(Photo courtesy of D-CAF)
Today marks the beginning of D-CAF, the Downtown Contemporary Arts Festival. The opening of the festival is set to take place at the Falaki Theatre at the American University’s Downtown Campus. The opening show is a contemporary dance piece, Anatomia Publica, by La Cie Man Drake with choreography by Tomeo Verges, starting at 8pm.
This year the festival spans a longer period of time, from 4 April to 28 April, and will showcase over 200 performances. Another addition to the festival this year is the app, available for Android and iPhone handsets, which supplies the details and schedule of the festival.
The festival has a number of workshops for artists and participants. There is a workshop for children by the British Bootworks Theatre Company and a workshop for filmmaking using mobile phones, with the result being showcased at the end of the festival.
“The main idea for the musical program at D-CAF is to present new experiences and ideas,” said Mahmoud Refaat of Meet Noskha, who is in charge of this year’s musical program. The musical performances are all by independent artists, meaning musicians who produce their own music without any middleman. Performances include hiphop and reinterpreted folkloric music.
The festival is proud to reuse old art spaces in Downtown and some of the performances will be staged at the fading Scheherazade Cabaret. The club used to house performances by most of the famous Egyptian artists during the fifties and sixties and was frequented by Egypt’s most famous film stars.
