Egyptian artists to participate in New York Live Ideas festival

A number of Egyptian artists will participate in New York’s Live Ideas Festival, which takes place from 8 February to 3 April.

The festival brings together 45 artists from North Africa and the Middle East, as well as performers from the USA.

According to the festival’s website, the event aims at shedding light on the “generation of artists whose creative networks across socio-political divides reveal a diverse and future-oriented vision for the region.”  This will be done through a variety of art forms, music, film, literary events, performances, films, lectures, panels and community dialogues.”

It is through those events – which will be presented by artists from Syria, Palestine, Morocco, Lebanon, UAE, Iraq and many other MENA countries – that the festival will address “a wide range of complex issues pertinent to the region including alternative modernities, colonialism, gender, patriarchy, Arab feminism and non-conformist identities within national narratives.”

The festival will see a strong participation by Egyptian artists.

Bassem Youssef, the popular Egyptian satirist, will take part in “an evening of laughter and insight from two of the world’s most vital voices of transformation,” a discussion hosted by Rula Jebreal Palestinian foreign policy analyst, journalist, novelist and screenwriter.

The events will also include three dance performances by the Egyptian Adham Hafez Company, which has been producing work in the fields of contemporary dance, music and installation since 2003.

Four films by Egyptian visual artist and filmmaker Maha Maamoun will also be screened; 2026 film, Shooting Stars Remind Me of Eavesdroppers, Night Visitor, and Domestic Tourism II.

In the “Live Ideas: MENA Shorts” event, three Egyptian short films will be screened: Tress of Hair by Doa Aly, Love Dance by Shayma Aziz, and Nuovo Cinema Paradiso, a film honouring Egyptian cinema, edited by Lana Al Sennawy.

source:Ahram online