Youssou N'Dour to play in Sharjah

Sheikha Hoor Al Qasimi and Youssou N'Dour pictured in London as posted on Sheikha Hoor's Facebook page on September 1, 2018. 

Sheikha Hoor Al Qasimi, founder and president of the Sharjah Art Foundation, posted a picture on her social media feed earlier today to announce that Youssou N'Dour will play in the newly rebuilt Africa Hall, which is set to open in Sharjah later this month. After the grand opening, which will feature two performances from the Senegalese singer songwriter as well as violist Zied Zouari and Grammy winning musician Oumou Sangaré, from Mali, the venue will be a place for conferences, symposia, lectures, film screenings and stage plays related to activities of the Africa Institute and as a meeting place for the larger community of Sharjah and the UAE.

Rebuilt on the same site as Sharjah’s original Africa Hall, inaugurated in 1976 and demolished in 2015, Africa Hall was named in reference to the venue’s first cultural and political event, the Arab-African Symposium, inaugurated on December 14, 1976. Africa Hall is part of a future complex of buildings for the Africa Institute, to be designed by Ghanian-British architect Sir David Adjaye. The institute will be a globally oriented platform for humanities and social science research, documentation, study and teaching about Africa, which aims to train a new generation of critical thinkers in African and African diaspora studies. 

The opening programme for Africa Hall (September 25 – 30) will include performances by Zied Zouari, Youssou N'Dour and the Salama Orchestra (September 25), Youssou N'Dour and Super Etoile de Dakar (September 26), Oumou Sangare (September 27), Mulatu Astatke (September 28), Lisa Simone (September 29) and DJ Peter Adjaye (September 30); and the screening of Opera of the World directed by Manthia Diawara, 2017 (September 28).

Following the opening of Africa Hall, the venue will host 5-plus-1: Rethinking Abstraction, a symposium organised by Sharjah Art Foundation in conjunction with the exhibition Frank Bowling: Mappa Mundi.