A New Performing Arts Venue For Dubai? It's Up To You!

I give over the blog today to a guest post from Aflamnah's Vida Rizq. Aflamnah is a crowdfunding platform that aims to help innovators in the arts, humanities and science raise the funds they need for their projects...

The Courtyard Playhouse project on Aflamnah is just 9% away from reaching its target but only has one day to go. You can still get involved by buying one of the fantastic rewards on offer and seeing the project to a successful start.

As of last night, the project had raised $16,801 through 73 supporters. Whilst you can make a contribution of $10 (and you can remain anonymous too), the most popular reward has been to have your name engraved on one of the theatre seats. Front row seats are going for $400 each with only two remaining. Back row seats where you get a plaque on the wall were recently added as a new reward and are on offer for $500.

For those of you unfamiliar with the concept of crowdfunding: it’s is a very simple idea that allows people to raise funding by collecting relatively small amounts of money from a large number of people generally through the Internet. In return, the Aflamnah model means that the idea owners offer contributors rewards for as little as $10.

The Courtyard Playhouse aims to create a more contemporary, alternative performing art space where local talent is nurtured in Dubai. Husband and wife team and co-founders of Drama Dubai, Kemsley Dickinson and Tiffany Schultz have almost realized their goal to put the Courtyard Playhouse, a unique grassroots venue, on the map. They invited the community to get involved to help complete the project through their crowdfunding campaign on Aflamnah. They're taking a bold and costly step to convert what was once a partitioned office space into a working studio theatre and workshop space.

“We’ve gone as far as we can” said Kemsley as the campaign launched in October, “now we need help from the community to complete the project and realize our vision of a vibrant theatre space created for Dubai, by Dubai.”

After years of struggle to find practical and affordable performance spaces for their acting workshops, improvisation classes and local theatrical productions, the couple decided to run a campaign on the Aflamnah.com website. Individuals donate what they can in return for ‘rewards’ to help achieve the financial goal and ensure an official opening night before the end of the year. The project is still in need of lighting, changing rooms and washrooms to complete the renovations.

“We’ve put together some truly exclusive rewards” says Tiffany, some of these are:

• to have your name engraved on one of the auditorium seats 
• have an improvised play staged about your life 
• private tuition in photography or as part of an acting workshop 
• a Dramatic Photoshoot featuring you styled and costumed as the actor or character of your choice 

If you would like to be a part of their project as an individual or a corporate sponsor, visit www.aflamnah.com/en/play-your-part-the-courtyard-playhouse/ to watch their fantastic video and see how far they have come in transforming the space. And do save the date for their Xmas horror themed event on 13th December for a night to remember!

The project is linked here.

Guest Post - Phillipa Fioretti

Today, as a treat, you can have a guest post from Australian author Phillipa Fiorretti.

My morning routine, once I have settled and have my evil espresso next to me, is to go through my overnight emails from the Northern Hemisphere and cruise around my favourite blogs reading the latest posts. I’m always pleased to see a new post from Alexander on Fake Plastic Souks, because I know that usually I’ll have a bit of a giggle.

Alexander and I are writing pals, having ‘met’ on Authonomy last year. I helped to edit the manuscript of his book, Olives, and I have to say there is nothing more soothing after a tiresome day than to pour a drink, pick up a sharp pencil and savage his work. I’m cruel, brutal even, but I’m fair. I won’t stand for any nonsense with adverbs and deal ruthlessly with any signs of lazy expression. And I don’t smile while I do it.

But when I arrive at his blog I’m off duty and care not if he uses three adjectives in a row. I read all the posts, although I tend to skim the technology ones unless there is an interesting angle – like the Etisalat patch for Blackberries, or the intricacies of using SatNav devices. The ones I really like are usually about the new train service, taxis, and commentary on daily life in Dubai.

I live in Australia and geographically the closest I’ve ever been to Dubai would be Kashmir. Most of us here, unless we know a friend or relative living in Dubai or have business connections there, think of money, expats, finance, money, sex on the beach and Emirates Airlines. As a kid, the constant references, (as in news stories), to the Middle East really bothered me. I was on the east coast of Australia and the Far East looked pretty close to where I was, so why was it Far, and what was the East in the Middle of?

Maps of the world, in Australia, show this continent in the centre of the Southern Hemisphere. Thus the Middle East is actually the North West and the Far East is the North. America is the Far East really, according to my junior map reading skills. So had someone made a mistake and the rest of the world just went a long with it? I began to ask questions and demand some answers.

But long and involved parental explanations were lost on me and it wasn’t until I started reading history books for my own pleasure, as opposed for school history teachers, did I get it. Two of my favourite writers on the region are Edward Said and Tim Mackintosh-Smith.

But while books like these humanise countries and explain the historical intricacies, they don’t give the immediate, daily minutiae that really brings it alive in one’s imagination. Posts such as Hard Times on Mr G. the taxi driver, NufNuf coping with the Abu Dhabi traffic, Sharjah’s Number 14 bus, the Etisalat saga and the strange creature called Modhesh.

I’m sure there are other blogs about Dubai written for the visitor or armchair traveller, but Fake Plastic Souks isn’t speaking to them and that’s what makes it so fascinating to me. I see the dust and the traffic and the air conditioned towers and all of the stories a travel writer would leave out.

And there is never an overload of adverbs to jolt me out of my reverie, cause me to sigh and shake my head, or make me want to slice away the excess words.

Phillipa's most excellent blog, which mixes her respective fascinations for art and writing quite neatly, can be found here. Her first novel, The Book of Love, is to be published by Hachette Australia next year.