BUSINESS TRAVELLER

Cultural Capital

Abu Dhabi continues to enhance its reputation as a regional hub for the finer things in life as it rolls out major initiatives and festivals for films, books, music and the arts. Dominic Ellis report.

Can anyone keep pace with Abu Dhabi’s cultural offering? Cast your eye over the past few months alone, and the events have flowed thick and fast with the Abu Dhabi Festival 2010, film-making competitions, ongoing heritage initiatives and an international book fair – the latter being something of the elder statesman, recently chalking up its 20th edition.

That’s before you even talk about the plethora of high-profile projects, spearheaded by the Louvre and Guggenheim, coming up on Saadiyat Island. Every city has a cultural offering but few places seem to be quite so adept at accommodating so many different elements and genres, juggling present needs and future demand, as the UAE capital.

That’s down in no small part to the work of The Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage (ADACH), under the aegis of chairman HE Sheikh Sultan Bin Tahnoun Al Nahyan, whose holistic vision spans everything from archaeological assets to the development of Emirati and international arts, music, literature and cinema. It seems extraordinary to think that the body only turns five in October, such has been its wide-ranging impact, and makes you wonder just how influential it will be by the time it reaches adolescence.

Even the abbreviated highlights of the Abu Dhabi Festival 2010 programme spanned the entire length of one of the pages in UAE daily The National.

This year the festival went to town on the 200th anniversary of Chopin’s birth by hosting a bicentennial opening gala and two other concerts dedicated to the Polish composer, performed by Nobuyuki Tsujii and Yundi Li. With two regional works making their world premieres (from Wadih el Safi and Naseer Shamma), a Night at the Ballet and The Sound of Music included, and London Symphony Orchestra bringing the curtain down on April 6 and 7, the international schedule screamed quality and diversity at every beat.

Not to be outshone, the Al Ain Classics Festival – notching up its 10th anniversary – put on one of its most diversified Arabian and classical programmes to date, and certainly helped bridge the cultural-heritage arenas by hosting it in the Al Jahili Fort, which is now enjoying an enhanced profile after its December 2008 renovation.

Besides featuring an evening with legendary Lebanese singer Majida Al Roumi, programme highlights included the UAE debut of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, led by rising British conductor Daniel Harding and Turkish pianist Fazil Say, and French conductor Guillaume Tourniaire’s adaptation of La Finta Giardiniera.

Conscious of making opera more accessible to the masses, the libretto was translated into Arabic, an Arabic actor introduced the plot and Arabic subtitles were available, in collaboration with KALIMA, ADACH’s translation initiative.

It’s been an equally busy period on the literary front, with the 20th Abu Dhabi International Book Fair taking place in March, organised by ADACH and Kitab, a joint venture between ADACH and Frankfurt Book Fair.

The fair, which hosted 840 publishers – triple the number of 2007, 32 per cent up on last year and 350 of them overseas – displayed more than 500 titles and recorded 263,000 visitors, as well as 500 local and international media.

Its remit stretched far beyond book publishing – although there were 60 book-signing events – and served as a forum for promoting inter-cultural dialogue and knowledge among the industry and public.

ADACH used the fair to launch the Future Library project, which offers electronic services in different parts of the Emirate, and established a private company to facilitate Arabic books distribution regionally and globally, an Arab world first. Up to 200,000 titles are predicted to be registered in its database in phase one.

A new paradigm is desperately needed; a survey of some 600 Arabic-language publishers found just two per cent were happy with their distribution.

Qalam, ADACH’s initiative to nurture and promote Emirati creativity through writing, has published  20 new titles, and the Poetry Academy participated in the fair with 25 specialist titles.

For the second time, the fair played host the Antiquarian book show, displaying valuable and rare manuscripts, maps and photos older than 700 years.

H E Juma Al Qubaisi, director of Abu Dhabi International Book Fair and director of the National Library at ADACH said: “The authority has accomplished a lot in the field of culture since it was established four years ago. All book industry elements are a key component of the cultural strategy of Abu Dhabi.”

The fair didn’t pass without its challenges. Around 20 Arab publishing houses were denied entry due to piracy activities, reaffirming the emirate’s stance on copyright laws. But the over-riding sentiment was positive – not least at the till, where total sales of books, other publications and software topped more than AED37m, with deals made on the sidelines reached AED25m. The fair is a magnet not just for bookworms but schools, universities and government agencies.

Encouragingly, the majority of space has already been booked, and organisers are looking at increasing space again – it went up from 16,722sq m in 2009 to 20,192sq m this year – to meet demand.

Film is one area which has certainly found its voice through the Abu Dhabi Film Commission (ADFC), an initiative by ADACH. As part of its New Voices annual development programme, announced in December last year, which aims to produce up to six half-hour documentaries for regional TV, it recently announced four emerging filmmakers who made it to the final stage – Farazdak Al Kaabi, Amna Ehtesham Shahid, Rola Shamas and Natalie Al Shami – who will work in pairs and receive mentoring through the production by documentary professionals including award-winning directors, photographers and sound engineers. The four half-hour films should be ready to air by May 2010.

The ADFC will also be taking four emerging UAE-based filmmakers, directors and producers to the Hot Docs Documentary Film Festival in Toronto this month,  with five UAE-based filmmakers attending Cannes Film Festival.

The commission was an official sponsor of the Sundance Institute for the first time this year and through its agreement with the festival, it will offer the filmmakers unique access to festival events, screenings, filmmaker forums and panels, as well as meetings with industry professionals.

In addition, ADFC recently announced the 20 finalists for its Aflam Quaseera Production Fund, a competition designed to promote up-and-coming writers, directors and UAE-based production companies in creating short films for international screenings and eventual broadcast.

The international tie-ups seem to know no boundaries. The Abu Dhabi Music and Arts Foundation (ADMAF) – which is firmly committed to cross-cultural dialogue – recently announced its participation in the Dominican Republic’s Cultural Week with a full programme of artistic events on the occasion of the inauguration of the Dominican Republic’s first embassy in the UAE, which opened on the country’s 166th anniversary of independence.

The “Colors of the Dominican Republic” exhibition at the Ghaf Art Gallery, under the patronage of HE Sheikh Nahyan Mubarak al Nahyan, Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, featured 33 of the nation’s leading artists who each contributed one of their works.