Fujairah to host global theatre group meeting

Fujairah: Officials from Fuj-airah have described the hosting of an upcoming meeting of the leading international theatre organisations as a 'major cultural coup' for the east coast emirate and the UAE.

Engineer Mohammad Saif Al Afkham, Director of Fujairah's International Monodrama Festival, announced that the emirate will host the 128th session of the Executive Council of the International Theatre Institute (ITI).

The Fujairah meeting will be the first in the organisation's 60 year history to be held in the Middle East and the first to include all members of the Executive Council.

The two-day summit will be hosted by the Fuj-airah Culture and Media Authority (FCMA) starting January 28 and will deal with the ITI's regional and international programmes and strategic plans and projects.

The ITI was formed after the Second World War under the umbrella of Unesco to give artists from across the political and ideological divide an opportunity to work together and forge artistic cooperation. The organisation has since grown in membership and influence and at last year's Madrid conference a new emphasis was placed on revitalising the ITI to take on new challenges and re-energise its original mandate.

Tobias Biancone, general secretary of ITI said the Fujairah meeting could be a turning point in the organisation's direction. Biancone was speaking yesterday at a press conference to announce the summit and said the ITI's original goals of cross cultural cooperation could be more important than ever.

He said: "The world we live in is still full of divisions, our role in bridging gaps and bringing artists together is very much needed and a good example of this is the role we played two years ago in bringing a famous Indian playwright to Pakistan,"

Organisers promised the meeting will be an opportunity to showcase local and regional art form and says the event could prove a springboard for further participation by regional artists and cultural institutes in the international body.