The Egyptian Hassan Khan acts as a DJ and VJ in the live performance mixing an electronic soundtrack in which he uses sounds of tabla, which is a traditional oriental drum, and looping images of Cairo, city where he lives and works. According to Khan, known for his videos, performances, installations and soundtracks for theater, “Tabla Dubb” is an attempt to create an exciting, liberating, questioning and dangerous cultural practice, which appropriates elements of Egyptian popular musical culture without echoing reductionist discussions on the “traditional” and the “contemporary” imposed by the “orientalizing” discourse prevailing in culture. In this work, the artist uses music, video and direct discourse — repeated punctual statements — to investigate in a concentrated way the policy on shared co-habitation in a city where power is contested everyday. Shuffled, mixed and distorted at the whim of a gallery of images that arise, according to the artist, from his poetic engagement with Cairo, music turns the performance into an invitation so that we ponder on the body politics in a chaotic urban environment: with 15 million inhabitants, the capital of Egypt is the biggest city in Middle East and the noisiest in the world. Khan has already shown his works in Africa, Europe, Asia and United States.

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