10 reasons to get excited about NYUAD Arts Center’s 2016/17 programme

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Here are 10 reasons to get excited about NYUAD Arts Center’s 2016/17 programme:

A rock ‘n’ roll “concert novel”

Charismatic Tony Award-winning singer-songwriter Stew and his longtime collaborator Heidi Rodewald present Notes of a Native Song, a rock-theatre song cycle inspired by the life of African-American writer and activist James Baldwin on November 2 and 3.

A five-hour performance inside a slowly flooding aquarium

The headline says it all. Timed to coincide with Abu Dhabi Art, this performance installation, from Lars Jan’s Holoscenes, evocatively symbolises global warming. Daily from November 16 to 19.

A UAE world premiere

Genre-smashing modern music ensemble Bang on a Can All-Stars have collaborated with everyone from minimalist founders Steve Reich and Philip Glass to free jazz pioneer Ornette Coleman and Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore. At the heart of their UAE debut, on February 2, will be the world premiere of a new piece by Emirati-American composer Mohammed Fairouz, commissioned by The Arts Centre and Abu Dhabi Festival.

The unveiling of a new performance space

Regular NYUAD visitors will already be familiar with the 150 to 250-capacity Black Box performance space, but things are getting bigger and better with the plush new 700-capacity Red Theatre venue. It will be inaugurated on February 8 and 9 with a performance of Steel Hammer – a crossover music and theatre collaboration between composer Julia Wolfe, SITI Company and Bang on a Can All-Stars.

A new world-music festival

Expect a block-party vibe over the weekend of February 16 and 17, when East Plaza will shake to the sounds of a two-day mini-festival starring danceable global grooves from Morocco’s Aziz Sahmaoui & University of Gnawa, Mauritania’s Noura Mint Seymali, Ukrainian folk quartet DakhaBrakha and Cambodian-American psych-rockers Dengue Fever.

A dance legend

Celebrated postmodern dance pioneer Trisha Brown will look back on an esteemed 50-year career with In Plain Site, a series of site-specific installations that will place her company in "unexpected" spots across the NYUAD campus. Twice daily, on February 24 and 25.

A fresh focus on the classics

Thumb up for two radical revisitations of the Greek masters. On March 14, Denis O'Hare will perform An Iliad, a solo play based on Homer's epic, while Soledad Barrio & Noche Flamenca will present a music-and-dance interpretation of Sophocles's Antigone on April 6 to 7.

A Holi-themed concert from a jazz mastermind

Regarded as one of the most inventive pianists of his generation, modern-jazz trailblazer Vijay Iyer will provide a live soundtrack to Prashant Bhargava's film Radhe Radhe (Rites of Holi), and perform with his trio on March 30 and 31.

Puppets, turntables, cinema and a string quartet – together

Closing the season on May 11, eccentric hip-hop DJ Kid Koala presents a multidisciplinary mash of mediums in Nufonia Must Fall – a theatrical adaptation of his graphic novel about robots in love. Really.

Everything is free

That’s right, tickets for all of the 20-plus eclectic happenings during the impressive 2016/17 season are entirely free. Mandatory registration typically opens around two weeks in advance – get on The Arts Centre mailing list for the latest information.