2nd Annual Dubomedy International Performing Arts Festival

Dubomedy set to hold 2nd annual performing arts festival in the UAE

“One stage, One community.”

Over the course of four days, Wednesday, November 30^th – Saturday, December 3^th, Dubomedy and VIVA Arts will be throwing the country’s second annual Performing Arts Festival. Through this festival, envisioned as an interdisciplinary platform for performing artists, Dubomedy Arts aims to provide opportunities for both amateurs and professionals to hone their craft through workshops and panels during the morning while performing original content for a local audience in the matinee and evening shows. This year’s festival has already picked up from its launch last year and will be a host of 12 shows that will feature over 200 performers and will attract an audience of 10,000.


“Nurturing the arts community in Dubai is a cause that is very close to my heart,” says Mina Liccione, artistic director of VIVA Arts and head teacher of Dubomedy Arts School. “Ali, the co-founder of Dubomedy Arts School, and I put together this festival to celebrate, educate and bring the community together for four days of the best this region has to offer in performance art. We look forward to watching this festival grow, diversify and best represent the wonderful blend of cultures and artistic voices the region holds. “

The festival will be off to a rousing start with a night of comedy and dance. The students of Dubomedy Arts School’s NYC tap and body percussion will take to the stage alongside Siobhan’s Irish Dancers and the Comedy 101 and Advanced Stand Up students to form an entertaining performance known as “Mix Tape: Stand Up & Dance!”. Following the Dubomedy Arts School Showcase will be a performance by the UAE’s first and only improvisational comedy troupe, Improv Revolution!

Day 2 of the festival is entitled “Local Theater and Performance Art Night”. The evening will showcase the many artistic genres of diverse local groups and solo artists. The Local Theater portion will include seasoned performers of the Dubai Drama Group and the dramatic chops of teens and young adults in the Youth Theatre Works.

The performance art portion will feature Dubomedy’s ‘From the Page to the Stage’ writers, members of The Poeticians, an intermedia spoken word performance by American poet, Nicholas Karavatos, as well as a special performance by Hind Shoufani. Closing out the performance art journey will be “Mehfil-e-Shama”, a series of Urdu, Hindustani and Sufiana performances headed by Jamal Iqbal and featuring Ayeda Nakvi amongst others.

Only the night does not end there! An Arabic stand-up comedy show entitled “Comedia 3al Wagef” will be held on The Burj Steps which is an innovative amphitheatre style venue that sweeps down from Burj Khalifa opening to majestic views of The Dubai Fountain. Ideal for concerts, corporate and lifestyle events, The Burj Steps embody opulence and elegance with an awe inspiring back drop of Burj Khalifa. This show will be hosted by Ali Al Sayed, will feature an array of Arab comedians from the region and will be headlined by internationally acclaimed comedian from Egypt, Mohamed Salem.

Day 3 of the festival has a very special treat for all, not only is it the UAE’s 40^th National Day, but it also presents a unique artistic experience for the residents of Dubai. The day will begin with a special matinee performance of Experimental Theater! Two local experimental troupes have come together to form a double header of visual delight and storytelling to create an “out of the box” conceptual experience. Resuscitation Theater, Abu Dhabi’s first professional theater troupe directed by Maggie Hannan will present a fresh interpretation of T.S. Elliot’s classic play “The Cocktail Party” as the dreamy Star Too Troupe, directed by Sol Abiad, will present an original piece entitled ‘Who Did it?”.

Later that evening Hollywood legend Michael Winslow, most famous for his role as Sgt. Motor-mouth Jones on Police Academy, will be presenting his first and exclusive comedy performance in Dubai! Winslow is referred to as the man of 10,000 voices and performed to sold out crowds at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival and has been both seen and heard in hundreds of movies.

Day 4 is the final and most active day at the festival as it presents workshops, panel discussions, poetry readings in English and Arabic with special guest Iranian-American poet Bahareh Amidi, respected poet Ali Matar Al Mazrouei of RAK TV and renown Arab poet Mohammed Al Mulla whose poetry has been the lyrics of over 14 famous songs that were produced in cooperation with great Artists such as Mohammad Abdo, Rashid Al Majid, Nawal, George Wasoof and may other well known artists. The final festival day will also include a charity event for children with special needs and a music concert on The Burj Steps featuring some of the UAE’s best talent to close this festival. Headlining this year’s concert will be soul singing sensation Hamdan Al Abri.

“Arts festivals tend to open both audience and artists’ minds to the possibilities of art. The sheer diversity of talent represented here is sure to amaze our audience for years to come. We are providing a platform for these artists to start a dialogue with their audience and to take the first steps towards shaping an industry for local artists” says producer Ali Al Sayed.

The Dubomedy Arts School has been offering courses in comedy, body percussion and tap dance since 2008. The tri-yearly semesters end in student performances, often the first time many of the performers have been on stage. This year, these performances will be incorporated into the much larger umbrella of the Dubomedy International Performing Arts Festival and through this, hopes to reach a larger audience. For more information and the full Festival schedule please visit www.dipaf.com or call 04 374 6789.

Dubai Comedians head to New York for the historical return of the coveted Hickok Belt Award

Comedians head to New York for the historical return of the coveted Hickok Belt Award

Once the most coveted honor in American sports, the Hickok Belt™ Award is back, and the countdown begins today to the day when the first Hickok Belt since 1976 will be awarded following the 2012 seasons, to the best athlete in all of professional sports.

The Hickok Belt defined the careers of Sandy Koufax, Ban Hogan, Arnold Palmer, Mickey Mantle, Muhammad Ali and 21 other professional sports legends from 1950 to 1976, and beginning in 2012, with the backing of major supporters like the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association (NSSA) and the Fergie Jenkins Foundation, it will do the same for today’s greats, and tomorrow’s. The countdown to the naming of the next Hickok Belt winner began with the recent launch of the award website, HickokBelt.com, and a Kickoff “Comeback” Ceremony and Dinner is slated for October 16th, 2011 at St. John Fisher College in Rochester, New York, where the sports world will celebrate the Belt’s rich past and look forward to a bright future.

Special guest attendees for the upcoming event will include Fergie Jenkins (former Chicago Cubs pitcher), Bob Turley (former New York Yankees pitcher), Meadowlark Lemon (former Harlem Globetrotter), Carmen Basilio (two time welterweight boxing champion), George Chuvalo (Boxing legend and Heavyweight Champion). On the entertainment front, Ali Al Sayed, a renowned comic from Dubai and the comedic correspondent of Abu Dhabi Sports TV Show “The Beautiful Game” will get the crowd going. Broadway veteran and award winning comedienne, Mina Liccione, will also perform and introduce some of the outstanding special guests throughout the evening.

Traditionally the award ceremonies have included comedy segments. The UAE based Dubomedy and VIVA Arts Directors, Liccione and Al Sayed, have signed on as the entertainment providers for the Hickok Belt Award. “We are deeply honored to be able to contribute to this legendary sports award” said Al Sayed. “As a major fan of sports and comedy, this is a dream come true! I am looking forward to adding humor to the event as well as getting to meet some of the great athletes I admire!”

When asked how sports and comedy connect, Liccione replied, “As the daughter of a boxing promoter, I can tell you that athletes need a great sense of humor in order to handle the amount of stress and strain they endure! We all need a good laugh to pull us through and to bring us closer. Two boxers may be enemies in the ring but can later be found cracking jokes with each other at events such as this as they are a celebration of accomplishment, and with accomplishment comes joy!”

The man and driving force behind bringing the Belt back is Tony Liccione. “For 26 years, from 1950 to 1976, the Hickok Belt was the Crown Jewel of American sports, bigger than any MVP, bigger than a Lombardi, bigger than a World Series ring, bigger than a Green Jacket, said Tony Liccione, Founder and President of the Rochester Boxing Hall of Fame. “In fact, it was bigger than all of them combined, because it honored the best professional athlete across all sports, not just in one.”

“An award like this is special, not only because it recognizes the feats of an athlete amongst his peers in his sport, but also the best of the best in all sports,” said baseball Hall-of-Famer, Fergie Jenkins. “It is something that represents competition at its purest. It’s an award given to the best of the best of the best.

The winner will be chosen by the USA National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association Tony Liccione said. Each month, a 20 voter panel, with four members each from North, South,East and West regions, will select a monthly winner. The 12 monthly winners will then comprise the candidates from which the full NSSA membership will select the annual Hickok Belt Award winner each year.

For more information please visit www.HickokBelt.com. The site features details on past Hickok Belt winners and the rich history of the Belt itself that any professional sports fan who loves sports history and the legends of the games won’t want to miss.

Calling on local performers!

Calling on all local performers!

The 2^nd Annual Dubomedy International Performing Arts Festival (DIPAF) will be held from November 30- December 3, 2011. In their efforts to continue providing a platform for the local arts community, they are currently accepting entries from performing artists of all disciplines for slots in this year’s festival. The festival program will include a local theater night, poetry reading, music day, Arabic theater presentation, comedy night, free workshops, a dance competition and international headlining acts. Local artists will not only get the chance to be seen but to also take the stage with some big names. Dubomedy is very keen on representing the many different cultures of Dubai and invites artists from all backgrounds to participate in their Arabic, English and Hindi programs. The deadline for submissions is September 30, 2011.

The Dubomedy International Performing Arts Festival's goal is to unite and celebrate the diversity of the arts with the many cultural communities of the region all while having a great time. This Festival is unique in that it will feature an array of different genres of performing artists from talented local bands, dancers, theatre, poets, hip hop artists, actors, to international comedians and musicians, to everything in between. The performances will range from student showings to international professionals. This event will infuse nonstop performances with a series of free workshops in both English and Arabic over a 4 day period.

DIPAF’s producer, Ali Al Sayed of Dubai, said “We are hoping to include more Arabic Theater in this year’s Festival. Many people have yet to experience that side of us and we are happy to be able to provide a platform for more Arabic artists to shine.”

Last year over 100 performers took the stage and the local arts community waits, in great anticipation, for the upcoming line up to be announced. When asked if they could reveal any names, DIPAF’s Artistic Director Mina Liccione said “Nope, we aren’t spilling the beans just yet! Submissions are still coming in and we won’t make our final decision on local artists until the deadline hits. However, I can say that a really huge headliner has confirmed to perform as part of our Comedy Night and that we have added some really exciting additions to the program! We are really taking things to the next level this year.”

For more information please contact them on 04 374 6789 or LOL@vivadubai.com.

www.dipaf.com

Dubomedy's 3rd Birthday Bash!!!!

Dubomedy's 3rd Birthday Bash- April 1, 2011

COME JOIN US AS WE TURN 3 ON APRIL FOOLS DAY!
Dean Edwards (of Saturday Night Live and Def Comedy Jam), Remy (Saudis in Audis creator), Ali Al Sayed (OSN Producer and local comic), Mina Liccione (Broadway Veteran and Funny Girls front woman), Omar Ismial (Local Comic) and Simone Heng (Virgin Radio.)

TICKETS ON SALE NOW- http://www.timeouttickets.com/

FOR MORE INFO: 050 44 00 99 4 or LOL@vibadubai.com

MIX TAPE is a sell out!

MIX TAPE- Student Comedy & Tap Dance Special really packed them in!

On March 12, 2011 over fifty students of Dubomedy Arts School took the stage to perform for a thunderous crowd! The theater was completely packed and people were actually turned away! Our end of session tradition "MIX TAPE- Student Comedy & Tap Dance Special" has proven to be a huge success time and time again. Beginning next term we will be adding a second show to best accomodate the audience demand! Well done on an awesome show everyone! The next batch of classes start on April 30, 2011 and the final shows will be on Saturday, June 18. See you there!

MIX TAPE: Student Comedy & Tap Dance Special

MIX TAPE: Student Comedy & Tap Dance Special

An Interview with Nicholas Karavatos by Sabina Giado

An interview with Nicholas Karavatos – inter-media spoken word artist, AUS Professor and "From the Page to the Stage" guest teacher.

By Sabina Giado


1. What got you interested in spoken word and specifically inter-media performances?

I am a graduate of New College of California with an MFA in Poetics, and of Humboldt State University. To over-simplify the tendrils of influence, when I was a young teen, The Doors released a new album titled An American Prayer. The band took recordings of their late singer Jim Morrison reciting his poems, wrote new music and blended them into a seamless whole. Listening to that was a crystallizing moment for me in the performance of poetry. Then I grew up. As my experiments in improvisatory music grew more serious, I began blending my poetry with music in spontaneous collaborations.


2. What brought you to Dubai?

As I began to be priced-out of San Francisco during the dot-com boom’s near-class war in the city’s Mission District, I looked abroad for employment that would pay my student loans. I first arrived in the Middle East in 2000 to teach EFL at Fujairah Technical School. The next year, I moved to Muscat to teach general studies at Modern College of Business & Science. After 5 years there, I was ready to return home, but before that, I had to find a job. The American University of Sharjah did its hiring much sooner than US institutions, and since it looked like a real good place, I applied. I didn't return home and have happily been a member of the AUS faculty since 2006. I am currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of English.


3. What do you think of Dubai’s performing arts scene?

Living out in University City, I don’t get off The Island as much as a healthy man should, so I don’t know enough about Dubai’s performance scene to comment. As for visiting musicians, I enjoyed Roger Waters; Henry Rollins, author and Black Flag alum, did some fun spoken word; and the Emirates Literary Festival is wonderful, if unapologetically pop-oriented, and until this coming season was at a complete loss when it came to poetry. I’m looking forward to it this year.


4. Tell us a little about your book No Asylum.

David Meltzer, author of Beat Thing and legendary poet and musician of the San Francisco Renaissance, wrote: “Nicholas Karavatos is a poet of great range and clarity. This book is an amazing collectanea of smart sharp political poetry in tandem with astute and tender love lyrics. All of it voiced with an impressive singularity.”


5. What’s next for you?

After the performance at Dubomedy International Performing Arts Festival last November, I boarded a plane to San Francisco. That weekend I performed with long-time collaborator electronic guitarist Jeff Kelley at JFK University in Berkeley, California. Into middle age and no longer a starving artist with my teaching gig, I like to look forward to something new each holiday. Last summer I booked myself a 20-city reading tour throughout the western US in support of No Asylum. Several of these appearances were inter-media spoken word performances. After a winter tour that’s taking me to Salem & Portland, Oregon with Jeff Kelley and a solo reading in Las Vegas, I return to AUS to teach spring semester 2011, along with a round of guest teaching as part of Dubomedy Art School’s “From the Page to the Stage” Writing and Performance Course.


6. Any advice for budding spoken word artists?

Never self-censor. Don’t fall in love with your own writing. Engage with the polyphony of society. Don’t fear the dark, but don’t avoid the light. Speak up. And read, read, read!

Audio clips on Karavatos’ work can be found at http://nicholaskaravatos.tumblr.com/

More information can be found, including photos, at http://nicholaskaravatos.blogspot.com/

Dean Obeidallah: Being Funny is no joke!

Dean Obeidallah: Being funny is no joke

‘I can’t teach anyone to be funny,’ says Arab-American comedian Dean Obeidallah, who recently led a stand-up comedy workshop in Dubai

• By Samia Badih, Staff Reporter at Gulf News
• Published: 17:04 December 23, 2010

Sitting in the audience of a stand-up comedy show, you’d think being funny is easy. Well, not really. Going up on stage and making people laugh can take days, sometimes months, of writing and rehearsing.

That certainly was the case for the students of the stand-up comedy workshop organised by the Dubomedy Arts school in Dubai, the first comedy school in the region.

Led by Arab American stand-up comedian Dean Obeidallah, almost 20 students took part in the workshop to learn how to write a joke, perform, and the ethics and business of comedy.

“It’s hard work,” Obeidallah, who was in Dubai for the workshop and a public show last week, told tabloid!.

“I can’t teach anyone to be funny,” he said. “What I can teach is the structure of stand up, the idea of a joke, and how you can build on a stand-up comedy foundation that is good.”

He said that stand-up comedy is not about being the funniest person at work, among a group of friends or at school. “Many people who are hilarious off-stage, are not good stand-up comics.” It’s like learning a new language, he said. It’s about learning how to tell jokes to strangers and making them relate to it.

Following the workshop, students were put to the test by performing in front of a real audience. The best two were in for a treat — the opportunity to open for Obeidallah’s show.

It was interesting to see students who had not done comedy before progress and get over their fear in just three days, which is why it was tough to make a choice, he said. “We were really torn,” he said. “We went with experience and having a diverse line-up.”

Mohammad Fahad Kamal, a Qatari stand-up comedian, was one of the winners.
Pioneer Kamal who’s been doing stand-up comedy for the past two years is the first to do it in his home country. He said he feels like a pioneer with a bull et-proof vest because a lot of people have been criticising him for what he’s doing.

“Comedy is new in the Middle East. We don’t have enough clubs and people interested in comedy and that’s why we need to connect with all the comedians in the region and have a platform where we can travel around and do our gigs,” he said.

Brent Jenkins, an aspiring stand-up comedian from the United States, was the runner-up. He said he took a comedy class about nine months ago and had only been up on stage three times before Obeidallah’s show. “It was kind of accidental,” he said speaking of how he got into it. “After taking a class, I started to write more and the more fun it was. Now, I’m hooked.”

For the past year, Obeidallah has been making it a point to work with local talent in the Middle East and while it’s new to the region, he says it’s really growing. “We need more Arabs doing comedy,” he said. “From Oman all the way to Amman, from Cairo to Riyadh people are doing comedy and I think it’s great. Some are really really funny and some need more work.”

Locally, Ali Al Sayed and Mina Liccione, have been doing just that. The two started Dubomedy Arts three years ago with only 12 students. Today, they have over 200 students from different nationalities.

Stereotypes

“Comedy breaks barriers. The closest distance between two people is laughter and to have a room of all those nationalities laughing at stereotypes and laughing at themselves — this is it,” said Mina Liccione, head teacher and co-director of Dubomedy.

The school is looking at expanding its programmes from January 6-10 next year, said Al Sayed, the CEO of Viva Arts, which runs Dubomedy, also a stand-up comedian. While most classes have been in English, he said they plan on starting some Arabic programmes.

Different voice

The reason is to reach out to the Arabic speaking community and to create comedy with a different voice.

“I believe the format that’s been used has been exhausted and people are stuck in a place where creativity has been very limited and everyone’s been looking from a commercial stand point,” Al Sayed said. We want Arabs to let down their guard and try to make each other laugh, he added.

Fifteen years ago, Obeidallah decided to put his law degree aside and pursue a career in comedy.
He said he’s been inspired by comedian such as Richard Pryor, Jon Stewart and Chris Rock, who talk about political and social issues.

“I love Jon Stewart and The Daily Show,” he said. “I like the guys who are smart and talk about smart stuff.”

Top Tips from the Dean

•
1 Try it. Don’t give yourselves excuses for not doing it. Just do it. Take a class. Go to open mics or small shows.
•
2 Watch comics on YouTube and write a couple of jokes down verbatim to how the joke structure.
•
3 It’s hard work. You have to write, rewrite, perform, rewrite and perform again.

Dean’s Best Joke

When asked to tell us his best joke, Obeidallah said it’s usually his most recent one. This is the one he told.
“Here’s the difference between Arab men and American men when the bill comes after dinner.

There’s a group of white guys and the bill comes, so they divide it up and they’d be like “Okay you got two sodas; here’s your bill.” But when a group of Arab guys put the bill down, it’s like throwing meat into a shark tank.

They’d be like “No, no, no, habibi, I’m going to pay. Habibi, I will pay this.” The other guy says, “If you pay this I will never speak to you again; I swear we are not talking.”

Another guy says, “If you pay this, I will defriend you. I will block you from my Facebook.” One says, “If you pay this, I will divorce my wife. I swear I will divorce my wife.”

It makes me wonder about this expression. Does this ever happen? Does the guy go home and tell his wife: “I’m sorry. You gotta go. My friend paid for lunch. Bye bye now. Nice meeting you’.”