Louvre Abu Dhabi's opening season continues

CAIRO – 16 April 2018: Louvre Abu Dhabi's opening season continues on with exciting new events such as a lecture on Modern artist Ibrahim El-Salahi on Wednesday and a performance by the band Via Sophiatown on April 19 and April 20.

Thanks to the help of the planned Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, the Louvre Abu Dhabi will feature a talk by Professor Salah Hassan titled "Ibrahim El-Salahi: The Cosmopolitan Modernist" which will be held at the auditorium of the Louvre Abu Dhabi at 7 p.m. El-Salahi was one of the forefathers of Modern Art in Sudan, and served as an important figure, contributing to African Modernism.

His artwork is currently displayed at the Louvre Abu Dhabi gallery "Challenging Modernism", thanks to a generous loan from Guggenheim. The gallery serves to highlight some of El-Salahi's most important works, along with a 2010-2013 retrospective by Salah Hassan of his work as curator at the Tate Modern and Sharjah Art Museum.

[Example of Ibrahim El-Salahi's artwork, April 15, 2018 - Press/Louvre Abu Dhabi]
Via Sophiatown will perform at 8 p.m. for two days at the museum. This band, hailing from South Africa, combines "pantsula", a sort of high speed hip-hop dance, with tap-dancing, gumboot, stepping all to the sounds of three jazz musicians performing live.

The main appeal of the performance comes from the ability of the audience to play along and dance aside them. Produced by the South African company Via Katlehong Dance, this group tells the story of Sophiatown, a district in Johannesburg, in the form of a musical comedy expressed in dance styles that originated from the town itself.

Lastly, the opening season will end on May 2 and May 3 at 8 p.m. with Love and Revenge, a musical Arab duo consisting of hip-hop fanatic Rayess Bek and visual artist La Berza. Their aim is to revisit classical Arab film and music, incorporating elements of these into their music and art. Bek misses old popular Arab pop songs while La Berza gets to work setting it up alongside Golden age clips, creating an experience both nostalgic and new.