Event: Downtown Contemporary Arts Festival, 4-28 April, 2013

Press Release:

D-CAF is coming back to Downtown Cairo,

opening its doors to the public from 4-28 April 2013

Egyptian contemporary artists and performers will be joined by leading international names in a month-long calendar of independent music, performing arts, film, visual arts, street performances and workshops.

For information on D-CAF 2013 program please visit: www.d-caf.org

and d-caf blog: www.d-caf.org/blog

[Alice, a play presented as a world premiere in this year’s D-CAF, by the Lebanese Sawsan Bou Khaled and Hussein Baydoun]

The Downtown Contemporary Arts Festival (D-CAF) opens its doors to the public for the second year, from 4-28 April 2013. After the successful launch of the festival last year, D-CAF is back with a rich program of contemporary performances and visual arts to be shown in historic locations and outdoor spaces in downtown Cairo.  D-CAF is currently Egypt’s largest international contemporary multi-disciplinary festival and, throughout the month of April, Cairo audiences will enjoy a wide variety of independent theatre and dance performances, music concerts, visual arts exhibitions, film screenings and workshops.

D-CAF 2013 will feature some of Europe’s leading independent acts who will perform in Cairo - many for the very first time - alongside artists from Egypt and the region.  For organisers this broad diversity of art forms and performers is what makes this festival unique: “ At D-CAF, we’re not presenting a single art form or a single trend. Rather, we’re trying to give Cairo audiences a snapshot of what is available, worldwide, in contemporary art today,” says Festival Director, Ahmed El Attar. “We’re trying to make the experience as varied as possible to cater to the widest possible audience”.

As a result of this focus, D-CAF’s month-long program of events will this year encompass around 130 international and Egyptian artists presenting work in a variety of art forms: this includes the D-CAF performing arts program which will include several internationally acclaimed acts such as Algerian Director, Kheireddine Lardjam’s play "End/Igne” performed by Compagnie El Ajoud and Anatomia Publica, a contemporary dance piece choreographed by renowned French choreographer, Tomeo Verges, who will also stage two original dance creations with Egyptian performers specially created for D-CAF. Dutch Theater Group, Hotel Modern, is also among acts featured and will bring their iconic theater piece “The Great War” to Egypt and the Arab world for the very first time. The D-CAF music program this year celebrates modern sounds representative of the streets and the revolution in a series of Thursday night concerts, throughout the duration of the festival. A star-studded line up of music acts will include America’s celebrity DJ Khadafi Dub, Tunisia’s Emel Mathlouthi and Egypt’s Dina el Wedidi and SADAT.

[The Dutch company Hotel Modern’s piece: The Great War.]

Building on the success of last year, D-CAF will once again present its Urban Visions program, a rich calendar of contemporary dance and performances taking place in the streets around Tahrir Square. These include the Netherlands Dance Group, 100 Hands who will be performing in Egypt for the very first time.

The festival’s visual arts program is this year curated by Cairo-based independent arts institution, Medrar for Contemporary Art, who will be exploring the digital frontier of contemporary visual arts through a series of collaborations between Egyptian and international artists.  The D-CAF film program will explore underground and resistance cinema with a special focus on Contemporary West African Cinema. Meanwhile, the Edutainment program will offer a series of public seminars and workshops, including workshops for artists and for children delivered by Britain’s renowned Bootworks Theater Collective.

According to Ahmed El Attar: “We want to use D-CAF as a platform to attract, into Egypt, regional and international performers who are shaping the world of contemporary art but whom Egyptian audiences rarely get to see. The Festival also hopes to create opportunities for collaboration and cross-fertilisation between these international names and Egypt’s own thriving independent arts scene.”