The upcoming edition the Downtown Contemporary Arts Festival (D-CAF) -- Egypt's only international, multidisciplinary arts festival -- will take place between 29 March and 21 April across the many locations in Downtown Cairo and beyond.

The eighth edition of the festival will see 40 different events, including performing arts, concerts, urban vision performances, new media events, film screenings, and workshops, featuring artists from Egypt, Denmark, Hungary, France, the US, the UK, Germany, Iran, Palestine and Syria.

Collaborating with Ismailia Company, the events will take place across many Downtown Cairo venues, including Sherefeen Street which served as one of the D-CAF’s stages in the festival’s first three editions, and the Tamara building, with both locations being recently renovated.

Other venues include Rawabet Theatre, Falaki Theatre, Greek Campus, La Vennoise Rooftop, Cinema Zawya, Maktabi Creative Office spaces, Studio Emad Eddin, 100 Copies Studio, as well as other spots in Downtown Cairo, topped with Ezbet Khairallah Theatre, and the Maqad of Sultan Qaitbey outside the area.

Highlights

Among the not-to-be missed events ar a selection of internationally recognised performances such as a sand paint animation show, Quartzbox (Hungary), by Daniel Cako and Aron; as well as Dust (Denmark), a play that blends several creative genres, puppetry design, performance, opera and others.

This year, D-CAF continues to shed light on women performers with a segment that focuses on them. This part of the programme includes T-sisters, an indie-folk Americana group, who will sing with the Egyptian singer Cherine Abdo in a first, according to a D-CAF press release.

A drumming workshop with Julia Geaman from the Massive-Scar Era will be offered at 100 Copies Studio, while Maram representing Nubian/African folk music will take the stage of Greek Campus.

The New Media Art programme which was launched during D-CAF's last edition with an aim of blending the new art forms with new art technologies will present the Video Projection Mapping Installation by Islam Shabana (Egypt) and Josh Garner (UK), and an interactive installation Bloom by Mathieu Le Sourd (France).

In its film segment, D-CAF will hold a rescreening and workshop by Yomeddine's director and producer, Abu Bakr Shawky and Dina Imam, alongside screenings of Fardy by Karim El Shenawy and Har Gaf Sayfan by Sherfi El Bendary, followed by a talk with both directors.

D-CAF will also incorporate the new Maktabi creative office spaces into its activities for the first time. Maktabi is a newly launched office rental space for people working in the creative industries, which also offers interesting workshops and activities presenting a variety of art forms.

This year D-CAF will offer an inclusive dance performance by Shaymaa Shoukry, an interactive show held in El-Sherefeen Street which will feature Egyptian choreography.

As Ahmed El-Attar, the festival's founder and artistic director, puts it, the performance will be "100 percent Egyptian", a new phenomenon for D-CAF since "usually, the disability shows used to be choreographed by foreign coaches," the press release states.

Last but not least, the festival's eighth edition has chosen a typical Egyptian loufah for its poster. El-Attar highlighted that "this is the whole concept behind contemporary arts: blurring the limits between what's art and what's not."

Ahram Online is media partner of this year's D-CAF festival  

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