. His acts have a tendency to be at times racy and controversial, but he makes no apologies.

For the 21-year-old, it’s all in the name of entertainment.

“Comedy is an art and art should never be censored,” said the Dubai native. “My comedy style is really just an exaggeration of my personality.”

Ali was speaking ahead of the debut comedy eventOne Night Standup in Dubai Monday night, at 8pm, at 1Up, Boutique 7 Hotel and Suites, Tecom.

Hisham Wyne, a Dubai-based columnist and writer, founded the event, aiming to enhance the UAE comedy scene and give the audience an opportunity to enjoy local talent free of charge.

“My interest in stand-up is a progression of an appreciation for the community and my public-speaking background,” said the 28-year-old Wyne, who is originally from Pakistan. “I felt there should be more opportunities and places for people to perform, so I did something about it.”

The interest he received was overwhelming and performance slots filled quickly.

“We want to encourage comedy and self-expression, but we don’t want people to get offended,” he said. “After all, they are showing up to have a laugh.”

While their current venue is an intimate space, Wyne hopes it will encourage more establishments to open their doors in support. He also hopes to catapult the careers of comedians, similar to how many Hollywood actors started out in small clubs and bars in the US.

“The issue of finding a venue is huge here because there are quite a few barriers. Our event will hopefully set precedence for others to curate their own events,” he said.

Ali, who is currently studying dentistry in New Zealand, shares the same sentiment and stresses the need for more support. He looks up to comedians such as Dave Chappelle, after watching one of his shows at age 13.

“I would love to see the UAE as the capital of comedy in the Middle East,” he said. “Feedback is mainly positive, but sometimes I do get the odd question of ‘Why are you doing this?’ or ‘You shouldn’t have said that’. It used to make me sad, but I learnt to live with it.”

The Egyptian-born stand-up comedian Lamya Tawfik has also had to face some tough criticism. As a 35-year-old Muslim woman who wears the hijab, some found it difficult to understand her love of the stage.

“I was on an Arabic talk show once and one of the hosts said to me: ‘You wear the headscarf, shouldn’t you not be drawing attention to yourself?’ I simply said: ‘Hey, I’m just doing comedy.’ Besides, it was ironic because her co-host also covers her hair, yet she’s on TV.”

Without intending it, Tawfik, who was also juggling a doctorate in children’s media with a job in advertising and developing her comedy, found herself responsible for exemplifying that one can be a practising Muslim and do comedy at the same time.

“We are always concerned about being politically correct and not offending each other. We don’t push the envelope in fear of being attacked,” she said. “My humour is observational and I tend to make fun of myself a lot. It’s pretty family-friendly, like Bill Cosby.”

Both Tawfik and Ali decided to pursue comedy after attending a 2009 workshop in Dubai by Aron Kader, from the Arab-American comedy group Axis of Evil.

Wyne stresses that comedy is undeniably difficult and therefore requires dedication.

“I chose this particular venue because the audience won’t be easy to please, which makes it more challenging for the comedian,” he said. “But at the same time, I’m not throwing them to the wolves. They have to come with a game plan and know their material inside out because they are here to entertain.”

 

Graffiti…

 

This is very cool. Lots of people, including the erstwhile staff at local English daily The National, have run stories on the graffiti and street art scene in Dubai. It can’t hold a candle to other places in the world, but the fact that it remains a jail-worthy – and worse, a deportation-worthy- act, means it remains the preserve of a few brave souls. Many of the graffiti artists in the Satwa and Al Badaa areas are Emirati. They can’t be told go back home if caught.

But not this one. S/he is one of the pioneers of scene, and the vast majority of his works in Dubai South. Tecom, JLT, Media City, etc., remain popular haunts for him/her. Not only is this soul dedicated to elliptical statements marked with the triangular A, but has a knack for encompassing the idiosyncrasies of the city we live in using but a few choice hastily-painted works. What makes his/her work compelling to me on a personal level is that I’m aware of the person behind the spray can, and read their careful scrawls as an annonymous extension of their personality.

Sirius, of course, is the brightest star in the sky,derived from the Greek ‘Seirios’. Its close proximity to Earth, added to a size twice that of our modest sun, makes it a prominent feature of the nightscape. And isn’t everyone in Dubai trying to aim for the brightest, blingiest star out there, regardless of cost or sanity?

Ps: The picture was taken near the entrance to the long standing, practically forgotten, almost derelict, Dubai Desert Springs community next to Tecom. 

The human capacity to make beautiful noise…

The power of human creativity. Or rather, the ability of humans to make noise. No matter the situation, or the tools to hand. This was spotted by @mahreenkasana on twitter. Give a man a glass of brandy, he’ll sing for a day. Teach him how to make brandy glasses sing, and ahhh…music. Observe:

Severely brilliant and annonymous

Image from Central Station, linked below

This came to my attention recently, through my twitter timeline – and I utterly fail to recollect who it was, else they’d get deserving mention. Utterly superb. Paper sculptures, intricately hewed out of books. And left annonymously at libraries, bookshops, etc, in Edinburgh. With personalised notes indicating appreciation for the work these institutions were doing. E.g. “A gift in support of libraries, books, words, ideas….. (& against their exit)”

No nom de guerre, no subterfuge. Just two XXs indicating hugs.

This harkens to a bygone era, where flair and discretion could make comfortable bedfellows, and cheap publicity was not the norm. Of course, as I say this, 2012 might just be the year the paper sculptor reveals herself and starts marketing her wares. And perhaps such talent does deserve some recognition and monetary compense. But I wouldn’t like it. Her work would lose its mysterious elegance, and aura of Valentine blooms delivered out of season, unexpectedly.

Read the rest here.

There’s also a Guardian article about it, from March 3rd 2011.

Now isn’t that just magnificent?

 

 

So Artsy, So Culturey, so New Yearsy

Yes, t’is that time of year. When tired old 2011 trots out with head bowed and beard tripping up knobbly knees. On the other side, 2012 will probably behave in the manner of all newborns: kicking, screaming, temperamental, and as full of smiles as poop.

So Dubai, you think you’ve got New Year‘s nailed eh? The parties, the booze? Abu Dhabi, you’ve got Coldplay. Well, I see you both, and raise you: giant sculptures of Hell Boy and the Hulk in Eucador.

There, they construct large combustible sculptures of everyone’s favourites – from smurfs and the Cat Lair, to a large green Hulk. And then set them aflame and welcome in the turning of time.

Check them out here, as first tweeted by the awesome @Moonbootica. Always awesome to see how people everywhere celebrate the approach of a new set of 575,600 minutes in ways beautiful and quirky.

A haven for the arts

 

 

Tsk tsk tsk. Over a month without an update. Terrible of me, really. But there’s sometimes a distinction to be made between writing and doing – and the past month has been all about the Doing. First there was the Abu Dhabi Film Festival – which I covered for GN (over at hishamwyne.com). Then worked with the awesome gals at Art in the City for Abu Dhabi Art. From there, rolled right into DIPAF – the Dubai International Performing Arts Festival where I did my first stand up comedy gig and poetry in Urdu the next day. All this merits a blog post of its own – and this will happen. I just need to start stealing pictures from miscellaneous FB profiles for that one. But in the meantime, here’s an article I wrote on the arts scene in Barsha. 

 

Let’s assume for a second that you’re homing in on Barsha on the back of a giant bird. From afar, you see a cross-section of living and shopping spaces, with apartments and villas rubbing corners with little shops, restaurants, and hypermarkets. The Mall of the Emirates, with its protruding ski slope, slides into view as retail lynchpin.

Hover a bit closer and you realize Barsha is a community humming and bustling in its own right. People mill around, cars honk and there are the inevitable traffic jams. From your perch in the sky, you linger over busy street corners. Just a few turns away, villas sit slouching in the very epitome of languor.

As a strictly amateur thespian, comedian, and general noisemaker, I find the arts scene in Barsha figuring ever more prominently within my schedule. And that’s largely due to two enterprises: DUCTAC and the Jam Jar.

Nestled in the Mall of the Emirates, the DUCTAC theatre is home to an artsy generality of people of all ages – some as tiny as kneecap-biting five or six. It offers lessons in music, comedy, tap dance, improv, writing and Arabic, and there is theatre space for all manner of performances. From little girls dressed in pink tutus to people carrying a menacing array of props and scripts, DUCTAC is home for everyone with even a fibre of interest in the arts. Within DUCTAC operate the indomitable duo of Ali Al Sayed and Mina Liccione, the founders of Dubomedy. Mina is an ex-Broadway tap queen and comedienne, and Ali a world-class purveyor of comedy in his own right. I’m currently dabbling in stand-up comedy classes with them, and thoroughly enjoying the bonhomie and camaraderie.

Then, if you were to gain some altitude, and look across to the other side of the Umm Suqeim road dividing Barsha from Al Quoz, you would see the Jam Jar hidden between rows of identical warehouses. Technically, it’s on the wrong side of the street to be considered Barsha. But its influence and proximity means it deserves honorary mention.

One of the true pioneers of Dubai’s homegrown arts scene, it caters to a wide variety of events- musical performances, theatre, and arts exhibitions. It’s a communal space that’s easily accessible, and the all-girl team is genuinely enthusiastic about arts and culture. The Jam Jar, in some manner or other, has been involved with many of the seminal arts and culture events in Dubai and even Abu Dhabi. I have memories of several happy evenings and afternoons there.

Between the Jam Jar and DUCTAC, Barsha’s denizens can rest assured there will always be artsy endeavors to soothe the soul.

Why I hate mixology – those molecular bas#ar%s can go to hell

Image via Wikipedia

It’s 3 in the morning. I’m relaxing. The week has been tough, what with traipsing up and down to the Abu Dhabi Film Festival. Rewarding, but tough. I’m listening to music. And not classy music.

In point of fact, I’ve decided tonight is when I take a break from my standard jazz, blues and indie fare and sink into the world of autotuned fake Rnb. ‘Mr. Saxobeat’ has been played, as has ‘Put it down on me.’ A couple of detestable 50 cent songs have also been Youtubed. It’s just that kind of night. Not only have I typed incessantly the past week, I’ve also just finished Jason Webster‘s !Guerra, one of the better books I’ve read in 2011. Some mind numbing isn’t going amiss.

Except I can’t. I can’t take it. And I don’t know quite what’s wrong. Apart from the shit lyrics and the utter vacuousness, that is. Then it hits me. I miss the messiness. Of a plectrum singeing worn guitar strings on its way down. The inevitable plunk plunk that announces hand (and plectern) hitting string, announcing a certain honesty. I miss the beauty of the missed note in a live performance. The imperfection. The wabi sabi ethos. I miss the sax, the clarinet, the wind instruments so liable to be overblown to the point their pitch varies. I miss their complexity, their character.

Forget genre for a second. What modern music has done is taken notes, processed them using large iMacs with the latest I7 processors, and assembled them for optimum hearing. Singers’ voices have been purloined, cheese grated and reassembled into perfect robotic utopian tone. Never again will you hear the dying rasps of a diseased Johnny Cash trying to wring the last breath from his napalmed lungs to tell you about the American dream. Or any dream. No, it’s just perfect mollecules of !ucking perfect !ucking sound. And their perfection bleeds away all character till its muzak not music. Music is spontaneity, and joy. Muzak is just a formula. So go to hell Gaga Bieber Black whathaveyou.

And that’s my problem with mixologists too. You’re going to deconstruct my G&T till it melds at molecular level? You’re going to freeze that little ball of cucumber essence in liquid nitrogen so it dissolves perfectly? Well, go have intercourse with a rabid baboon, Mr. mixologist.

See, I like my music imperfect, and I definitely like my drinks asymmetrical. In want my G&T to taste differently depending on which side of the glass I’m drinking. My whisky and lemon bitters is on a gradient of tangy, smooth and pungent depending on how I drink, what the base was, and how I’m sipping. Don’t give me your formulas. We’ve got actuarial tables for that. But no one goes to a goddammned jazz club to practice actuarial tables. Just Sayin’.

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So you’ve heard of the Cirque del Soleil. How about the Cirque du Souq?

[Picture from The Fridge website here]

Yup. Cirque del Soleil. That magical, gravity defying show of wonderous proportions glitz and glamour. I’ve been fortunate to catch it in action on more than one occasion. The images embossed on the rear of my retinas have proved indelible.

But now, say hello to Cirque du Souq. The marvelous folk at The Fridge – no, not the London nightclub but  your friendly neighborhood art gallery in Al Quoz near the Grand City Mall – are coming up with their own interpretation. The same high flying, but more community. Cosier, indier. More accessible pricing too, I believe.

I’ve nicked a couple of pictures from their website – visit to read more about what’s going on.

Apparently, the shows are almost sold out. Good on you, The Fridge. They’ve taken their warehouse space and turned it into just about everything one can think of – a musical stage, a bar, a marketing platform, a broadway theatre, Dr. Who’s Tardis (okay, some exaggeration here…).

If you’re so inclined, some of the Fridge crew are around on Twitter. They’re good people, well worth a follow.

Mike Priest – mild mannered, inveterate gentleman, and artist/musician. Seems to have made niceness a career. @MikePriest

Melisa Le Rue – professional musician and pocket sized bundle of fun. @Melisa_le_rue

And see if you can beg, borrow, steal etc, a ticket for the show. If you can’t, try sneaking in any way. What are the chances of being thrown out? Mike Priest is too nice a man.

Displeasing….Shindagah market closed down

It was the oldest market in Dubai. Near the Shindagah tunnel area. It’s now been closed down to make space for Carrefour’s expansion.

Emirates Biz 24/7 carried the news – glad to see them inadvertently contribute to the cause of serious journalism.

These traders expected Dubai Municipality to provide them alternative space in the city. However, Dubai Municipality has not announced any plans to relocate them.

“About 1,400 people work here. Most of the employees are uncertain about their future and the municipality has not yet announced plans for a new market.  The closed vegetable market had 30 stalls and 20 kiosks, the fish market had 28 stalls and the meat market had 27 stalls,” one trader said.

According to Municipality official sources, traders were given enough notice and their licences have not been renewed.

So well done, Dubai Municipality, for placing commercial interest over heritage. It’s markets such as these, though not very accessible for tourists, etc, that hold together the fabric of inner city life. Really, must everything go the way of the super-mall – those gigantic totems to consumption that are rapidly becoming untenable?

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When Portobello Road hits Dubai… flea markets, Flea4Charity, Voice4Charity.

Those absolutely classic lyrics from Bedknobs & Broomsticks.

Portobello road, Portobello road
Street where the riches of ages are stowed.
Anything and everything a chap can unload
Is sold off the barrow in Portobello road.
You’ll find what you want in the Portobello road.

Don’t take my word for it. Check out the song in its entirety here. Aah, nostalgia.

Early Saturday morning, I drove my groaning way to the Zabeel park, where the erstwhile forces for good, @Flea4Charity and @Voice4Charity were setting up flea market stalls. They’d found donations from all over the emirates, had vetted them, sorted them, and were prepping to sell them. Proceeds would go to charitable causes – in particular the Somalian famine.

Zabeel park is huge. One doesn’t really quite understand how large it is until one parks at the wrong gate and proceeds to walk it. Two gates in the same area seem a good half kilometre apart. On my way to the Stargate area, I came across these lovely people doing early morning calisthenics. Quite enthusiastically, I might add.

 

 

 

Stargate is an atrium like enclosure catering to the gaming and entertainment needs of little and not so little tykes and tykettes. But today was Flea Market day, which meant that much of the space available (and believe you me, there’s a lot of space available) was allocated to stands selling anything and everything.

Flea for Charity, under the watchful eye of the industrious Sajid Ismail, and a girl named Jihad (cue Ride of the Valkyries here), had bagged the first couple of tables from the entrance. Voice for Charity was a few metres down, run by an ex-PR type girl called Dina, aided  by the volunteer Diya Khaleel.

 

That's Jihad!

 

When i first showed up, it all seemed a bit empty-echoey and sombre. People were registering and trickling in. But soon enough, the halls were alive with the sound of music – or at least the percussion of heavy boxes being lifted, rolled and dropped.

Roll out!

Piling em high

Working with Voice4Charity, regular charity hound Diya Khalil (@DiyaKhalil) had found himself in the enviable situation of being the only male volunteer in a stall full of women. The self-satisfaction lasted to the exact point he saw a large truck full of supplies pitch up…

Unloading and lugging

 

Nevertheless, we all pitched in and stuff got done. Come 10 am, and the floodgates were thrown wide.

Throngs of people…thronging. There was hustling, there was bustling, there was elbowing and limbs in all directions. Leopard print bras rubbed shoulders with excellent books; half filled bottles of expensive perfumes nestled up to sandwich makers. Wall art was obscured behind piles of clothing. There were shades, lamps, pens – anything conceivably possible, in the oddest juxtaposition. And there were bargains to be had.

One of the advantages of being a volunteer was that I managed a round of the market before the gates were thrown open to the masses. Picked up a decent hall of paintings, books and the odd toy. Then, as the clock hit opening time, age and nationality was no bar to the avalanche that descended down the Stargate atrium to partake.

I was nonchalantly elbowed out of the way by a large Egyptian woman trumpeting her way through the stalls yelling “Go Tahrir” and “Down with Mubarak,” little realizing she was in the wrong throng of people. I sympathized despite bruised ribcage – after all, used china is just as important a cause as deposing a depot. Eh eh?

There were stalls towards the end in full cry, with vendors yelling out their wares. Not everything at the flea market was used, mind you. At least a couple of stands had purchased wares specifically for the purposes of selling them on.

 

The Flea Market at Star Gate deserves to be a Dubai institution. There are very few places where you’ll see such a rampaging crowd where abayas mix in with crotch-hugging shorts and kanduras with tank tops, all purchasing wares ranging from dish rags to used golf clubs.

The rather busy Flea4Charity stall, ft. Sajid Ismail and Hamna (somewhere). 

Yeah, the Zabeel Park turns into Dubai’s very own Portobello Road some Saturdays.  All together now:

 

Tokens and treasures, yesterday’s pleasures
Cheap imitations of heirlooms of old
Dented and tarnished, scarred and unvarnished
In old Portobello they’re bought and they’re sold

Portobello Road, Portobello Road
Street where the riches of ages are stowed
Artifacts to glorify our regal abode
Are hidden in the flotsam in Portobello road.
You’ll find what you want in the Portobello Road

The next Flea Market is on the 17th of September 2011. Gate 4, Zabeel Park Area A. I’ll see you there – once I’ve bagged the good stuff.