June-July Edition of The Middle East in London Hits Newsstands
29 May 2012
The magazine is a leading resource on Middle Eastern communities in London. It includes event, film and book reviews, as well as original articles on cultural, political, economic and other issues that affect these communities.
The London 2012 Cultural Olympiad is the largest cultural celebration in the history of the modern Olympic and Paralympic Movements. The aim has been to leave a lasting legacy for the arts in this country. Moreover, the Cultural Olympiad is offering more participation for disabled artists than any other festival in the world.
Ruth Mackenzie, director of the Cultural Olympiad and of the 2012 Festival gives an excellent overall vision of both the nation-wide festival as well as the London programme. Many events on London’s South Bank are part of the Festival of the World. Each of the 204 Olympic nations will have a chance to voice its talent. Poetry Parnassus is one such event where during a week-long celebration (June 26-July 1) shortlisted poets from each of these nations (including many from the Middle East), chosen from 5000 nominations, will take part in the largest poetry festival in the UK.
Another part of the London 2012 Festival has been The World of Shakespeare Festival, a celebration of Shakespeare as the world’s playwright in an unprecedented collaboration with leading UK and international arts organisations. Globe-to-Globe was part of that venture in April and May, where 37 Shakespeare plays were performed in 37 languages – among them Arabic, pidgin Arabic, Turkish, Hebrew and Afghan Dari – in Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. The British Museum has also prepared an exhibition in collaboration with the Royal Shakespeare Company to provide an insight into the emerging role of London as a world city.
A notable Middle Eastern contribution to the architectural scene is the Olympic pool designed by Zaha Hadid, the first building in the UK by this eminent Iraqi architect. Caecilia Pieri and Mina Marefat have drawn attention to an Iraqi ambition to host the Olympics when Le Corbusier contributed the Baghdad Gymnasium, the only built part of a visionary Olympic city, now restored.
Daniel Barenboim’s remarkable West-Eastern Divan Orchestra is playing all of Beethoven’s symphonies in a week of the BBC Promenade Concerts, concluding with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony on the opening night of the Games. Barenboim has an honorary doctorate from SOAS and was able to spare an hour in April for an interview with Jon Snow at SOAS after a week of conducting Brückner at the Festival Hall. His orchestra of Israeli and Arab musicians epitomises the essential spirit of the Olympics.
Two crucial aspects of the actual Games will be ensuring the comprehension of athletes, volunteers, guides, ‘ambassadors’ of all the extremely complicated arrangements, thereby also ensuring the participants ‘get to the place on time’. Rosamund Durnford-Slater describes some of the details as well as headaches of ensuring perfect comprehension. The athletes’ faith and dietary concerns are also important, just some of the issues faced by the Games chaplaincy office, under Canon Duncan Green.
As the director of the Arts Council wrote, ‘we want the London Olympics to be remembered as much for the beauty and excitement of its cultural experiences as for its sporting victories.’
