Dubomedy turned 4!

UAE's 1st Professional Comedy Improv Troupe- Feb 29 Show!

Stand Up Showdown- UAE's first regular comedy contest

'Stand Up Showdown' is the UAE's first regular comedy contest! 10 comedians, 4 judges, 2 cowboy time-keepers, 1 referee, some cheerleaders and a whole lotta mayhem! Come join us for a night of great laughs! Oh, and yes, it's FREE admission! When: Friday, Feb 17 Time: 8:00pm Where: Wild Peeta at Trade center (right in front of the Metro station) More info and reservations: LOL@vivadubai.com How much: Free admission

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

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