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/